Asset Allocation – Page 151
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Features
Elections may delay reform in Romania
While on the verge of introducing second and third pillar pension funds, the political will behind the reforms could be on the wane writes George Coats
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Features
Hungary tilts balance towards equities
Radical pension reform in Hungary continues apace despite a recent government admission about the state of the economy, writes Krystyna Krzyzak
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Features
Poland leads part of the way
Although it is the biggest and most developed CEE market, Poland has to catch up with practices elsewhere, writes Krystyna Krzyzak
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Features
Predicting a predictable New Year
Forecasting the future of the financial world is fraught with difficulty and the chances of making spectacularly bad predictions are high. Famously, Irving Fisher, a professor of economics at Yale University, said in 1929 that “stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”. If stoics are to believed and everything is predetermined, divination is at best guesswork and at worst alarmist. However, there may be some value in educated guesses.
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Features
Reform impetus runs out of steam
After making good progess establishing its third pillar, the Czech Republic now finds itself being overtaken by its neighbours, as George Coats reports
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Features
Keeping the focus sharp
The main business of Principal Global Investors, a US asset management company with headquarters in Des Moines, is pension funds. Principal manages the assets of 10 of the 25 largest pension funds in the US and more than two thirds of its $180bn (€134bn) assets under management belong to pension ...
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Special Report
Microfinance enters the mainstream
Over the years, microfinance has emerged as a profitable business opportunity and a way to build local economies. When Dutch pension giant ABP, the scheme for civil servants, placed €5m in the Dexia Micro-Credit fund last year it was a sign of growing interest in this type of investment among ...
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Features
McCreevy endorses second pillar pensions
Ageing populations; shrinking work forces, are putting intense pressure on state pensions. This is driving change throughout the whole pensions system: The relationship between the state and its citizens; the nature of the pensions promises made by employers to their employees; the design of private retirement saving products. The pressure ...
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Features
The disruptive power of innovation
In the second of the series, Amin Rajan and Jervis Smith argue that beneath the surface of booming markets fund management is changing irrevocably
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Features
Time to cross the frontier?
There are over 350 frontier stocks that can be considered investible according to Constantine Papageorgiou, so a commitment to this market at an early stage could be well rewarded
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Features
Face of sector to continue changing
IPE asked three pension funds – in the Czech Republic, Denmark and the Netherlands – the same question: ‘What challenges and opportunities do you expect to face in 2007?’ Here are their answers:
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Features
Building stronger portfolios
Pension funds should build stronger portfolios to brace themselves for worst-case scenarios rather than just researching them a panel discussion ‘Where are the markets moving and how to react’, that was moderated by Karel Stroobants, chairman of Akkermans Stroobants & Partners. “We were too often disappointed by diversification when we ...
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Features
Equities excel while bonds underperform
October was characterised by the improving performance of the stock markets, as indicated by the above average returns of the S&P 500, while volatility remained at the same level as the previous month, still close to its historical lows. Bond market performance declined again, reaching a low, but still positive, ...
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Features
Optimising beta
Institutional investors may be missing out on the full benefits of a core-satellite approach to portfolio investment because they are using broad market indexes as benchmarks for the core and failing to optimise the passive part of their portfolio. This was the central message of Noël Amenc, professor, finance department, ...
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Features
Credit markets set for tough year ahead
Yield curve/duration Though the US housing market continues to show significant signs of weakness, prompting economists to downgrade domestic growth forecasts, the US consumer has yet again surprised us by significantly increasing their spending rather than their savings during October. And another shock came in the form of a significantly ...
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Special Report
Investing in Africa
Despite growing interest for emerging markets, pension funds are still hesitant about them. Peter Hinton, managing director of Enterprise Banking Group in Botswana, says that funds were not yet heavily investing in African emerging markets due to the problem of finding the right investment vehicles or entities for their investment ...
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Features
Entering into the 26th regime
Proposals for 26th regime pension products come under the critical gaze of the Dutch pension insurers association working party on these products
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Special Report
Money with a conscience
Robert Rubenstein finds bodies with a social mission reluctant to commit their endowments to social investments
