All Features articles – Page 112
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Features
Catastrophic year is a signal to buy
More pension funds are investing in insurance-linked securities. Daniel Grieger and Kristina Poliakova argue that recent natural catastrophes have made them even more attractive
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Features
Tactics before strategy?
Finally on 26 July, the International Accounting Standards Board launched its public consultation on the shape of its future agenda. “In particular,” it would seem, “IASB is seeking feedback on how it should balance the development of financial reporting with the maintenance of IFRSs and – with consideration of our time and resource constraints – those areas of financial reporting that should be given the highest priority for further improvement,” It is perhaps the most succinct statement you will find anywhere in the consultation paperwork.
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Features
A central Asian hub
Kazakhstan’s pension reforms are a success and the country has a sophisticated financial set-up, writes Iain Morse
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Features
Take a leaf out of Apple’s book
In the third in a new series of articles, Neeraj Sahai and Amin Rajan argue that robust innovations require robust processes and robust drivers
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Features
Search for advantage in a crowded market
Why launch an emerging market debt (EMD) strategy when there are already 40-plus institutional competitors in the market? First State Investments – which has just hired Helene Williamson from F&C Asset Management along with Jan-Markus May, Manuel Cañas and Philip Fielding to run the strategy – did not make the decision for short-term reasons, according to Gary Withers, the firm’s EMEA managing director.
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Features
Seeking regulatory advantage
Gail Moss reports on the progress pension fund associations are making as they seek to influence future legislation
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Features
A tricky rebalancing act
Last month I attended Lazard Asset Management’s annual investment dinner, where the guest speaker was Peter Mandelson. Lord Mandelson spent eight years as UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and European Commissioner for Trade, so I considered my questions carefully.
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Features
QE2: Good for the economy, bad for pensions?
While many in the flnancial market welcomed the Bank of England’s relaunch of quantitative easing – or QE2 – committing a further £75bn (€86bn)to its asset repurchase facility, the timing of the announcement took everyone by surprise – including those in the pension industry, who immediately called for an “urgent” meeting with the regulator.
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Features
Still as safe as houses?
Denmark’s mortgage bonds have never defaulted – in 215 years. Rachel Fixsen reports on why questions are suddenly being asked
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Features
Swiss funds welcome minimum exchange rate
The recent falls in equity and bond markets – added to the losses from foreign exchange risks – have caused Swiss pension funds to shiver in recent months. But the decision taken by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on 6 September to set a minimum exchange rate of CHF1.20 to ...
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Features
Mariska van der Westen: Just who can you trust?
In the Netherlands, as elsewhere, the trustee model has come under intense scrutiny after the credit crisis. Dutch pension funds lost €120bn in 2008, €20bn of which can be chalked up to poor execution, the so-called ‘implementation shortfall’. Studies have found that trustee boards often lack the knowledge and expertise ...
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Features
ATP judges NOW is the time to enter the UK
ATP’s confirmation that it will be moving into the UK pension market was not, in itself, surprising. As anticipated, Morten Nilsson – now both head of ATP’s international operations and the chief executive-elect for its UK entity NOW Pensions – announced that the defined contribution (DC) scheme’s assets would be ...
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Features
Martin Steward: Trigger unhappy
When does a tactical loosening of a strategy become a panic? And when does panic start to undermine the strategy itself? If your strategy is liability-driven investing (LDI), you might well ask. It wasn’t long ago that plummeting yields were trumpeted as the vindication of LDI. At the end of 2009, celebrating the sixth anniversary of the pioneering Friends Provident Pension Scheme/Merrill Lynch transaction, Redington observed that UK 30-year real yields had fallen 126bps in that time. Around the same time Lane Clark and Peacock compared the 10% loss on the average FTSE100 pension scheme’s assets with the 3% gain on Friends Provident’s during 2008.
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Features
Liam Kennedy: Two paths, not irreconcilable
Two books landed on my desk in September – one on the subject of good pension governance, the other on retirement income.
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Features
Greek myths
Unless you managed to enjoy a proper holiday this summer, you cannot fail to have missed the rumbling Greek debt crisis. Hans Hoogervorst’s summer holiday seems to have been neatly bookended on 4 August by a letter written in his capacity as IASB chairman to Steve Maijoor, head of the European Securities and Markets Authority, and the publication of that letter on 31 August. Europe’s banks, it seems, might not have been observing the spirit of IAS 39’s impairment methodology.
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Features
No Greek tragedy
Well, things didn’t get much better in the markets after our long family drive back from the Italian Riviera to The Hague in August – volatility continued on the markets and it became clear that when it comes to the euro, plan ‘A’ isn’t up to much and plan ‘B’ doesn’t exist.
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Features
Ukraine’s stock exchanges pepare for rationalisation
Iain Morse explains why the former member of the Soviet bloc has such a complicated system and why it is difficult to change
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Features
Fear, extremes and the euro
August was not all bad: 79.5% of respondents to the Off The Record survey stated that core government bonds had performed well; gold/precious metals (24% of respondents), currency exposures (20.5%) and global macro funds or other hedge funds (17%) also turned up trumps. But of course, that tells its own story: August was all about fear, extremes – and the euro.
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Features
Measuring pension fund costs
Gail Moss gives practical advice to trustee boards looking to manage investment fees and other costs
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Features
Dark clouds from Europe
Hans Walter Scheurer discusses the recent European discussions on an appropriate European solvency regime for capital-backed occupational retirement provision
