Asset Allocation – Page 175
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Evolving the system
French retirees draw two or three pensions. The basic pension is paid by the state social security system. On top of that there is a complementary pension paid by an Arrco institution and, for managers, a management pension from Agirc. On average the basic pension represents 60% of their total ...
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Harrods facing pension strike
The UK’s world famous department store Harrods could be facing “damaging” strike action following its failure to undertake proper consultations on its decision to shut its final salary pension scheme, the Amicus union has warned. Amicus - representing 100 members - has accused the store of replacing the existing final ...
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A hitchhiker's guide to LDI
Once the decision has been made to implement a liability driven investment (LDI) strategy to provide protection against interest and inflation rate movements, the implementation process still lies ahead. There are a multitude of different areas in the implementation process that will require simultaneous attention. It is vital for the ...
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Learn to love tight spreads
We live today, in a somewhat surreal world where, as Tim Bond, the author of the Barclays Capital Equity Gilt Study points out, £800bn (€1.2trn) of final salary UK pension schemes are trying to buy £41bn of long dated index-linked gilts, which he likens to an elephant trying to squeeze ...
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Mandatory savings ruled out
Heinrich Tiemann, German deputy minister for labour and social affairs, has reaffirmed that the government has no plans to make retirement saving mandatory. Speaking at a conference, he said that the Riester pension reforms of 2001 had prompted a dramatic rise in demand for second- and third pillar pensions. He ...
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Moving into a new phase
The European directive of 2003 concerning the activities and the regulation of occupational pension funds was adopted following a very long and difficult process. All things considered, the impact of this directive is very limited for a country like France1. Nonetheless it is a good starting point for us to ...
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Activity across a broad front
In two years’ time the status of Belgium’s self-employed as the poor relations of state pension provision should be a thing of the past. This is one of a number of challenging projects that have been exercising the powers that be in Belgium. The idea was that the self employed ...
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Active route away from the crowd
The London Pensions Fund Authority, (LPFA), is one of the UK’s leading public sector pension schemes, with 73,000 members and £3.2bn (€4.7bn) in pension fund assets. It was set up in 1989 as a stand-alone public body to take over the running of the pension fund of the Greater London ...
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How pension funds are addressing biometric risk
Pension funds are dealing with biometric risks in a number of different ways. A few of them explain their particular approaches . ABP, Netherlands “We fund our benefits 100% by ourselves. We are large enough to bear the risks,” says Alexander Paulis, chief actuary at the largest pension fund ...
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The challenges lying ahead
Hugo Clemeur of the Association of Belgian Pension Funds, Brussels Apart from the preoccupations caused generally by the demographic evolution compounded with slow economic growth, the second pillar pensions sector in Belgium faces a number of challenges of which I would mention only three, although many more could be mentioned ...
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Alchemy to the rescue?
Portable alpha offers pension funds the investment equivalent of alchemy – transmuting non-performing into performing assets. Using swaps or futures contracts - a process known as equitisation - funds can transfer or ‘port’ the alpha generated by one asset class to other asset classes in their portfolio. In this way, ...
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Applying an objective view
One of the reasons that portable alpha has yet to be adopted by pension funds may be that it does not appear to meet their needs. Although it is conceptually attractive, its seems to have no practical application. Ronald Ryan, founder and CEO of US-based Ryan Asset Liability Management believes ...
