IPE 360: Financial literacy can lower political cost of pension reform
Ex-Italian labour minister says financial literacy is key to successful pension reform
Italy: The EU’s next existential threat?
Italy’s political system has shifted since the early 1990s from one based on traditional parties to an emphasis on personality-based politics
Mandate roundup: NEST makes 'strategic' high yield bond move
Also: Italy’s Fondo Pensione PRIAMO hires BNP Paribas for custody services
ESG integration helps returns, volatility: State Street survey
80% of institutional investors were satisfied or very satisfied with returns from ESG-tilted allocations
Trio of Italian pension funds in €1.8bn merger
New fund will be country’s fifth largest by membership
Aon Hewitt Netherlands to refocus on fiduciary management
Consultancy is also weighing up options for its administration business
Mandate roundup: Foncer, Epap, Enpapi, PKH, Nottinghamshire
Italian pension funds have issued searches for balanced and fixed income managers
Auto-enrolment helps increase Italian pension membership
Regulator Covip reveals double-digit growth in assets for some forms of provision
Resaver to receive first payments in March [amended]
Cross-border plan for researchers gets supervisory approval and EU funding
Italian regulators to scrutinise Intesa interest in Generali
Banking group Intesa and insurer Generali have fund management arms running a total of €700bn
Mandate roundup: FRR, ERAFP, Nutreco, SPT
French reserve fund appoints new ESG managers while civil service fund adds climate change researchers
Amundi set to win contest for Pioneer Investments
UniCredit enters ‘exclusive’ talks with French asset manager
Italian banks under pressure following referendum result
Prime minister’s resignation could hamper recapitalisation efforts, hurt economic growth, fund managers warn
Amundi acquires Pioneer, seeks to grow European distribution
Deal includes distribution agreement with UniCredit covering three major European markets
Outlook 2017: Political focus - Europe
Geopolitical tensions look set to be felt across Europe in 2017. Daniel Ben-Ami and Carlo Svaluto Moreolo outline some of the most important
UniCredit confirms bids received for Pioneer Investments
Poste Italiane presents bid with CDP, Anima
Amundi confirms interest in buying Pioneer from UniCredit
French asset manager denies €4bn valuation of acquisition target
Italy's Cometa awards €8.3bn of mandates to group of managers
Pension fund awards tenders announced earlier this spring
Italy: The Atlante 2 impasse
A series of forthright announcements from Italy’s professional sector pension funds might have disappointed government hopes for money to prop up ailing banks but have served to reassert the sector’s commitment to fiduciary duty
Italy: Early retirement tops the agenda
Italy’s government responds to calls to increase flexibility in accessing the state pension, while second-pillar schemes search for solutions of their own
Pensions In Italy: Auto enrolment all’italiana
A number of Italian pension funds have implemented automatic enrolment. Is this the answer to Italy’s low coverage problem? Carlo Svaluto Moreolo investigates
Pensions In Italy: New alternatives exist
Most Italian pension funds are new to alternative investment. However, the wind is changing, with several pension funds making the first significant allocations, writes Carlo Svaluto Moreolo
Pensions In Italy: An alternative approach
Despite shifting and ambiguous regulation, a growing number of pension funds are increasing diversification by making larger allocations to alternative asset classes, writes Silvio Bencini
Pensions In Italy: Saving the banking system
Italian pension funds are evaluating investment in Fondo Atlante, the banking sector rescue fund. But there are potentially more attractive alternatives, writes Maria Teresa Cometto
Casse di Previdenza: First pillar left out to dry
The proposed new asset allocation framework for Italy’s first-pillar funds contains several controversial measures
Accounting roundup: Discounting, ClientEarth, FTSE 350 audits
No change to foreign currency discounting; environmental lawyer flags up BoE climate change concerns
Accounting roundup: BP, Glencore under pressure on climate change
Also: IASB puts pension accounting project on hold but presses on with new reporting standards for insurers
Perpetuum mobile
The Dutch people are used to drawn out pension reform
Politics needs a longer lens
It is necessary to come to terms with the end of left and right
Lending risks are exaggerated
Patient investors will benefit from an exposure to alternative credit
Digital Edition
Registered users are entitled to the first digital issue of IPE with the compliments of the IPE.com team.
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EU seeks to avert Brexit arbitrage
Strong words on Brexit are flying in political circles. But behind the theatre, concerns about the future of London’s fund management sector are emerging
Letter from Brussels: A warm reception for PEPP
In contrast to complaints that Brussels’s legislation burdens the financial sector, the European Commission may be gratified by the positive response to its flagship Capital Markets Union (CMU) programme.
Letter from Brussels: Brexit and equivalence
Nothing could be clearer. For the financial sector, at least, there is nothing to fear from Brexit. All the UK has to do is to apply to the EU’s rules – the crucial term ‘equivalence’
Letter from Brussels: Resaver’s first stage kicks off
The European Commission’s project to set up a pension scheme for research and development professionals whose careers take them across EU borders has finally reached its first stages of operation.
Letter from Brussels: Unclear on clearance
The prolongation for 18 months of pension funds’ exemption from posting collateral when trading over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives is leading PensionsEurope to seek clarification.
Letter from Brussels: EU focus on tax tricks
There is increasing attention in Brussels on company reporting, taxation and offshore financial centres. The G20 and some OECD countries have demanded country-by-country reporting rules for multinational companies with a turnover over €750m
Letter from Brussels: Pan-EU private schemes for 2017?
Legislation proposing pan-EU personal pension products (PEPPs) could be tabled in 2017, according to the European Commission
Letter from Brussels: A vision for cross-border workers
A former director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP) has proposed a new option for occupational pensions that could help the large number of workers whose careers take them across EU internal borders.
Letter from Brussels: Weighty in-tray for new CMU commissioner
Valdis Dombrovskis has assumed responsibility as commissioner in charge of the flagship Capital Markets Union project. But he has also assumed the added complication of the withdrawal of the UK
Letter from Brussels: Posted worker woes
It will not be the first time that proposed revisions to EU rules affecting finance and pensions get stuck in a logjam between interests groups
Letter from Brussels: Tax targeting continues
Pressure to clean up the financial sector has led to copious legislation from Brussels.
Letter from Brussels: Ethical pressures mount
There are plenty of indicators of rising pressure to advance ethical standards across the financial sector. One outcome takes the form of mountains of clean-up legislation, including from Brussels.
Letter from Brussels: Beefing up the CMU
Inadequacy of European national court systems in the financial sphere is due for overhaul. Upgrade is necessary if the EU’s capital markets union programme (CMU) is going to get anywhere, according to a high-status paper
Letter from Brussels: Race to upgrade EFSI
Legislative moves to support the EU’s European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) are being rushed through Brussels. But, so far, evidence of any torrent of fund movement by the institutional investment sector across EU frontiers has yet to emerge.
Letter from Brussels: A simmering conflict
Conflict continues to simmer over the issue of passport rights for non-EU-domiciled hedge funds across the EU
Letter from Brussels: A lawyer’s feast
It is a case of tackling one challenge after another in the Capital Markets Union (CMU). According to the European Commission, the present morass of different national insolvency rules creates a barrier to the flow of capital across the EU.
Letter from Brussels: Cross-border challenge for IORP II
IORP II may have cleared the European Parliament’s committee stage but amendments tabled to the second directive covering occupational pensions since 2003 are so radical that it would be unwise to forecast its future.
Letter from Brussels: Focus on low returns
Dismally low returns on EU pension fund investments over 15 years? The allegation comes in a study by Better Finance, the European Federation of Investors & Financial Services Users. The report, Pensions Savings: The Real Return, points to excessive fees, points to other charges, and badly framed taxation rules, as the culprits.
Letter from Brussels: Pressure builds on tax havens
Brussels’ financial focus is on aggressive corporate tax planning and the related question of tax havens. This concerns the hedge fund ‘passport’ rights to do business across the EU and compliance of the offshore jurisdictions where they are domiciled to EU norms.
Letter from Brussels: A tricky path ahead
The process of making pensions policy in Brussels between now and end of the year resembles two juggernauts moving towards each other