All Features articles – Page 130
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Features
Regulation and ALM
Samuel Sender argues that IAS19 should tolerate funding volatility for DB obligations and that pension funds should improve internal risk models
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Features
A better approach to solvency
The Dutch regulator is using the wrong measure to assess pension liabilities, argue Piet Duffhues and Anton van Nunen. They offer a different approach
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Deficits raise questions over the future of Sweden’s AP funds
George Coats examines whether it is time to put politics aside and create one buffer fund that can provide for all generations and save money in the process
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More than a euro/dollar play?
This month’s Off The Record survey looked at pension funds attitudes towards currency management
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Get the message across
For many pension funds, communication with members has been a case of going through the motions and complying with minimum legal requirements. But enter a monumental financial crisis and good communication suddenly becomes of crucial important.
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Bitter medicine
Central banks are preparing to flood the market with paper on the one hand while ‘printing money’ to hoover it up on the other. Martin Steward asks what it means for bond yields, pension fund solvency and asset allocation over the coming months
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Bounty hunt
Many people assume that German pension fund asset allocation is a conservative game. But it is famously the exceptions that prove the rule.
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Diary of an Investor: Nimble and flexible
The Amsterdam rain is falling against the windows as we see a market rally on the computer screens. All good timing for the conference I am attending with the theme ‘What now for Pension Funds?’
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Features
Keep it simple
Private equity funds of funds are increasingly under fire. Not only do they reduce returns, but they do not minimise risks. Cyril Demaria questions the use of these costly intermediaries
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AMF bonuses become a toxic issue
The outrage sweeping Europe and North America at bonus payments and large pension pots awarded to executives of loss-making financial services entities is also reflected in Sweden. The highest profile victim is AMF, Sweden’s largest pension insurance company and one of its most trusted brands.
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Features
Time to rethink Irish benefits
Accrued benefits in defined benefit (DB) schemes have previously seemed off-limits for employers looking to cut costs. But with an estimated 90% of Irish DB schemes failing the minimum funding standard it may be time for a rethink.
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CEE funds air crisis challenges
The financial crisis and economic recession are taking their toll on the stability of the pension reforms, Chris Verhaegen, secretary general of European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP), told her organisation’s 24 March conference in Budapest on the private pension systems in central and eastern European countries.
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Features
Regulatory Risk
Wasserdicht Pensionskasse in Frankfurt invited me to talk to them about risk. ‘You can tell us what you think we should do and what you think best practice should be in terms of risk management. And we have asked an EU regulator to talk to us. You will like him’.
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Features
Undiminished allure
Last year’s equity market collapse made stocks look poor on a 10-year view against cash and bonds. But they remain the best way to get exposure to long-term economic growth. Lucy MacDonald makes the case for equities
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Greeks bearing gifts
Volatility is one of the best diversifiers money can buy, and yet few pension funds recognise it as an asset class. Martin Steward explores the possibilities
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A risky business
It’s no exaggeration to say that the parameters of investment risk and reward were thrown out in the final three months of 2008 following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, as markets plunged at a time when interest rates plummeted and investment correlations approached zero.
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Features
Coffee-break standard
For International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) chairman Sir David Tweedie, a short coffee break is also a chance to determine how businesses should present defined benefit (DB) pension costs in their financial statements.
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Features
Time is money
Gail Moss looks at German time-value accounts, which provide a model for flexible DC saving and early retirement provision
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Features
In the real world
Nina Röhrbein discusses indexation policy and inflation protection with Mariëtte Simons, director at the Utrecht-based Pensioenfonds SNS Reaal
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Governance: more questions than answers
At IPE’s Pension Fund Governance Forum last month, Karel Stroobants, independent trustee and former director of the Belgian Amonis fund, wanted to know why there was so little debate on how the guardians of $20-plus trillion in retirement wealth actually govern themselves.
