Asset Allocation – Page 181
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Features
Satisfied by sexy industry
Han Thoman recently retired as managing director of Blue Sky Group, which manages the pension assets of airline KLM and several other clients. He also stepped down as chairman of OPF, the Dutch organisation for company pension funds. He joined Blue Sky in 1999 as it was spun off from ...
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Outstanding performance from innovative newcomer
The Gildi Pension Fund is a new name in Icelandic pensions, but it has now won the country award in the first year of its existence. The fund was established on 1 January 2005, from the merger of two pension funds, the Framsyn Pension Fund and the Seamen’s Pension Fund. ...
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Keyed into technology
Although pension regimes can differ significantly from country across Europe, pension funds share a belief that technology is critical to successfully meeting the challenges that face them today. A common theme across the region is change – new regulations, new behaviour in markets where assets are invested, new competition, and ...
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Northern lights
Norway’s long-awaited pension reform allowing defined contribution (DC) schemes will come into effect next year. Among the main provisions is that all employers with two or more employees will have to provide some type of pension plan for their staff. This will bring 600,000 new pension savers onto the market. ...
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Markets on the move
Swedish pension funds are in a state of culture shock as they get to grips with two new major pieces of legislation. All will have to raise their game as the occupational pensions directive opens up a veritable smorgasbord of investment choice but in return demands prudence. Meanwhile, the authorities ...
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The new quasi-consultants
The specialist pensions groups at the investment banks have a lot to offer trustees. They can be a valuable source of expertise particularly when it comes to using complex financial instruments to solve the liability mismatches plaguing many funds. But just whose side are they on, and is their advice ...
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Active returns dominate
ABP Dutch fund ABP - the largest pension fund in Europe with assets of e180bn - has made sweeping changes in the way it runs its portfolio in the last three years. The portion of its equities that was run on an indexed basis - 45-50% - was reduced ...
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Actuaries' split personalities
Once upon a time, actuaries lived in an ivory tower, where they pored over complicated mathematical valuations…and they invariably came up with incontrovertible, well-founded and faultless opinions. They towered above the parties, influenced by no one, not even by their bosses. From time to time they explained to everyone who ...
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Smoke alarm at risk
In 1997 Deutsche Bank, the parent of the UK asset manager Morgan Grenfell (now Deutsche Asset Management) paid £220m (e322m) in compensation to clients of funds run by one of Morgan Grenfell’s managers, Peter Young, who had lost money on investments in unlisted companies, The bank was also fined a ...
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Emerging market debt: a maturing asset class
Investors should consider emerging market debt (EMD) as a key component of a diversified portfolio. Despite various crises during the 1990s, EMD has outperformed versus all other asset classes over the last ten years (see Table 1). And, because the asset class is more closely aligned to other risk assets, ...
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Return to balanced?
Changing views in the pensions industry on the role of active management within portfolios has led to a rise in new balanced mandates, say consultants. But is it really best to use a single investment house for such a wide variety of different assets? Anthony Ashton, head of global client ...
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Don't bank on it
Portugal’s pensions landscape is subject to a two-tier domination by the main banks which provide their clients with a range of financial services, including pension management. According to figures from APFIPP, the Portuguese Association of Investment Funds, Pension Funds and Asset Managers, the Pension Funds market consists of around E14.9bn. ...
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Solidarity between generations
Communication between pension funds to their members is the best way of keeping the collective solidarity between the generations in an ageing population. “Communication and information of the pension funds to their members is paramount,” stated social affairs’ minister Aart Jan de Geus speaking at the ABP Rendez-vous. “It ...
