All Features articles – Page 203
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Features
Cross-border assets post record high
Cross-border mandate investments by US-based tax-exempt institutions reached a record high of $1.17trn (€920m) as of year-end 2005, according to InterSec Research’s most recent direct manager assets under management survey. InterSec Research analyses cross-border mandate investments by US-based tax-exempt institutions through our direct manager AUM survey and universe analytics reporting. ...
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Features
German association fears for corporate pensions
Boy-Jürgen Andresen, chairman of German occupational pensions association Aba, has warned that the further development of corporate pensions in Germany is in peril unless the government prolongs a social tax exemption for defined contribution schemes. The social tax exemption for the DC schemes, created by the Riester reforms of 2001, ...
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Features
German investors' gradual awakening
German pension funds are still trailing behind many of their European counterparts in terms of investing in alternatives. “Pension funds still have a very limited exposure to private equity, with an allocation of less than 1% of total pension fund assets,” says Christian Edelmann, senior project manager, Mercer Oliver Wyman ...
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Features
Dutch base 'superb' for management
The EU pension directive has opened the way for the Netherlands to become a superb operating base for asset management, says Dirk Witteveen, director of pensions regulator De Nederlandsche Bank. “The Netherlands have already a wide experience with the directive’s ‘prudent person’ approach of the investment rules. Pension fund are ...
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Features
Bulls vie with bears
Yield curve/duration While investors may have been just slightly sceptical about the eye-opening rise in the German Ifo index, taking it to a 15-year high, news that the European Commission composite index was also on the rise, up for the fifth consecutive month to its highest level for five years, ...
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Features
FTSE research chief Beckley departs for Record
FTSE Group’s research and development director Carl Beckley is leaving the index provider after almost eight years to join Record Currency Management. “We are in the process of looking for a replacement both internally and externally and will be making an announcement on any replacement in due course,” a FTSE ...
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Features
Benign conditions boost Irish schemes
Benign conditions, including higher bond yields and strong equity and property markets, have boosted the health of Irish defined benefit pension schemes in the first quarter, according to Mercer Investment Consulting. According to Mercer estimates, average funding ratios have improved by between 10% and 15% from the end of 2005 ...
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Features
Railpen/JP Morgan custody relationship hits the buffers
The Railways Pension Trustee Company, which runs the £17bn (€25bn) industry-wide pension scheme for the UK railways, has axed JP Morgan as a global custodian in favour of ABN Amro Mellon. It has retained the Bank of New York - opting to continue with its two-custodian model. “Following a detailed ...
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Features
Key to business cycles
The concept of business cycles is relatively modern phenomenon. In the 19th century business cycle were perceived as temporary economic crises. In the 20th century economists began to chart the regularity with which these crises occurred and to regard them as predictable rather than random. Different economic cycles have different ...
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Features
Swiss schemes call for rules to be relaxed
Swiss occupational pension funds want investment regulations relaxed, according to a survey by Swisscanto Asset Management. “A large number of the pension institutions are in favour of a relaxation of the investment regulations,” Swisscanto said. The survey was conducted in association with ASIP, the Association of Swiss Pension Funds. It ...
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Features
Carrot or stick choice
The reforms of Germany’s pension system (the fundamental pension reform in 2001 (‘Riester pension reform’) and the Pension Sustainability Act and the Retirement Income Act which became operative in 2005), with a reduction of the state benefit level and an increased focus on occupational and private pensions, were a operations ...
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Features
Challenges of running a pension fund in the Cypriot way
We are at the point where pension funds in Cyprus are trying to be move into a new era of more modern management under the European standards. It is a transition period from amateurism to more professional management of pension funds and that’s why the challenges of running such a ...
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Features
US managers face new challenges
“Never in 39 years in the industry have I known what our clients need more clearly than I do now,” says John Casey, chairman of Connecticut-based Casey, Quirk and Associates (CQA). “But how you do it is the question. We’re seeing a lot more urgency – the answers are not ...
