Asset Allocation – Page 185
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Features
Herculean efforts required
Greece’s highly successful Olympic Games - coming hot on the heels of its unexpected triumph in the Euro 2004 football championships - seemed to do much to lift it out of its reputation as a rather lumbering, chaotic nation best known for its Mediterranean climate, cuisine, music and dancing, and ...
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Features
For FTK read PVK
The Dutch authorities’ decision in September to delay the FTK for pension funds by a year, while broadly expected, was still significant. The central bank said that the new Financial Assessment Framework (nFTK) would not be compulsory for pension funds until 1 January 2007. The decision followed consultation with the ...
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Features
Trying to get some space
During the campaign for February’s general election the then-opposition Socialist Party (PS) promised to cut taxes, raise public sector wages and increase pensions. The governing right-of-centre Social Democrat Party (PSD) was offering fiscal stringency. For a majority of the electorate the choice seemed obvious, and PS leader José Sócrates emerged ...
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Features
Uncertainties spawn hybrids
The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension plan designs has been widely reported in the UK and further a field. However, a ‘pure’ DC scheme is not always possible and, even when it is, it is not always the ideal solution. To what extent are we ...
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Features
Moving into mainstream
Emerging market debt (EMD) is an asset class that that encompasses sovereigns and corporates, high yield and investment grade and dollar as well as local currency instruments. Given this complexity, it is no wonder that market attention has only focused on the headline crises that have left deep-rooted prejudices within ...
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Features
Maltese resurrection
After many years of an exclusively state operated pension system in Malta the occupational scheme seems to be set for a comeback. Company schemes existed in until 1979 but these were replaced by state provision when the government of the day decided that state provision should be good enough for ...
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Features
Ringing tone of success
As the bulk of the Greek pension system was mired in mismanagement and overregulation, the country’s incumbent telecoms operator, OTE, has stood out as a beacon of success with a cumulative return since the OTE pension fund started investing in 2002 of 26.37% with returns of 10% in 2003, last ...
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Features
The changing EMD story
Part of the process of investing in emerging markets (EM) used to be that your double digit returns were gained alongside the very strong possibility that at some point, your portfolio would be engulfed in a wave of selling because of an individual country’s crisis. Things are changing: individual countries ...
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Features
E.ON to set up external CTA
German energy giant E.ON is to remove up to €5.4bn in pension liabilities from its balance sheet and finance them via an external fund. The construction of the fund, known as a contractural trust arrangement (CTA), is to be completed in 2006. E.ON announced the move with its recent first-half ...
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Features
A far from easy decision
Undertaking due diligence in the Asia-Pacific region can have the attraction of combining business with great beaches, the lure of the orient and the opportunity to experience the Australian lifestyle. While some investment professionals are honest enough to admit this has influenced their choice of specialism, does it make sense ...
