Asset Allocation – Page 340
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Features
New law means all change for French pensions
France’s long-awaited Pensions Law finally arrives, reports John Lappin
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Features
Asia: Market prospects divide the experts
The need for reform by the Indian government is unquestionable, but UK and Indian analysts are divided in their opinions as to how much the market is going to improve in the short term. Jayendra Nayak, executive trustee at the Unit Trust of India in Mumbai, thinks the prospects for ...
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Features
Asia: The smart way in
People looking to invest in India will find SBC Warburg’s list of Indian funds interesting for what it says about the Indian equity market. The funds market is clearly segmented. Such segmentation, in funds markets generally, tends to evolve when the underlying local market is either highly regulated, or inefficient ...
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Features
Australia: Correction fears keep eyes on US markets
The recent run of the Australian equity market has pensions managers there guessing as much as outsiders. John Cann national manager remuneration and superannuation at Ansett Australia, based in Sydney, says: We don’t anticipate the Australian market is going to continue to be as strong as it has been in ...
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Features
Australia: Country risk premium to fade
After a two year run which saw industrial shares rise by 40%, Australian analysts are wary as to where things go from here. Chris Walker, head of Australian equities at Colonial Investment management in Melbourne, says: The rise occurred without much in the way of earnings growth. A lot of ...
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Features
BMW puts car at the core
BMW (GB), UK subsidiary of the giant German carmaker, took a novel aproach to restructuring its employee benefit programme, making full use of the company’s renowned product. There was a time when every employee in the company could be placed by the model of car they drove. Thanks to BMW’s ...
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Features
Norway: Running with the bulls
With the factors driving Norway’s bull market still very much in place, the question is not whether it will continue to grow but how far. The market, reflecting a booming oil-driven economy has increased by 10% since the start of the year. With most indicators predicting continued growth the biggest ...
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Features
USA: US markets still in business
Optimism, albeit cautious, about the US equity market is the view emanating from Trish Bridson, assistant director and head of North American equities at Kleinwort Benson in London. She says: “We see growth of between eight and 10%, driv-en mainly by earnings growth which we also think will grow by ...
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Features
UK committee criticised for pensions recommendations
The UK-centred debate over Europe’s pensions liability and its affect on EMU heated up last month when a lobbying group published a paper criticising the Parliamentary Social Security Committee for recommending that unfunded pensions liabilities should be included in the EMU convergence criteria. In addition, in mid-February, the committee held ...
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Features
French company schemes 'a winner', says survey
The new French company pensions law should be a guaranteed success according to a survey carried out by Frank Russell Paris for Groupe AXA. Sixty-nine per cent of the companies surveyed aim to set up plans under the new law. A total of forty companies responded to the survey, carried ...
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Features
Netherlands: Diversify and prosper
For the past few years, institutional investors in the Netherlands have been steadily adding international securities to their portfolios. This has prompted discussion of the benefits of diversification and of the management of the associated currency exposure. Our research shows that optimum diversification outside the Netherlands is far greater than ...
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Features
Dutch funds get taste for equities
Rachel Fixsen finds a shift away from the safety of bonds
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Features
Russia puts funds on firmer footing
Russian investment funds, illegitimately described as pensions funds will be forced to drop the name, when a pensions bill, strengthening the Russian pensions inspectorate and currently progressing through the Duma, becomes law. Russia’s 200 non-state pension funds involving the savings of 1.5 million Russians will also b e given a ...
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Features
Italian pension funds on standby
Over 800 hundred pension funds, created by Italian banks, insurance companies and mutual funds are awaiting the final decree in a series issued by the Italian government since the start of the year which will officially set up private pension provision. This decree, which is considered the most important is ...
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Features
Getting Japan's weighting right
The traditional methods of setting a weight for Japan in international portfolios have given investors a false idea of the market’s significance, argues John Morrell
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Features
Norway: Phillips widens horizons
Phillips Petroleum in Norway is looking for investments beyond the domestic bond market, because of the relatively flat prospects for growth this year, but it currently holds the maximum allowed for domestic and in-ternational equity portfolios. The fund, which manages approximately $200m, has 70% of its holdings in domestic bonds, ...
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Features
Irish start on pensions reform
Ireland has taken the first step towards reform of its occupational pensions sector with the launch of the National Pensions Policy Initiative. The publication, on the 13 February, of a 72-page government document setting out possible policy courses marked the start of a national consultation exercise. The deadline for responses ...
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Features
Spanish regulations delayed again
The appointment of a new director general to the Spanish Insurance Directorate could delay publication of regulations required by companies to comply with a 1995 Spanish pensions law. Under the law, the deadline for conversion from book reserves to externally funded schemes is May 1999, but the appointment of Pilar ...
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Features
The mixture as before
With UK pension funds holding a larger share of their assets in equities last year the long-awaited shift to bonds isn’t happening. Or is it?
