Asset Allocation – Page 262
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Features
Wake-up call to suppliers
Reluctance to outsource pension scheme administration has continued for the eighth year running, according to the Capita Hartshead Annual Pension Scheme Administration Survey. This is despite an overall trend in industry in favour of outsourcing non-core functions, and despite clear cost advantages. The survey results were based on a questionnaire ...
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Putting the case for staying in-house
The issue of whether or not a pension scheme should be administered in-house or outsourced could be boiled down to two words – effectiveness and efficiency! Can my scheme be more effectively and efficiently managed in-house than having the work outsourced. Before attempting to answer that question, we have to ...
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Investment consultants coming into their own
The German market is getting more sophisticated and investment consultants are playing an increasingly important role. Although the size of the consultancy industry is still very small compared to that of other European countries, their presence has become crucial at a time when new developments in legislation and changes in ...
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Risk control to dominate
The fall-out from the attacks on New York and elsewhere have opened the debate about asset allocation and whether long term changes need to be made to investment strategies. Gordon Sharp, director of investment consulting at KPMG Pensions in London, says that there hasn’t been any radical change in the ...
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Why core plus strategies win
Over the past 20 years, as real estate has come to be an accepted part of a diversified institutional investment portfolio, strategies for investment in real estate have expanded across the entire risk/return spectrum. Investment options now range from low risk/low volatility strategies, some of which offer almost bond-type characteristics, ...
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Ironing out the creases
Austria’s pensions and asset management industry remains relatively undeveloped but changes are afoot that will change the landscape for good. As more companies are coaxed by the government and more appreciate the predicament of their employees, so the number of multi-employer funds and corporate schemes increases. Billions of euros stored ...
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Going international and going directly
With around SEK 350bn (E36bn) assets under management, Swedish mutual insurance company Alecta, is the largest manager of pensions asset in the Nordic region. Formerly SPP, Alecta’s main core business is the occupational pension ITP, based on an agreement between the confederation of Swedish enterprise and the federation of salaried ...
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Doctors' healthy fund
Like most Danish pension funds, the Copenhagen-based Laegernes Pensionskasse (LPK) is a defined contribution (DC) arrangement, but operates under the guaranteed return basis. This requirement is raising real concerns in parts of the pensions and insurance sectors, since they both work under the insurance law. “We have different rates of ...
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Features
Keeping our powder dry
World financial markets are at a critical juncture awaiting the US political response following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The shock comes at a time when tentative signs that the monetary easing witnessed this year were starting to impact the US economy. The key consideration now is ...
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Equity lessons to be learned
When we talk about the devastating effects the US terrorist attacks have had in the equity markets, we have to remember that this has been the last chapter of very long market underperformance. Concerns among institutional investors about returns in their equity portfolios did not start after last month’s dramatic ...
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Europe's steady evolution
Three broad developments in European pensions are creating new business opportunities for third party fund administrators. The first is the move towards defined contribution (DC) schemes in countries like Italy and Germany. Germany’s first DC products, Pensionsfonds promoted by social security minister Walter Reister, are expected to produce a flow ...
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Event without precedent
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC, the future direction of the US economy is shrouded in uncertainty. Though economic forecasting is tricky at the best of times, the unprecedented events of mid-September have left financial experts waiting for political, military and popular reactions ...
