DB pension funds (or defined benefit pension funds) are those where an employee's pension in retirement is defined based on some measure of their salary during employment. DB pension funds have grown up over many decades and the largest DB pension funds have assets under management in the bullions of dollars. Over the last 20 years, DB pension funds have lost favour with large corporations, given the investment and longevity risk and the stress that the underfunding of a DB pension fund can place upon the entire company's business model. Many older DB pension funds now having assets (and liabilities) which exceed the stock market capitalization of the company itself. This section of the site contains research and papers of interest to staff working for DB pensions funds, including pensions managers, employee benefits directors, DB pensions trustees, pensions actuaries and in-house investment managers. The most popular white papers and research on DB pensions cover the topic of DB pensions risk management; surveys on liability-driven investing and papers on pension risk transfer, pensions buyouts, longevity risk, interest-rate risk, derisking solutions and the "myths" preventing...
DB plan sponsors from reducing pension risk. Other reports and papers offer insights into DB plan funding, hybrid pension schemes and glidepath design. Much of the DB pensions research in this section is written by pensions actuaries, covering topics such as longevity solutions and the actuarial assumptions used in pension valuations. Asset allocation solutions to control DB pensions risk are also considered. In addition to white papers on LDI solutions, various authors consider dynamic asset allocation, low volatility equity strategies (or low beta) investing and volatility-driven investing (VDI). Another hot topic at present is delegated investment management (also known as fiduciary management or OCIO).