Baroness Bowles and Baroness Altmann call on government to include investment companies in Pension Schemes Bill

Richard Stone, Chief Executive of the Association of Investment Companies (AIC), said: “The exclusion of investment companies from the Pension Schemes Bill simply does not make sense. Investment companies have been investing in private markets for decades and are an excellent way for all investors to get exposure. In addition, they are currently offering the opportunity to invest in assets such as infrastructure, renewables, property and private equity at attractive discounts. Excluding them from the Bill will restrict choice and increase costs for pension schemes. We urge the government to amend the Bill to put right this evident wrong.”

Baroness Bowles, a member of the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee, said: “The Bill replicates the Mansion House wording which was agreed by industry and appears to link only to their own products or strategies. It seems anti-competitive for other products which invest in similar assets to be excluded from contributing to the quota. Surely to be fair the Bill should clarify that all investments of similar nature can qualify irrespective of the product wrapper. Listed investment companies have invested more than £100 billion in exactly the type of productive private assets that are being targeted by government.”

Baroness Altmann, a former pensions minister, said: “Closed-ended investment companies can be an ideal way for pension funds to invest in just the kinds of investments which the government wants them to support. The Mansion House reforms want pension funds to invest at least 5% in unlisted companies and productive real assets such as infrastructure, alternative energy, private equity and property. Investment companies can offer expertly managed diversified portfolios of these assets. They can also be safer and better value for long-term pension investors than open-ended structures, which have risks of gating when market liquidity dries up, so I believe their specific exclusion from possible mandating in the Pension Schemes Bill is a serious error, which I hope we can correct as the Bill goes through Parliament.”

The AIC wrote to Treasury minister Torsten Bell MP in July calling on the government to amend the Bill to include investment companies. The letter can be viewed here. 

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Notes to editors

1. The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) represents a broad range of investment trusts and VCTs, collectively known as investment companies. The AIC’s vision is for closed-ended investment companies to be understood and considered by every investor. The AIC has 291 members and the industry has total assets of approximately £269 billion.
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