Asset Allocation – Page 161
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Features
Fiduciary move for the long haul
The Dutch pension industry has seen two ground breaking initiatives in the past 12 months, both involving US based asset managers. The first was the decision by the electronics firm Philips to hand the management of its pension fund to Merrill Lynch Investment Managers The second was the decision of ...
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Fascinated by formulas
What was your first full-time job – and do you remember what you were paid at the time? In 1961 I took what I intended to be a job during a school holiday at what turned out to be an actuarial bureau. I was paid 375 gilders (€170) per month. ...
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Features
Waiting to be discovered
When pension funds invest in traditional assets like equities and bonds they expose themselves to unintended sources of risk. The main sources unintentional risk are volatility and dividend yield for equities and credit spreads and liquidity for bonds. Once they detect these sources of risk most funds will either carry ...
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Features
Reducing the deficit top priority
With the third largest budget deficit in the world, Italy needs its bond market to be more attractive than ever to investors. Now that Romano Prodi is officially in charge, the realities of sorting out the burgeoning deficit hit home hard. He has acknowledged that the public accounts are in ...
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Features
Reform comes to a crossroads
After three and a half reforms during the past decade, restructuring the pension system is no longer a top priority in the Italian political agenda. The newly appointed Prodi government, however, will hardly be able to ignore the issue, as Mario Draghi, the new governor of the Bank of Italy, ...
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Features
Legislation changes in nutshell
The law decree 5 December 2005 n.252, in application of the last pension reform (law 23 August 2004 n.243), has significantly modified the current law on pension funds (law decree 21 April 1993, n.124). The new law is likely to pave the way for major change in Italian pensions, moving ...
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Features
Double challenge for open funds
COVIP (Italy’s pension fund regulatory authority) gave the first green lights to open pension funds OPFs) in July 1998 following legislation originally enacted in 1993. So far they have not been particularly effective. Therefore, the past government decided to pass a new reform originally scheduled for 2006 but which has ...
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Features
When the state bows out
Latvia’s fledgling second pillar pension funds expect to receive a much-needed shot in the arm over the coming year if a plan to withdraw the State Treasury from the market is approved by parliament. “The State Treasury became involved in funded pensions because our pension reform was implemented in the ...
