Asset Allocation – Page 177
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Features
What do funds have to lose?
The number of securities class action suits in American courts has been growing consistently, a fact that those foreign companies listed on US exchanges are well aware of. According to the Stanford University Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, there were 327 securities class action lawsuits filed in 2001, an increase of ...
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Features
Go global or go local?
With pensions funding now top of the agenda for sponsors as well as trustees, many multinationals are keen to understand more about the schemes they back. Using a large international consultancy to get an overview can help them do this, and some companies are going down that route. But at ...
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Features
Only place to go to outperform
European investors often have a very strong domestic bias in their equity portfolios, allocating investment elsewhere to global mandates. While many global managers see the US market as a whole expensive and are accordingly underweight, this overall view is heavily influenced by the top 250 stocks which account for 70% ...
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Features
Telling it how it is
Client reporting has improved greatly in recent years. Fund managers now produce reports that are almost as slick as those of management consultants. Most pension trustees and officers seem to be happier with what they receive today compared with five or 10 years ago. Standards had to be raised. It ...
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Features
Region of myths and misinformation
Many of us had hoped that the emergence in Europe of common accounting standards for pensions (IAS19 or FRS17 in the UK) would have made pension transaction work easier for both buyers and sellers. In some respects it has, establishing a common frame of reference to measure deficits (surplus seems ...
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Features
The secret of our success
That dream has come true in less than a decade. The euro bond market has indeed grown in size and depth to an equivalent of the US market. Yet, in many respects that market is at present different and will keep in the future its own roots and peculiarities. The ...
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Features
The power of pooling resources
This article is from January 2006. While the multinational pooling concept has been around for over 50 years, interest in this global funding mechanism remains as strong as ever. Having gone through periods of reduced priority for multinationals during the 1990s, the recent focus on global governance and Sarbanes-Oxley legislation ...
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Features
Without a ripple
One of the largest pension funds for professionals in the Netherlands, the Doctors Pensions Fund Services (DPFS), recently outsourced the management of its assets from its in-house investment management team to external asset managers. The transfer which involved the movement of €11bn of DPFS assets, was probably the largest transition ...
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Features
Towards a settlement
The media frenzy in the UK has moved on and now as the dust is starting to settle it will be up to pensions professionals and the government in the UK to fully absorb the recommendations of the Pensions Commission. There was a lot to take in - the final ...
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Features
Word on the street
Secretary of state for work and pensions John Hutton said it was an “important milestone towards a lasting pensions settlement”. “Put quite simply, we can not go on as we are. But it is also vital that we get reform right for future generations, and we are determined to reach ...
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Features
Swiss in 2% rate plea
Pension fund association ASIP has urged the government to lower the guaranteed return on pension contributions, insisting that the move is critical to improving the financial health of its members. Earlier this year, the Swiss government decided to leave the rate in question at 2.5%. “An adjustment to the ...
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Features
Iceland casts eye abroad
The Icelandic pension fund sector is undergoing parallel developments that are having a direct impact on the management of its assets. The first is an ongoing process of consolidation, which has gradually reduced the number of pension funds from an original 100 to a current 48 and which is anticipated ...
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Features
Peers acknowledge the 'constant gardener' of Europe
This year’s winner of the Award for an Outstanding Industry Contribution to is Koen De Ryck. He was the clear favourite among the 18 candidates who were on the list that IPE readers were asked to vote on. That comes as no surprise, given his dedicated service that can be ...
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Features
Adventurous allocation soon starts to pay dividend
As pension funds look around for innovative ways of boosting their income from traditional asset classes, private equity is moving into the mainstream as a way of achieving this. Länsförsäkringar Liv Försäkrings (LF) of Sweden has become a pioneer in developing this asset class as an integral part of a ...
