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Listen to interview with JER & the Chairman of the BMA on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme : June 2012
Listen to interview with Robert Peston on the Today Programme on JER's analysis of public sector pension costs : January 2012
Listen to interviews with JER on the Today Programme on public sector pensions : July 2011 & April 2011
I set up John Ralfe Consulting in 2003 to help companies & trustees to address pension issues in a clear, focused & practical way. (See Financial Times' profiles November 2011 & March 2003).
Until 2002 I was Head of Corporate Finance at Boots and was instrumental in moving the £2.3bn Boots Pension Fund to 100% AAA long dated sterling bonds, followed by a Company share buyback, described by The Economist in 2006 as a “landmark”.
My clients include FTSE100 & FTSE350 companies, with pension liabilities from £200m to £2.5bn, as well as non-quoted companies, and the trustees of one of the UK’s largest university schemes.
In 2012 I appeared as an expert witness on BT's pensions before the Competition Commission, on behalf of BSkyB and TalkTalk, following a report to Ofcom I wrote in 2010. In June 2012 the Competition Commission rejected BT's claim that Ofcom should allow it to re-charge its pension deficit payments to customers.
I am a regular contributor to the Financial Times and
the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and have appeared on the BBC News at Ten & Channel 4 News.
Over the last ten years I have written over 70 research notes and articles on all aspects of pensions, including a series of 50 notes sponsored by RBC Capital Markets and 20 comment pieces in the Financial Times' FTfm.
Amongst these notes, I was the first person to highlight the pension position of UK universities (2006), MPs (2008), the Coal Board (2008) and The Church of England (2010), as well as the impact of recent changes to public sector pensions.
I was also a consultant to the Accounting Standards Board on FRS17 and the International Accounting Standards Board on share options.
My practical & pragmatic approach is underpinned by a rigorous framework of economics and I have worked with leading US academics, including Harvard Business School to turn Boots Pensions into a Case Study.
As well as pensions, I have 20 years capital markets & treasury experience, both as a corporate and banker.
Before joining Boots in 1991 I spent 11 years in banking & consulting with Chase Manhattan, Warburgs, Swiss Bank Corporation and Ernst & Young Corporate Finance.
From Grammar School in York I went as an Open Scholar to Balliol College, Oxford, where I got a First in PPE in 1978 & then studied economics at King's College, Cambridge. See biography.
SITE & DATABASE
I have now moved most of the “topic” pages to an archive section, since they have not been updated properly for some time. Much of the commentary and articles are still relevant to today’s issues.
I have added a new page on public sector pensions, bringing together many articles which have echoes of the debates 10 years ago in the private sector.
The site, which can be searched and browsed, contains over 1,400 papers & articles on pensions, ranging from academic journals, to Government Papers to newspapers. Copyright for all articles and images remains with the author & original publication. Registration is required to minimise auto-spam mail.
Many of the articles in the database are from the Financial Times which provides unrivalled news and analysis on pensions. Articles from August 2004 are linked to the FT website (the date it started) and the FT allows a limited number of articles to be read in a week before subscription is required.
For FT articles before August 2004, for copyright reasons I can show only a summary.
My FT articles and letters are available as PDFs as well as a link to the FT website.
Please report any broken or incorrect links to websitemanager@JohnRalfe.com
"Kodak deal brings regulator into question"FTfm May 2013
"UK pension lobbyists have got it wrong"
FTfm March 2013
"Smoothing won't solve our pension problems"
FTfm December 2012
"Another coalition conjuring trick"
FT letters November 2012
"Understated (public sector) pensions costs a poor legacy"
FTfm November 2012
“Public sector pensions make mockery of Whitehall savings” FT Letters August 2012
"The real reason for the death of "the cult of the equity" is more fundamental than just equity underperformance"
FTfm July 2012
“Hospital doctors need to do their sums before revolting over pension changes” FT Letters May 2012
“A collective pension can transfer investment risk from one member to another or from one generation to another, but it cannot make it disappear”
FTfm April 2012
“Newspaper puts creditors before pensions” FTfm March 2012
"Ford is right to match its pension assets and liabilities" JER & Zvi Bodie FT A-List response February 2012
"If DB pensions didn’t exist, would we invent them?"
FTfm January 2012
“The Pensions Regulator can become transparent and accountable only if the law is changed” : FTfm May 2011
"The discount rate for public sector pension costs should be based on long dated index linked gilts"Letter to George Osborne April 2011 by JER & 22 other UK, US & Australian pension experts
"If USS operates as "cash-in, cash-out" it is a massive pyramid selling scheme"
FTfm January 2011
"The real total pension cost for 2009, using the market ILG gilt rate, is about £30bn, double the £15bn official cash cost"
FTfm June 2010
"The Church's reckless investment gamble"
FTfm February 2010
"Pension pothole on GM's road to recovery" FTfm June 2009
"Behind BT’s deep, dark pension deficit" FTfm May 2009"Just to match pensions in payment today, schemes need to make a £125bn switch from equities to bonds" : FTfm September 2005
"The Turner Commission's analysis of the advantages of a funded pension system over a PAYG system, is incomplete at best and flawed at worst" RBC Capital Markets Note January 2005
"Surely the days of whistling in the dark, hoping that the financial markets will plug deficits, are gone?"
RBC Capital Markets Note July 2004
"Company pension funds are not self-contained entities, like the funds of private individuals, but are simply part of the sponsoring company"
FTfm October 2003
