The opdu Report - Issue 18, May 2005

Bulletin Board
The Pensions Archive Trust

Alastair Ross Goobey has accepted an invitation to become the first President of the Pensions Archive Trust. His mother has donated the papers of his late father, George Ross Goobey written in the 1950s. At that time, as Pension Fund Manager of the Imperial Tobacco Pension Fund, he recommended to his Trustees that the investment policy should be to invest 100% in equities thus introducing the cult of equity investment to pension funds. The papers were recovered from the garage of his former home in
Somerset and are now being analysed by Mike Young, President of the Pensions Research Accountants Group and a member of the Pensions Archive Steering Group.

The Pensions Archive Trust is being incorporated as a charitable company limited by guarantee. The first directors will be Alan Herbert, former Head of Pensions BP (Chairman); Graham Brown, Pensions Manager of Barnardo’s, Geoff Oldham, former Group Pensions Manager of Saint Goban Building Distribution; Mike Young, former Director of Pensions, Smiths Industries with Neville Otty as Company Secretary.

Maurice Oldfield, former Group Pensions Executive of Allied-Lyons and Jonathan Bull, Director of The Occupational Pensions Defence Union Limited have also agreed to join the Board. opdu is providing administration facilities and a location for the Registered Office.

It is planned to set up the Archive in a special area which it is proposed to construct in the Library of City University in Northampton Square, London EC1. The project is being run in conjunction with the University’s Cass Business School. The object is to record and preserve the history of the development of pension provision in this Country in order to assist a greater understanding of pension issues.

Offers of material and financial assistance will be welcome. For further details contact
Alan Herbert at:

The Pensions Archive Trust
c/o opdu International House
26 Creechurch Lane
London EC3A 5BA
Direct line: 01438 869198
alanherbert@highburyhouse.fsnet.co.uk