Asset Allocation – Page 267
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Features
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 ...
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Features
Institutional exposé
Institutional Investors by E P Davis & B Steil (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, and London, UK, 2001, pp524) Institutional investors have a much bigger influence over our lives than most of us realise. This follows from the rapid institutionalisation of our savings in recent times. Not so long ago ...
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Public funds rally round the flag
Their efforts didn’t help the US Stock Exchange much, during the first week of resumed trading after the September 11 terrorist attack. But US pension funds did their best to try to stabilise the financial market at such a difficult moment. On September 14, for example, a group of US ...
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Features
Nowhere to hide
The recent terrorist attack and ensuing tragedy in New York have caused further deterioration of an already depressed equity market in Europe. “We are now certain that there will be a recession in the US which will have a direct knock-on effect on Eurozone markets,” says Peter Nethe, a strategist ...
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Implementing strategy shifts
Looking at the practical implications for pension funds wanting to implement strategies in response, Nizam Hamid, director of portfolio and index research at Deutsche Bank, says the first issue for institutional investors in the current market conditions has been how to put effective hedges on existing positions. “A more important ...
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Features
Looking to outsiders
Pension funds in Europe have chosen to outsource their back office and IT activities for two main reasons. The first is that fund administration is often not a core activity. A pension plan’s primary task is the overall management of the plan. Specialised service providers can often run non-core activities ...
