Asset Allocation – Page 220
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Features
Sectors have arrived
European institutions have little choice but to invest in European equities, be it via a domestic or foreign equity allocation, structured as a euro or pan-European mandate, or the European element of a global mandate. Four years after the birth of the euro, the means by which institutions achieve European ...
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Features
JOP goes back to the drawing board
At the Juristernes & Okonomernes Pension Fund (JØP) the search for alpha is on. The DKr21bn professional fund for lawyers and economists is undergoing an extensive restructuring. A full review is in hand, says Henrik Franck, investment director, who joined the fund from BankInvest last year. “Not only is the ...
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Features
Getting the best from custodians
Has your custodian ever lost any of your assets? Probably not. Should you worry about such risks? Surely yes. But how much should pension fund directors get involved in custody issues? In fact, there are normally no major problems that would require the attention of pension fund boards. Custody seems ...
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Features
British miss gravy train
The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) was first introduced to provide pension benefits for Members of Parliament (MPs) in 1965. The PCPF is a funded scheme which invests contributions from the exchequer and members. The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) has come in for considerable criticism, largely on account of ...
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Features
More optimistic than cautious
The outlook for US equities for the coming year is positive. According to Darrell Riley, vice president of T Rowe Price in Baltimore, “the consensus is that S&P index will increase by between 5 and 10% by the end of the year.” He adds: “what is priced into the market ...
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Features
Consumers hold the key
After three years of significant underperformance, Euro-zone equity markets outperformed the US, UK and Japan markets in 2003 as investors switched out of bonds and back into equities. The question is whether this is likely to continue in 2004. Some analysts suspect that the economic and financial recovery expected this ...
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Features
Time to be more creative
The defining moment of 2003 for the Irish fund management industry was the decision by UK insurance giant Aviva to reprieve its Dublin based asset management arm, Hibernian Investment Managers, Ireland’s fourth largest asset manager Aviva had initially considered closing down Hibernian and merging its operations with its London-based asset ...
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Features
Dedicated follower of market trends
When mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state last December, cattle futures collapsed. However, the US dollar also continued its downward slide. As a result, the Mulvaney Capital Management Global Diversified programme, which invests in a mixture of commodities and financials, ended the month 5.35% up. Managed futures is ...
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Features
Drift from equities in mature markets
The head of investment at consultants Watson Wyatt, Roger Urwin, says there is a gradual move to lower equity allocations in mature pension countries. “In countries with maturing pension funds there seems to be a gradual move to lower equity allocations,” says Urwin, global head of the consulting firm’s investment ...
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Features
Dutch pension reforms
As well as trying to mind-read Central Bankers, poring over economic statistics and keeping a keen watch on world events, investors also need to be more than up-to-date with all sorts of rules and regulations, dull though they may be. In a recent piece of careful and thorough research from ...
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Features
Unweighting fixed income logical
The scenario of a pick-up in growth, contained inflation and ample market liquidity suggest a continuation of the trends seen in recent months for financial markets and a preference for equities, particularly high risk markets, over bonds. We can also expect to see greater risks in the second half of ...
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Features
Philips focuses on the possible
Though the Philips Group as a worldwide electronics company operating in over 60 countries worldwide has a total workforce of 166,500 employees, it currently does not have any multinational pension plans. The pension plans the group has across the globe were established as the company grew its activities over the ...
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Features
France and Spain get on side
The announcement by France and Spain can be considered as a major breakthrough in the battle to achieve an internal market for occupational pensions. It also increases the pressure on member states whose tax legislation still discriminates against foreign pension funds (Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, the UK and ...
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Features
Income generators in vogue
The traditional equity-versus-bond decision in asset allocation is becoming too simplistic. The clear trend is towards greater diversification, particularly into non-traditional asset classes, together with a shift from relative return to total return investment. In 2003, there were many opportunities for asset managers to generate positive investment returns. Given the ...
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Features
An uncomfortably hot seat
As Malcolm Wicks, UK Minister of State for Pensions, acknowledges, the world of pensions has changed from a “rather dusty but worthy corner of business and public policy” to a “big issue” that regularly makes front-page headlines in UK tabloid newspapers. “That can be uncomfortable for Pensions Ministers from time ...
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FeaturesHow the parliamentary pension scheme works
The pension scheme for Westminster MPs, the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) operates like most funded final salary arrangements by investing its members’ contributions and those from the Exchequer, which takes the place of an employer in an occupational scheme, in the financial markets.
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Features
Tapiola spreads its wings
The investment environment has been very challenging, says Hanna Hiidenpalo, who is investment director for Tapiola Mutual Pensions Insurance, based in Espoo. The guaranteed rate of return Finnish investors need to receive is currently at 4.5%. “The decision about the guarantee rate is not very closely related to the realities ...
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Features
Lure of sound regulation
Rightly or wrongly, offshore jurisdictions are associated with light regulation, and the main job of offshore regulators is perceived to be placing as few obstacles as possible in the way of multinational companies wishing to set up pension schemes for their employees. Guernsey, for example, has specifically exempted international pensions ...
