Funding position
As at 31 March 2022, we have £39 billion in invested assets, an increase of £1 billion year-on-year. Our total consolidated reserves are £11.7 billion, an increase of £2.7 billion from last year.
Our funding ratio is now 137.9 per cent, this is an increase of 10.6 percentage points year-on year.
Thanks to another year of strong investment performance, coupled with low claims, the Fund is more buoyant than it has ever been. Our reserves mean we currently have £11.7 billion above what we estimate we need to pay every current member and their dependents their compensation for life.
At the same time, we have seen overall improvements in the funding of the schemes we protect. This, along with government support for business, may explain why we didn’t receive as many claims as we expected during and following the pandemic. There were a total of 17 new claims in 2021/22 down from 39 the previous year with a value of £12.1 million.

£1bn invested in forestry
Our investment in soft and hardwood forestry hit a milestone of £1 billion this year, with key sustainable forestry assets across Australia, New Zealand, the USA, UK, Ireland, the Baltics and the Nordics.
We invest approximately 30 per cent of our forestry allocation directly, recently investing in the New Zealand plantation Wenita, the largest timber producer in Otago with 30,000 hectares of sustainably managed forests.
Forestry is a key element of our responsible investment strategy as it can help mitigate CO2 emissions by storing carbon. It’s one of the few viable nature-based investment solutions in the journey towards a net-zero carbon world.
Well-managed forests can also increase biodiversity and are more resilient to climate change.

For some people, having no protection for their pension would be an absolute disaster.
“I’d never heard of the PPF until I received a letter to tell me that my former employer had gone into liquidation and that my pension would be picked up by the PPF. It was a big relief to know that my pension wasn’t lost. I was still in touch with a colleague who’d worked there for more than 20 years – he was really worried about his pension so it was a big relief.
“I’ve had a play on the website to find out how much my PPF payments will be and when I can take them. It’s quite amazing. It’s a really useful tool, really easy to navigate and use.
“I’ll probably retire online when I start my payments because it’s the easiest way.
“I’ve had to contact the PPF a few times. Every time I’ve spoken to somebody, they have been absolutely amazing. I’m impressed with the quality of support and the way the team handle calls. They’re so helpful and make it really, really easy.”
Karl
Suffolk

Largest UK regional property deal of 2021
When we sold one of our key property assets in late 2021 – One Hardman Boulevard in Manchester – it ended up being the year’s largest property deal in the UK outside of London, with a purchase price of £292 million.
NatWest Group purchased the office complex, which is in Manchester’s central business district. With the lease running down, together with the favourable valuation, we believed the time was right to sell, and secured a strong return on investment for the Fund.
Managing the risks we face
Managing and understanding our opportunities, challenges and risks is critical to protecting our members and achieving our objectives. Over the course of the last Strategic Plan, we have focused on bringing consistency across our risk management framework (RMF).
The framework allows us to compare and manage risks more effectively and helps us see the organisation as it is - an interconnected system of finance, processes and people. The framework is robust and the organisation strong and risk-aware. Our focus is on continuing to embed further improvements in consistency, reporting and evidencing that controls are working as intended.
A key part of this framework is our risk appetite statements, which communicate the Board’s attitude to risk, so we know the level of value, resource or money we want to put at risk in order to meet our objectives. The risk appetite statements make sure senior managers understand the amount of risk they can actively take or need to mitigate.
Using these we have assessed our return to the office in a controlled and proportionate way, gradually increasing to full implementation of our pilot for hybrid working by the end of the Strategic Plan period.
Our RMF has supported our approach to managing significant events, such as the implementation of key judgments during the life of the Strategic Plan (Hampshire, Hughes and Bauer). It has also facilitated our digitalisation work and, with the Information Security team, supported the important work we do in managing cyber security risk.
We have also considered other emerging challenges and opportunities against the background of our RMF: new scheme funding obligations and regulations, the rise of consolidators and ever-prominent ESG issues.