Asset Allocation – Page 278
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Features
The beginning of reform
The Belgian government has taken a step forward in the development of the country’s pension fund system, with a proposed new law aiming to promote the consolidation of the second pillar. The new law, subject to review, will probably come into force at the end of the year. It will ...
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Features
Opportunity to improve benefits management
The world of financial reporting of retirement benefits for UK-based multinationals changed in November 2000 when the UK Accounting Standards Board (ASB) published Financial Reporting Standard 17 (FRS 17). FRS 17, which values plan assets and liabilities by reference to current market conditions, is very different to the previous standard ...
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Features
Brussels hit by liquidity squeeze
Like most exchanges Brussels’ has had a dreadful year. This is all the less excusable given that the BEL20 is light on TMT stocks. With the index opening at around 3,300 at the beginning of last year, it nose-dived and bottomed out at the middle of March last year at ...
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Features
Californian colossus
How much can politics affect the investment decisions of a huge US pension fund in the public sector? A lot, judging by the latest example of the tensions between the board and the staff who manage Calpers, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest public pension fund. Following ...
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Features
Cash positions
The investment in commodities using derivatives such as total return swaps and futures means the fund has to keep a cash position in order to prevent leverage. This cash position has to be equal in size to the total commodities exposure of the derivatives. On a monthly basis PGGM’s positions ...
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Features
Japan 'close to real crisis'
Although economic and interest rate forecasting is a complex affair even in the good times, when asked about Japan many fund managers, both bond and equity, shiver visibly. For global investors, investing in Japan has long been accompanied by a fair element of fear. It was back in 1990 that ...
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Features
Unaware of funds' hidden costs
Mutual funds investments is widespread among Belgian pension funds. Small pension funds believe that mutual funds meets their specific requirements better, at a law cost and with fiscal advantages. “Today it is quite is quite typical to hear pension funds sponsors saying they don’t pay any management fees because they ...
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Features
Slowdown fears unnerve Europeans
It’s nervy times as markets get through the first quater of 2001. “People are unsure about earnings and are therefore holding on to stocks with proven profitability and defensive characteristics,” says Neill Brennan, head of quantitative research at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney in London. “Market nervousness has seen defensives bounce ...
