Asset Allocation – Page 168
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Features
UK pension industry split on national scheme
The UK’s pension industry appears split over the government’s proposed national pensions savings schemes. Investment providers have welcomed the idea but consulting firms have warned of higher costs and unintended consequences. The government White Paper, following up on the Pensions Commission proposals, said it would introduce a new low cost ...
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Features
Why scheme members are key
Peter Scales is retiring as chief executive of the £3.5bn (€5bn) London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) and will leave the post at the end of the year. George Coats asks the questions What was your first full-time job – do you remember what you were paid at the time? ...
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Features
Leading soundbites
Q1Are we moving out of a low interest rate environment? If so, do investors go from here? Q2In your view why are mega mergers such as Citigroup/Legg Mason and Merrill Lynch/BlackRock, happening and are there more to come? Q3The involvement of investment banks in pensions investment has been ...
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Features
No longer a mirage?
It is safe to say that the single European market for asset managers is moving ever closer due to developments in the last year. A real single market in asset management is something for which the Investment Management Association’s (IMA) has been actively calling for more than three years. As ...
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Features
Where size matters
The EU pensions directive is focusing the minds of Belgian pension funds. But it is not the implementation of the directive that is causing the major concern but a series of proposed changes that accompany it. The directive should have been introduced last September but legislation transposing its provisions into ...
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Features
Quenching the thirst
For many years Cyprus was a rather inaccessible economy. Artificially high interest rates and restrictions on the movement of capital did not inspire much thought or creativity, to put it mildly. And as the island’s abundant sunshine contrasted starkly with its reputation for shady dealings, money laundering being the primary ...
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Features
On the added value of fixed income tactical asset allocation
Why would one pursue an active allocation investment policy within a fixed income portfolio? The overall risk of the fixed income portfolio is low compared to the other traditional asset classes. Even the most risky fixed income asset classes like Emerging Markets and High Yield have a volatility which is ...
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Features
DB back from the dead
When hedge funds, investment banks and private equity firms get involved it’s a sure sign that there’s some potentially serious money to be made. So what’s the hot new market they’re looking at? You might be surprised to learn that it’s the previously unglamorous field of defined benefit (DB) corporate ...
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Features
When the balance sheet rules
IPE asked three pension funds – in Portugal, the UK and Denmark – the same question: ‘What do you see as the implications of the implementation of IAS 19?’ Here are their answers: Colin Hartridge-Price, scheme secretary and chief pensions officer at the BT Pensions Scheme & BT Retirement ...
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Features
Bill of rights for the mobile
The European Commission’s proposal for a directive on improving the portability of supplementary pension rights, if accepted, could significantly improve the position of mobile workers – both across borders and within member states – but about which many concerns have been expressed regarding excessive costs. Vladimir Spidla, the European commissioner ...
