Pension trust
(pension trust)
Pension trust refers to a pension trust established by an enterprise to facilitate the payment of pensions (retirement funds) to its retired employees. trust. A typical pension fund in the United States is an aggregate of funds accumulated. These funds are used to pay the pensions of employees of a certain company and are managed and invested by the company where the employee works. Pension fund is the product of the combination of pension insurance and financial system. As a special fund, it has the characteristics of long-term, stability and scale. The pension insurance system is an important part of the social security system and is directly related to the stability of the entire society. This places special requirements on the independence and integrity of pension funds. The independence of trust property precisely guarantees the independence and integrity that pension funds should have, thereby promoting the stability of pension funds.
In the United States, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) promulgated in 1974 stipulates the rule of mandatory trusteeship, requiring pensions to be established in the form of trusts. One of the main reasons for this requirement is to use the bankruptcy isolation function of the trust property to ensure that the fund assets are protected from the recourse of the company's creditors. By the end of 1996, the total value of private pension trusts in the United States had reached US$3 trillion, and most of the US$16 trillion in state and local pension plans existed in the form of trusts.
Japan has also established a complete pension security system. According to its legal provisions, companies that establish pensions do not have the right to use pension funds on their own and must entrust trust banks, life insurance companies or investment consulting companies. Among them, the pension trust assets entrusted by trust banks account for approximately 54% of the total pension assets. By the end of 1997, Japan's pension trust assets had reached 4786,495 million yen; in the United Kingdom, pension fund assets accounted for 76% of its GDP at the end of 1995; in Chile, the total number of pension funds in 1996 also reached 46% of its GDP.
The basic structure of a pension trust is: employers and employees share monthly contributions in proportion to form a pension fund. The employer and employees sign a trust contract with a professional fund management institution and entrust the pension fund to its investment operations for the purpose of investment. To maintain and increase value, the members and dependents of the pension plan are the beneficiaries. The management and operation system of a pension fund has all the characteristics of a general private trust, and its design is essentially in full compliance with the requirements of the trust system. It can be said that the bankruptcy isolation function of commercial trusts eliminates the risk of company bankruptcy for pension funds, so that employees' pensions can be effectively managed and appreciate, and have safety guarantees, which can stimulate employees' work enthusiasm to a certain extent. The positive effect is to avoid the risk of corporate insolvency faced by pension funds in the form of investment accounts held by companies within the corporate structure.
As of the end of 2001, the rolling balance of my country's pension insurance funds over the years has reached 73.3 billion yuan. According to the World Bank's prediction, the total number of my country's pension funds will reach 1.8 trillion US dollars by 2030, and it will become the third largest in the world. Pension funds. However, my country's pension funds currently have serious problems of maintaining and increasing value. The reasons are as follows: First, in terms of management methods, my country's pension funds currently adopt a direct management method by the government, and their use is usually subject to political goals. Failure to pursue economic benefits increases the risks of pension fund operations. Second, fund management has low transparency and lack of supervision, resulting in serious fund leakage. In this regard, scholars pointed out that my country's pension funds should learn from the successful experience of international social security systems, introduce a trust system, and use independent legal organizations to assume the functions of pension insurance fund trustees.
Trust-Type Mutual Funds
(Trust-Type Mutual Funds)
Trust-Type Mutual Funds, an investment tool, have become widely popular in recent years. Popular, it can either form an investment company in the form of a company or exist in the form of an investment trust. Among them, the typical practice of trust-type mutual funds is as follows: most small investors pool their funds into a large amount of funds, and then hand them over to professional investment institutions to invest in different targets, and then the investment experts select and manage them according to the investment purpose of the fund. Assets, ***tong funds provide professional advice and economies of scale. After the 1970s, investing in the form of mutual funds has become a development trend, and its position in the U.S. financial market has become increasingly important. By May 1997, the total amount of mutual funds in the United States had reached 4 trillion, more than half of which exists in the form of trusts.
***The two basic functions of the same fund are to provide professional management and diversify investment risks, that is, to obtain profits and avoid risks through professional investment judgment. This is because mutual funds generally invest in the secondary market, that is, the securities and futures markets. Such investments require long-term observation and professional knowledge to make correct judgments, while mutual funds managed by professional institutions The fund can just meet this requirement; at the same time, the shareholders of the same fund are a large number of small investors, which can avoid the risks caused by concentrated shareholdings.