Asset Allocation – Page 265
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Features
London 'back on front foot'
The London Stock Exchange, often seen to follow rather than lead, took rivals by surprise in May with the announcement of plans for its own listing, alongside the first signs of a real ‘European strategy’. Commenting on the announcement of the intention to list, Don Cruickshank, chairman of the exchange, ...
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Features
Complexity may hold back new plans' growth
The pension reform known as the ‘Riester package’ will be implemented with amendments to some 19 laws, and by introducing one new law for the certification of pension products for the third pillar. Most important is the introduction of a system of tax allowances and direct subsidies, which will be ...
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Features
Europe's biggest LTCI market
Long-term care insurance (LTCI) is booming in France: the market has grown by almost 50% in the last 18 months. Everything is relative, of course, and total sales amount to just 750,000 policies sold, and that is over a 15-year period. Although LTCI policies have been around for a long ...
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Features
Bringing life to Italy's post office
Erik Stattin is an unusual occupant of an executive’s chair in the traditional world of Italy’s postal service. But then Posteitaliane is less and less its traditional self with each mail delivery – witness its very successful life assurance operation Postevita, which he runs. Now pensions business is on his ...
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Features
Modest gains only on cards
The major valuation anomalies of the past few years – equities overpriced relative to bonds, TMT (technology-media-telecommunications) stocks overpriced relative to other stocks, and large-capitalisation stocks overpriced relative to small-capitalisation stocks – have been largely eliminated. Most equity and bond markets are now trading close to fair value, as are ...
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Features
Mefop chooses on performance
Make no mistake about it. The Italians are deadly serious about developing their pension funds, adopting the latest and best from outside, but only after a thorough and rigorous analysis as to what they need and how it can serve their needs. This message came through very clearly at the ...
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Features
Currency risk out of the closet
Many may not be familiar with the concept of a ‘currency benchmark’. It results from the explicit recognition of currency risk in a portfolio, and, for example, might be ‘World ex UK equities 100% hedged’. The ‘100% hedged’ is the key point here: the process of choosing benchmarks is in ...
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Features
A European stock exchange
A little over a year ago we were tempted by the prospect of a merger between the Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Well, nothing became of the proposed iX but Euronext, the joint venture between the AEX (from Amsterdam), Brussels Exchanges and the Paris Bourse has gone ...
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Features
Sitting out the summer gloom
Plagued by fears of looming recession, investors in Japanese equities are now playing a waiting game. The reforms outlined by new prime minister Junichiro Koizumi have given the market hope that longstanding problems, particularly in the banking sector, could finally be resolved. But weak economic data are keeping the mood ...
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Features
Incentives needed for pensions push
Despite a volatile round of EU summits over the past six months, the Mediterranean island of Cyprus is still on course for fast track entry into the EU. Nevertheless, pension reform is moving at the same pace as a tourist’s hillside donkey on the holiday hotspot. While a revamp of ...
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Features
Masters of reinvention
Both equity markets and balanced managers took a battering during 2000 and the year to date. Disappointed institutional investors are consequently looking elsewhere for that elusive alpha and, as they review mandates, so the managers in turn reinvent themselves. If it’s not balanced managers portraying themselves as specialists in everything, ...
