Asset Allocation – Page 242
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Features
Off the floor
With the FTSE 100 index poised to push up through key resistance levels, sentiment in the London equities market has brightened. But strategists are not holding their breath. Share prices in the UK are unlikely to make any lasting upside progress just yet. The fact that prices have come off ...
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French savings plans' rapid progress
For the last two years, the concept of employee savings, such as saving plans or schemes for profit sharing, has received much publicity from the media. The potentially large volumes of assets available has attracted a number of new providers. For a company, the choice of a fund manager is ...
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Features
Gearing up for pensions
Asset management in the Baltic states is a mixed scene, ranging from investment funds and private pensions in Estonia and Latvia to negligible retail activity in Lithuania. In Lithuania, tax complications have so far prevented the establishment of local investment funds. Meanwhile the private pensions market will only start operating ...
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Features
Slaughtering herds
It’s that time of year again when we ask ourselves – just what investment policies and strategic asset allocation decisions make sense in today’s market? The problem is that we are asking ourselves that question rather too often lately. Unfortunately, we don’t appear to have much in the way of ...
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Portuguese improvement
A change in asset allocation by Portuguese pension funds has resulted in an improvement in returns in the third quarter, according to consultant Watson Wyatt. Median returns from the country’s segregated funds for the third quarter were –2.4% from -3.2% the previous quarter. The third quarter was a difficult period ...
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Features
Make liabilities the starting point
As we head for the third straight year of falling equity markets with pension fund surpluses no longer the norm, we are all too painfully aware of the importance of aligning pension strategies with their ultimate objective. Pension assets need to be invested with reference to pension obligations (ultimate cashflows) ...
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Features
Muddle through scenario
Every one of our investment decisions – from the strategic allocation of assets between equities and fixed-income securities to the choice of individual securities – is based on a combination of macro and micro economic information. When assessing macro-economic trends, we attach great importance to the information we receive on ...
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Features
Time to share risks
One factor which could slow the flow from DB to traditional DC schemes is the growing interest in hybrid pension plans in the UK. Actuaries Lane Clark Peacock point out in their annual survey, ‘Accounting for Pensions’, that traditional final salary DB schemes and occupational DC schemes represent extremes of ...
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Features
AP3 aims for state-of-art modelling
The Tredje AP-Funden -The Third National Swedish Pension Fund is known to most as the AP3 fund for short. On 1 January 2001, new legislation came into effect in Sweden that radically changed the mandate of the Swedish government AP Funds. Flexible investment rules were introduced allowing the funds to ...
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Features
AP7 uses its internet trade reporting system to benefit savers
The Stockholm-based Seventh Swedish National Pension fund, the AP7, describes itself as “a fund option for the entire nation”. Set up just over two years ago, it is different from the other six national pension funds that form part of the restructured state pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system. Firstly, AP7 is a ...
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Features
VPK launches own absolute return fund
Vereinigte Pensionskasse AG (VPK), founded in 1990 is the largest multi-employer pension fund in Austria with a total of e1.9bn under management. Contributions to the pension fund in 2001 counted more than e106m. Paying attention to the volatile capital markets – on the bond side as well as on the ...
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Second time around achievement in much tougher contest
The staff at Germany’s Nestlé Pensionskasse VVag were naturally delighted to discover that they had won another IPE Award, this time for fund administration, following their success in the country category in the inaugural awards of 2001. “We reckon it was our efficient and ‘one-class system’ approach to the fund’s ...
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Features
Acknowledgement for the hard work in creating a new model
The Fonds de Pension Métal (FPM), Belgium’s sector-wide pension fund for its 150,000 metal industry workers, was delighted to learn that it had won the IPE Award for fund structure and innovation. A number of judges welcome it as the first real moves to establishing industry or sector structures. “Winning ...
