Asset Allocation – Page 224
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Features
Harmonised schemes offer fresh opportunities
Flexibility and freedom of choice are the key words in the new pensions and benefits system of French oil and chemicals sector giant TotalfinaElf. Coinciding with the Loi Fabius on pensions and savings, the newly-merged group was quick to act in setting out its vision for new harmonised supplementary schemes ...
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Features
Policy ladder manages risks and helps funding
In July 2003, ABP introduced a new system of management of pension fund risk, the so-called ‘policy ladder’ (in Dutch ‘beleidsstaffel’). The initiation of the ladder led to two important adjustments in the pension plan: q The introduction of a set of explicit rules regarding the allocation of funding risks ...
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Features
Social partners take step into the future
Few European pension funds have made as much impact in a short space of time as MetallRente, the German industry-wide pension fund founded in 2001 by the labour union IG Metall and the employers’ association Gesamtmetall for employees of the metal and electrical industries. Such has been the success of ...
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Features
A way to smooth out future shock
The National Pensions Reserve Fund was set up two years ago, to meet some of Ireland’s future public pension liabilities. Pension costs – as elsewhere – are expected to rise significantly as the population ages, and assets of the fund will be drawn down by future ministers for finance starting ...
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Features
Setting a standard on governance
The BT Pension Scheme (BTPS), winner of this year’s IPE Silver Award for Corporate Pension Fund of the year, is the largest defined benefit (DB) company pension scheme in the UK. The fund has an impressive 365,811 members in total, comprising 91,692 contributing members, 95,829 deferred pensioners and 178,290 pensioners. ...
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Features
Specialised IT helps meet needs of medical sector
The VKG pension fund in Belgium, established more than three decades ago, aims to create decent pensions for the country’s doctors, dentists and pharmacists. The fund is geared mainly towards independent professionals, because, it says, their first pillar state pension provision is very weak. VKG offers a service to its ...
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Features
High-quality service and investment performance
This fund is a Polish mandatory, defined contribution, open pension fund. The state-owned Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) collects and allocates pension contributions to open pension funds, with each individual member contributing 7.3% of their gross salary on a monthly basis. The main aims of the fund, which was established in ...
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Features
Solid investment for self-employed professionals
The national pensions and benefit fund for Italy’s self-employed architects and engineers, Inarcassa, has e2.3 billion under management. Since privatisation in 1995, it has been upgrading its systems and financial management to compete independently, without state support. Investment strategy is determined by a national delegates’ committee, consisting of some 200 ...
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Special Report
From periphery to mainstream
Dutch superfund ABP has been actively involved in both socially responsible investment (SRI) and corporate governance since the mid-1990s. Since then, ABP has undertaken a whole array of national and international activities to include SRI and corporate governance in its mainstream investment processes. ABP is one of the leaders in ...
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Features
Making the most of risk
Strategic asset allocation is the key decision for pension funds. How much to allocate to equities and to bonds is and always has been the most important driver of returns for funds. The long term nature of pension investing has dictated that funds typically review their strategic allocation every three ...
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Features
Keeping abreast of events
Few pension schemes can have their location in as historic a setting as An Post in Dublin. It is based at the General Post Office building in O’Connell St, where the 1916 Rising started with the reading of the proclamation founding a separate Irish Republic. The building is still the ...
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Features
Norway's small adjustments mean big changes
On December 8, 2000 the Kvidal task force was appointed by royal decree. The mandate was to report on gender neutrality in retirement schemes for the private sector. The task force was also asked to give an opinion on denying the insurance companies and pension funds the ability to use ...
