Michelle Ostermann:

Not here in the UK, but as you can tell by my accent, I am not a local. I worked in Canada for most of my career, at two of the largest Canadian “Maple Eight” pension plans, and those are things that we would assess quite regularly. In fact, the open DB schemes here in the UK function very similarly to those in Canada. I joined the PPF in large part because it is a mini-version of the Canadian model. It is exceptionally similar, to me. You will notice that during the liquidity crisis that occurred it was the liability-driven investment strategies, with the degree of leverage, that were most at risk, and it was interest rate-sensitive. Those open DB schemes that were using a more balanced degree of risk, including some equity risk, were unencumbered. It was Railpen, which I worked for when I was here previously. I was phoning back to my peers both there and at the universities superannuation scheme and PPF, and they all withstood that very well.