Asset Allocation – Page 163
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Features
What pension funds are looking for
Most people in our industry recognise that while pension schemes have become more demanding of investment strategies and implementation, most schemes remain in deficit and are becoming more mature. Accounting rules mean these deficits are much more visible with the result that pension provision has become a topic for national ...
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Features
Swiss postal fund MD quits
Walter Kohler, managing director of Pensionskasse Post, a CHF12.2bn (e7.8bn) fund for Swiss postal employees, quit his post last month. Pensionskasse Post said Kohler’s resignation was prompted by “differences on future strategy” between him and the fund’s other executives. These executives include Yves-André Jeandupeux, who is president of Pensionskasse Post’s ...
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Features
Europeans play pick and mix
As the deepest and most liquid market in the global investment universe, the US debt market cannot be ignored. But while it may provide an ocean of liquidity, has demand for US Treasuries, particularly from foreign investors, turned the ocean sterile for investors looking for sustenance? As Alex Over, director ...
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Features
Getting ready for dramatic growth
The asset management industry in Russia is comparatively young and does not have a long history. The first civilised forms of regulating this market date back to 1995 when there appeared the Federal Commission for Securities Market (FCSM), licensing of asset management activities, and the first specialised money management companies. ...
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Features
Exponential growth for Doverie
One of the effects of Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union next year would be to relax significantly the investment restrictions on the country’s second and third pillar pension funds. Bulgaria has already relaxed its investment restrictions on pension fund investment to conform with European pension legislation. This has removed ...
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Features
It's going to be different this time
The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) is expected to have some of the greatest impacts of all financial services legislation introduced in the last decade. It is scheduled for implementation on 1 November 2007 and is the successor to the 1993 Investment Service Directive, a key component of the ...
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Features
An idea whose time has come
As debate continues in the UK over the future of pensions, the proposal to found multiemployer ‘Super Trusts’ has many supporters. The National Association of Pension Fund’s idea for umbrella pension schemes under which many employers would shelter has many advantages – most obviously economies of scale. But how well ...
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Features
Saxony-Anhalt plans to launch pension fund for civ
The eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt plans to set up a pension fund for its civil servants from 2008, saying the move is necessary to relieve long-term pressure on its budget. Saxony-Anhalt employs around 2,600 civil servants who have a right to a future state pension. By 2020, it estimates ...
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Features
Challenges of running a pension fund in the Cypriot way
We are at the point where pension funds in Cyprus are trying to be move into a new era of more modern management under the European standards. It is a transition period from amateurism to more professional management of pension funds and that’s why the challenges of running such a ...
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Features
US managers face new challenges
“Never in 39 years in the industry have I known what our clients need more clearly than I do now,” says John Casey, chairman of Connecticut-based Casey, Quirk and Associates (CQA). “But how you do it is the question. We’re seeing a lot more urgency – the answers are not ...
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Features
Carrot or stick choice
The reforms of Germany’s pension system (the fundamental pension reform in 2001 (‘Riester pension reform’) and the Pension Sustainability Act and the Retirement Income Act which became operative in 2005), with a reduction of the state benefit level and an increased focus on occupational and private pensions, were a operations ...
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Features
Swiss schemes call for rules to be relaxed
Swiss occupational pension funds want investment regulations relaxed, according to a survey by Swisscanto Asset Management. “A large number of the pension institutions are in favour of a relaxation of the investment regulations,” Swisscanto said. The survey was conducted in association with ASIP, the Association of Swiss Pension Funds. It ...
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Features
Benign conditions boost Irish schemes
Benign conditions, including higher bond yields and strong equity and property markets, have boosted the health of Irish defined benefit pension schemes in the first quarter, according to Mercer Investment Consulting. According to Mercer estimates, average funding ratios have improved by between 10% and 15% from the end of 2005 ...
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Features
Dutch base 'superb' for management
The EU pension directive has opened the way for the Netherlands to become a superb operating base for asset management, says Dirk Witteveen, director of pensions regulator De Nederlandsche Bank. “The Netherlands have already a wide experience with the directive’s ‘prudent person’ approach of the investment rules. Pension fund are ...
