Carillion hedges £1bn in DB liabilities in longevity swap dealSubscription
Swap agreed between Deutsche Bank and five schemes sponsored by Carillion
Swiss schemes offset record low conversion rate with contributionsSubscription
Towers Watson notes ‘surprising’ range of conversion rates among Swiss companies
UK roundup: Leaf UK, PIC, LPFA, Adveq, Next WaveSubscription
Leaf UK Pension Scheme enters £35m buyout with Pension Insurance Corporation
Funding at Dutch schemes suddenly drops as deadline approachesSubscription
Consultancies warn that increasing number of pension funds now facing rights cuts
Bond returns narrow deficits at UK DB pension fundsSubscription
Equity markets, Gilt yields main drivers of funding levels, PPF says
ESG roundup: Social impact fund, integrated reporting, FRR, EIRISSubscription
LGT Venture Philanthropy, Berenberg announce first close of social impact fund
UK pension funds back GreenOak real estate debt fundSubscription
Start-up firm raises £138m for senior financing vehicle targeting value-added assets
ING pension fund avoids quarterly loss thanks to currency hedgeSubscription
Scheme’s coverage ratio increases to more than 126% as of end of September
Irish electricity fund retains DB after long-running disputeSubscription
Agreement on company’s pension accounting method with utility company agreeing to recognise DB fund once more
British Airways sues trustees over additional indexation offerSubscription
Trustees of £7bn Airways Pension Scheme attempt to offer further indexation after increasing benefits in line with the consumer prices index
Nearly one-quarter of institutionals to increase farmland investment – surveySubscription
Aquila survey highlights ongoing issues of track record, reputational risk
Draft of UCITS V aims to tighten rules for custodial servicesSubscription
Council of the European Union cites fallout from Lehman bankruptcy, Madoff case
Digital Edition
Registered users are entitled to the first digital issue of IPE with the compliments of the IPE.com team.
Low fashion, high durabilitySubscription
As Thornburg Investment Management’s fourth employee, Brian McMahon arrived in Santa Fe in 1984 around the same time as the firm acquired a second-hand fax machine from the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Walter Mondale.
Castilian disciplineSubscription
Nina Röhrbein asked Jaime Martinez-Gómez about the governance, risk and portfolio strategies of Fonditel, the manager of Telefonica’s Spanish pension fund
Great expectationsSubscription
What is your outlook for 2014?
Active and proudSubscription
Most re-brands come across as pretty superficial affairs.
A new chapterSubscription
Martin Steward speaks to Cecila Thomasson Blomquist at PP Pension, whose DB business relies on dynamic asset allocation around a solid real estate core, and whose DC business is undergoing major changes
Time to pool resourcesSubscription
Leen Preesman asks the CEOs of PGGM and PKA about their co-operation plans and about the development of supplementary pensions in Europe
Public sector challenges Subscription
Gail Moss speaks to Eva Kiwit of EAPSPI, the voice of public pensions at European level
Sky-high yieldSubscription
Paul Read acknowledges that further capital appreciation in high yield is unlikely, and argues that good bottom-up analysis is now crucial for capital preservation and decent returns
Risk management under the AIFMDSubscription
Kai Braun and Désirée Springmann describe the major changes ahead for private equity and real estate fund managers
Command, control and organisationSubscription
IPE Views: Liboring under false pretencesSubscription
The Libor and Euribor fines expose not only the importance of engagement, but also the cost of inaction for pension funds
More bucketsSubscription
Last month, for the first time, we experimented with a new approach to our monthly international strategy meeting. Video conferencing.
Matthew Kiernan, Inflection Point Capital Man. & Paul Clements-Hunt, The Blended Capital Group:“Investors who fail to develop systematically aware investment processes risk commercial extinction”Subscription
There is no shortage of high-wattage brainpower directed to the promotion of longer-term finance and investing.
Mark to mythSubscription
These days, information is everywhere.
Elizabeth Corley: “Drawing on behavioural science, we should be thinking more holistically about income lifecycles”Subscription
For everyone managing pension funds, or their investments, or indeed managing our own retirement planning, one of the greatest challenges is to maintain a focus on achieving long-term strategic goals amid the constant buffeting of contradictory news and the distraction of more pressing concerns.
ESG 2.0 – let’s get seriousSubscription
The responsible investment community has done something very important. It has raised awareness that institutional investors who define their job as beating the peer group benchmark are being irresponsible – stewardship responsibilities for the long term are now on the agenda. But the current trading-oriented model of investment is impossible to align with these responsibilities.
Variable solutionsSubscription
Europe is moving slowly and deliberately away from defined benefit pensions to approaches that, if well considered, might prove a sustainable model for workplace retirement provision.
Haggling with the hedge fundsSubscription
For this month’s Focus Group Survey, we asked 19 readers about hedge funds.
The fiduciary fightSubscription
Should trustees feel constrained by the existing interpretation of their fiduciary duties?
Expect more scrutiny on systemic relevanceSubscription
A transformation is taking place in the five-year performance track records of countless investment funds and strategies as this year fades out and the impact of the market collapse of late 2008 is erased.
The UK fiduciary duty straitjacketSubscription
Should trustees consider environmental concerns, or even more widespread systemic issues, when investing on behalf of their beneficiaries?
Hedge Funds: Not such black boxesSubscription
David Turner looks at how transparency has improved in the hedge fund world, and what pension funds are doing to adapt to all the new information
Hedge Funds: Small is beautiful, againSubscription
Joseph Mariathasan and Martin Steward note that smaller hedge funds are enjoying significant new inflows for the first time since the financial crisis. Where is the money coming from?
Hedge Funds: Bottom-up on the upSubscription
Changes in market behaviour have created an alpha-rich environment that is great for stockpickers and dangerous for market-timers, write Joseph Mariathasan and Martin Steward
Hedge Funds: Not just a lion at the gateSubscription
Liongate Capital Management understood from day one that hedge fund investing was more what you know than who you know. Ten years later, Martin Steward reports on how this became the institutional mainstream – and where it is going next
Hedge Funds: “We ask investors what they like”Subscription
After almost 10 years of talking to hedge fund managers, this is a first. Erich Schlaikjer, co-founder of the Cambridge, UK-based systematic managed futures specialist Cantab Capital, is showing me what his firm’s trading and research systems can do.
Real estate
UK pension funds back GreenOak real estate debt fundSubscription
Start-up firm raises £138m for senior financing vehicle targeting value-added assets
Pension funds for German doctors join forces in development dealSubscription
Versorgungswerke acquire €218m Stadthöfe project in Hamburg
UK pushes ahead with redefinition of REITs as institutional investorsSubscription
Altered definition, announced earlier in year, allows REITs to invest in rival property funds
PensionDanmark to buy 49% stake in UK wind farmsSubscription
Deal comes as part of infrastructure strategy targeting inflation-linked returns
Norwegian oil fund buys stake in Regent Street building Subscription
Government Pension Fund Global buys 25% stake in Quadrant 3 from Crown Estate
