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Liability-Driven Investing (LDI) Strategies

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Written By
Dan Buckley
Contributor Image
Written By
Dan Buckley
Dan Buckley is an US-based trader, consultant, and part-time writer with a background in macroeconomics and mathematical finance. He trades and writes about a variety of asset classes, including equities, fixed income, commodities, currencies, and interest rates. As a writer, his goal is to explain trading and finance concepts in levels of detail that could appeal to a range of audiences, from novice traders to those with more experienced backgrounds.
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Updated
Sep 23, 2024

Liability-Driven Investing (LDI) is an approach primarily used by pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies.

Its goal it to match assets with future liabilities, such that obligations to beneficiaries can be met as they come due.

LDI strategies have gained prominence in recent decades as pension funds grapple with funding shortfalls and returns that aren’t eminently predictable.

It can also be used by traders in cases where it matches their goals and for a broader understanding of the types of strategies that influence the markets they trade.

 

Key Takeaways – Liability-Driven Investing (LDI) Strategies

  • Risk-focused approach
    • LDI prioritizes managing liability-related risks over maximizing returns. 
    • For traders, this means understanding how assets are matched to future obligations, potentially sacrificing upside for stability.
  • Interest rate sensitivity
    • LDI heavily uses fixed income instruments and hedging strategies to manage interest rate risk. 
  • Phased implementation
    • LDI is often adopted in stages, from initial de-risking to advanced risk transfer.
  • Expanding applications
    • It’s primarily used by pension funds and insurers, but LDI principles are being adapted for other sectors.

 

The Core Concept of LDI

Instead of focusing solely on maximizing returns, LDI prioritizes managing risks associated with liabilities.

This shift in perspective transforms how asset allocation decisions are made.

Long-term obligations drive choices made in markets, not short-term market movements or arbitrary benchmarks (e.g., “beating the S&P 500“).

For an individual investor or trader it could make a lot of sense.

For example, if someone needs $50,000 per year to live (i.e., essentially their obligations), they can structure their portfolio in light of this through, for example:

  • cash interest
  • bond coupon payments
  • dividend payments
  • royalty distributions
  • other income streams and forms of capital appreciation

 

Historical Context

LDI’s roots trace back to the 1970s, but it gained more traction in the early 2000s.

Market downturns exposed the vulnerabilities of many pension funds, sparking a reevaluation of risk management practices.

Regulatory changes, such as the Pension Protection Act of 2006 in the US, further accelerated LDI adoption by emphasizing funding status and liability valuation.

 

Key Components of LDI Strategies

Liability Profiling

Accurate liability profiling forms the foundation of any LDI strategy.

This process involves:

  • Detailed cash flow projections
  • Consideration of demographic factors
  • Analysis of inflation sensitivity
  • Assessment of longevity risk

Sophisticated actuarial models are used to forecast future benefit payments.

These models account for factors like mortality rates, retirement patterns, and salary growth assumptions.

The resulting liability profile serves as a roadmap for asset allocation decisions.

Asset-Liability Matching

Once liabilities are clearly defined, the next step is to construct a portfolio that closely mirrors these obligations.

This typically involves:

Fixed income instruments are used in this process.

Bonds with maturities aligning with projected liability cash flows form the core of many LDI portfolios.

This approach tries to reduce interest rate risk, a key concern for pension funds that are in stocks, bonds, and other rate-sensitive securities and assets.

 

Risk Management Techniques

LDI strategies use various risk management frameworks and instruments to address specific liability-related risks:

Interest Rate Hedging

Interest rate movements can significantly impact both asset values and liability valuations.

LDI strategies often use:

These instruments allow funds to fine-tune their interest rate exposure.

This protects funding ratios from adverse rate movements.

Inflation Protection

For pension funds with inflation-linked liabilities, managing inflation risk is paramount.

Strategies include:

A diversity of approaches helps maintain purchasing power and match inflation-adjusted benefit payments.

Longevity Risk Management

Increasing life expectancies is a challenge for pension funds.

LDI strategies address this through:

  • Longevity swaps
  • Reinsurance arrangements
  • Demographic analysis and frequent assumption updates

Transferring or reducing longevity risk enables funds to better align their assets with evolving liability profiles.

 

Implementing LDI: A Phased Approach

Transitioning to an LDI framework often occurs in stages:

Phase 1: Initial De-risking

The first step typically involves reducing overall portfolio risk.

This may include:

  • Increasing fixed income and cash allocations
  • Reducing equity and risk asset exposure
  • Reducing credit and liquidity risk, in general (in whatever form they come in)
  • Implementing basic interest rate hedges

This phase tries to stabilize funding ratios and limit downside risk.

Phase 2: Liability Matching

As the fund’s risk profile improves, focus shifts to more precise liability matching:

  • Expanding use of long-duration bonds
  • Implementing cash flow matching strategies
  • Introducing liability-benchmarked performance metrics

This phase tightens the relationship between assets and liabilities.

Some examples of cash flow matching:

  • Dedicated Portfolio – Construct a portfolio of fixed-income securities (bonds, etc.) whose cash flows (coupon payments and principal repayments) precisely match the timing and amount of future liabilities.
  • Immunization – Match the duration of assets and liabilities to minimize the impact of interest rate changes on the portfolio’s value.
  • Horizon Matching – Combine cash flow matching for short-term liabilities with immunization for longer-term liabilities.
  • Contingent Immunization – Actively manage the portfolio to maintain a surplus, switching to immunization if the surplus falls below a certain threshold.
  • Multiple Liability Immunization – Extend immunization to match multiple sets of liabilities with varying durations.
  • Cash Flow Dedication with Reinvestment – Reinvest interim cash flows from the dedicated portfolio to further enhance returns, while making sure the final cash flows match the liabilities.
  • Laddered Portfolio – Construct a portfolio of bonds with staggered maturities. Creates a regular stream of cash flows to meet ongoing liabilities.
  • Duration Matching with Derivatives – Use interest rate derivatives (swaps, futures, options) to adjust the portfolio’s duration and match it to the liabilities’ duration.

Phase 3: Advanced Risk Transfer

Mature LDI programs may explore more sophisticated risk transfer mechanisms:

  • Longevity swaps or insurance
  • Pension buy-ins or buy-outs
  • Customized derivative strategies

These approaches can further refine the asset-liability match and potentially reduce overall plan risk.

 

Challenges and Considerations in LDI Implementation

Yield Environment Impacts

Low interest rate environments pose significant challenges for LDI strategies.

When yields are low:

  • Liability values increase, potentially worsening funding ratios
  • Achieving required returns becomes more difficult
  • The cost of hedging strategies may rise
  • Requires more risk-taking to get desired returns

LDI practitioners must balance these factors against the risk of future rate increases.

Regulatory Landscape

Evolving regulations can significantly impact LDI strategies.

Key considerations include:

  • Changes to funding requirements
  • Shifts in liability valuation methodologies
  • New risk disclosure mandates

Governance and Expertise

Implementing LDI requires specialized knowledge and strong governance structures.

Challenges include educating trustees and stakeholders, building internal capabilities or selecting external managers, and establishing appropriate risk monitoring and reporting frameworks.

 

Technology in Modern LDI

Advancements in technology have changed LDI practices:

Real-time Analytics

Software now enables faster decision-making and more responsive risk management:

While still evolving, these techniques promise to refine LDI approaches further.

 

LDI Beyond Pensions: Expanding Applications

While pension funds remain the primary users of LDI, the concept is gaining traction in other areas:

Insurance Company ALM (Asset-Liability Mismatch)

Insurers apply LDI principles to manage their unique liability profiles:

  • Matching policy maturities with investment horizons
  • Addressing product-specific risks (e.g., lapse risk in life insurance)
  • Optimizing capital allocation across diverse business lines
  • Hedging against interest rate and credit risks
  • Using derivatives to manage duration gaps
  • Stress-testing portfolios against tail risks and designing portfolio allocations and hedges to reduce this
  • Managing liquidity to meet unexpected claims

Endowments and Foundations

Some endowments are adopting LDI-inspired approaches:

  • Aligning strategies with spending policies
  • Incorporating inflation expectations into asset allocation
  • Balancing long-term preservation with near-term spending needs
  • Integrating ESG factors for long-term sustainability
  • Diversifying across alternative asset classes
  • Using risk parity and balanced beta strategies to balance exposure, reduce bias, and ensure balance across various market and economic environments
  • Improving portfolio flexibility for evolving donor needs

These applications demonstrate the versatility of LDI principles.

 

Criticisms and Limitations of LDI

LDI has its critics:

Opportunity Cost Concerns

Some argue that LDI’s focus on risk management comes at the expense of returns:

  • Reduced allocations to growth assets may limit upside potential
  • Hedging costs can eat into overall returns
  • Strict liability matching may result in suboptimal asset allocations
  • Sacrificing higher-yield opportunities for safer, lower-yield assets
  • Potential underperformance in bull markets due to conservative positioning
  • Missing out on illiquid assets with higher return long-run potential
  • Over-prioritizing liabilities may lead to excessive focus on short-term stability at the expense of long-term growth

Balancing these concerns with risk management goals is an ongoing challenge.

Complexity and Cost

Implementing sophisticated LDI strategies can be resource-intensive:

  • Requires specialized expertise and potentially expensive external consultants
  • May involve complex financial instruments with high fees or that require specific access (e.g., prime brokers, investment banks, other institutional investors to create the security/exposure/instrument)
  • Demands strong systems and processes for effective monitoring

Smaller funds may struggle to justify these costs against potential benefits.

Adaptability to Changing Conditions

Critics argue that rigid LDI frameworks may struggle to adapt to:

  • New market conditions (e.g., negative interest rates, elongated stagflation)
  • Structural shifts in the economy or financial markets
  • Cchanges in plan demographics or benefit structures

Maintaining flexibility within an LDI framework is crucial to address these concerns.

The 2022 UK LDI Crisis

As we covered here, in 2022, the UK experienced an LDI crisis when rising gilt yields triggered margin calls for pension funds using leveraged LDI strategies.

Forced to sell assets to meet these calls, they worsened the market downturn, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that threatened financial stability and necessitated Bank of England intervention.

 

As LDI strategies evolve, several trends are shaping its future:

Integration of ESG Factors

Environmental, Social, and Governance considerations are increasingly incorporated into LDI strategies:

  • Understanding climate risk impacts on long-term liabilities
  • Aligning investments with sponsor organizations’ sustainability goals
  • Exploring green bonds and other ESG-focused fixed income instruments

This trend reflects growing awareness of long-term sustainability risks.

Dynamic De-risking Frameworks

More sophisticated approaches to de-risking are emerging where they try to balance risk management with return generation more effectively:

  • Trigger-based strategies that automatically adjust allocations based on funding levels
  • Incorporation of market sentiment indicators to fine-tune risk exposure (though not yet common among more conservative institutions like pensions and insurance funds)
  • Use of options-based strategies to maintain upside potential while limiting downside risk – or at least customize exposure
  • Glide path strategies that gradually reduce risk as funding targets are approached (e.g., funds that allocate bonds % to whatever your age is, like a 40-year-old that’s put in 40% bonds and thus 60% stocks)
  • Dynamic asset allocation that shifts between risk and safe assets based on various market conditions based on particular rules
  • Factor-based investing to capture specific risk premia while managing overall volatility
  • Incorporation of liability-driven overlays to hedge key risks without fully derisking
  • Stress-testing frameworks to adjust risk levels under extreme scenarios
  • Tactical rebalancing based on short-term market opportunities while maintaining long-term de-risking goals

Holistic Balance Sheet Management

Some organizations are expanding LDI principles beyond the pension fund:

  • Considering corporate debt and other liabilities alongside pension obligations
  • Integrating LDI with enterprise risk management frameworks
  • Exploring ways to optimize overall organizational financial health through coordinated asset-liability management

This broader perspective may lead to more thorough risk management strategies.

 

Conclusion

Liability-driven investing has fundamentally changed how many institutional traders/investors approach asset allocation and risk management.

Its principles have been valuable in navigating challenging markets and addressing long-term funding challenges.

It’s not without its critics, but LDI is a key framework for organizations looking to align their investments with long-term obligations.

The future of LDI will likely see further refinements, broader applications, and increased integration with other financial management strategies.