All IPE articles in November 2014 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
Long-term Matters: Lost on Tesco
The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s inquiry into the supermarket Tesco is almost certain to miss a key part of the story – how investors enabled this dysfunctional culture. In September the retailer announced it had significantly overstated its first-half profit forecast.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Pensions and start-ups
Can pension funds play a greater role in stimulating start-ups and economic growth? Some US politicians think so and are trying to deploy public retirement assets for this goal. But critics claim that results have been disappointing so far, mostly because pension funds invest through private equity funds that demand very high fees. So a new idea is gaining support – pension funds investing directly in private companies, cutting out intermediaries.
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: An unhappy industry
A lengthy phase of regulatory uncertainty looks likely as questions on the implementation of EU directives remain unresolved, according to Carlo Svaluto Moreolo
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Features
The hubris premium
Jeremy Lang and Ben Fitchew explain how company managers’ inherent cognitive biases and environment can influence company risk
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Opinion Pieces
Guest viewpoint: “Macro matters. We ignore it at our peril”
Open a newspaper. Any newspaper. Read the front page and then the business pages. Absorb, assimilate, repeat. After half a dozen goes, you may notice a pattern.
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Features
Focus on new models
In this first article on a new study, Pascal Blanqué and Amin Rajan outline how pension funds are adopting new asset allocation models and governance practices
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Features
Focus Group: Is patience a virtue?
Over three-quarters of respondents polled for this month’s Focus Group consider their fund to be a long-term investor.
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Features
Hill’s grilling on an open fire
After two hearings and nearly six hours of grandstanding and deflection, rhetorical and leading questions, the European Parliament in October approved Jonathan Hill’s appointment as financial services commissioner.
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: Finns look towards new frontiers
Two leading Finnish pension funds see potential in frontier markets and China equity, finds Reeta Paakkinen
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Features
ESG: Profit with purpose
In the wake of a recent G8 working group on impact investing, Jonathan Williams examines how pension investors view strategies with a social purpose
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Global Equities: Multiple problems
Does the vast amount of central bank liquidity in the system help to make sense of current equity valuations, and should investors therefore be worried about the ‘punch bowl’ being taken away? Joseph Mariathasan tries to evaluate today’s valuations
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Global Equities: Global rotation
Martin Steward finds pure value and pure growth strategies starting to take the lead as the quality theme begins to run out of steam
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Special Report
Special Report – Emerging markets: Emerging markets in transition
The rise of the emerging world, and especially China, has transformed the global economy over the past generation, while the past decade has transformed investors’ attitudes to its markets. Daniel Ben-Ami assesses where we are in an ongoing transition
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Special Report
Special Report - Emerging Markets: Safety first?
Claims that emerging market investors herded into quality companies in the first half of 2014 raise concerns about troubled times ahead. But as Lynn Strongin Dodds finds, some of that trade has already unwound – and there is a strong counter-argument that investors were, in fact, looking for growth rather than safety
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Special Report
Special Report – Emerging markets: At the frontier
Beverly Chandler takes a closer look at some of the companies that make up the frontier markets opportunity, finding a rich mix of local consumer-finance, technology and manufacturing names that offer investors their last chance to buy into a secular growth trend
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Special Report
Special Report - Emerging Markets: Fed up with volatility
The Federal Reserve-sparked ‘taper tantrum’ of 2013 revealed how sensitive emerging market currencies could be to interest rates set in the developed world. Caroline Saunders asks whether that volatility told us more about investor sentiment than fiscal fundamentals
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Country ReportPensions In Nordic Region: Efficient frontiers
Carlo Svaluto Moreolo reviews recent mandate activity of large Nordic institutional investors
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Asset Class Reports
Interview - DMO:We want to hear from you
Robert Stheeman, CEO of the UK Debt Management Office, tells Taha Lokhandwala about the importance of ongoing dialogue with institutional investors
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Generation games
Now that my children are getting older they ask me more about what I do for a living and the questions are getting a bit more demanding. My eldest, especially, is at an age when questions come thick and fast.
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Country Report
Pensions In Nordic Region: Staring contest
There is no end in sight to capital controls, despite the government’s tentative first steps towards easing the restrictions that have been in place since 2008, writes Carlo Svaluto Moreolo
