All Features articles – Page 235
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Features
More coming custodians' way
The new regulatory framework for the Dutch market, Financieel Toetsingskader (nFTK), has provided a rich seam of business for Kas Bank, the Dutch custody, clearing and settlement specialist. In the first half of 2005 to 30 June, the bank recorded a 30% rise in net profit to €9m, while total ...
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Features
More to communication than links
Consensus is growing both within and outside of the pension world that clearness and transparency about complex pension schemes is needed. Yet the quality of communication between funds and participants and pensioners is often criticised. Have pension funds and insurers not yet found the best way to communicate, or is ...
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Features
Complex and difficult scene
Despite its under-developed second and third pillar pensions market, Spain is an attractive and competitive market for global custodians. With the European Commission in February urging the Spanish government to embrace pension reform “more vigorously”, there is plenty of scope for growth. Some attempts at reform have been made. The ...
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Features
Working compromise
The Finnish government is the envy of its European counterparts when it comes to the pensions issue. Old age pensions have a minimal impact on Finland’s fiscal situation as no public money goes towards them, the budget only being called upon to provide a basic state pension for those with ...
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Features
Conference illuminates property index
PREA chairman Stephen Furnary opened the combined 2005 Pension Real Estate Association and National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries conference by telling his audience how the event would give them a better understanding of the NCREIF Property Index. He said: “The index allows us to do a better job ...
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Features
Correlations: how will they move?
In the 20th century, we have observed three periods of decoupling between bond prices and equity prices; once during the 1930s, once in the early 1960s and lastly a period that started at the end of the 1990s. Computing these correlations using daily, weekly or annual returns and over different ...
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Features
More than just cosmetic
The main focus of those responsible for pensions of Bayer’s 93,000 employees worldwide has been the move from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC). “This year we have concluded the process with the completion of the move of our US employees to the DC system,” says Lutz Cardinal von ...
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Features
When markets turn from crisis
On 23 December 2001, the Argentinean government stopped servicing its debt. It was not the first time Argentina has defaulted – there have been four other occasions since the 1820s. It certainly was not the first default among emerging market sovereigns – Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Ecuador, Russia and Indonesia have ...
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Features
Done deals in London
The property deal-flow in London continues unabated with a number of funds and property companies reporting successful completions. Insight foundation property trust has acquired National Magazine House at 72 Broadwick Street, W1 from Shaftesbury plc for £45m (€66.5m). The price reflects a net initial yield of 5.29%. The property is ...
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Features
Delaying the inevitable?
Under the current actuarial rulings (APP), pension funds are allowed to use interest rates up to a maximum of 4% to discount liability streams. This has to be done in a prudent fashion. Specifically the words ‘maximum’ and ‘prudent’ seem to be ignored quite regularly, as it is almost a ...
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Features
Unicredito dips its toe
Unicredito Italiano Fondo Pensione Per Il Personale Delle Aziende Del Gruppo is the pension fund of the Unicredito international banking group. The company is the result of a merger between the Banco Unicredito, which is over a hundred years old, Credito Italiano, the German HIB bank and Bank Austria. The ...
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Features
Don't write Germany off
Speaking in Brussels in June, former German junior finance minister and World Bank managing director Caio Koch-Weser, admitted that the dream of bringing the financial centre of Europe to the economic centre was still just that. “Germany as a financial services location ‘Finanzstandort Deutschland’ is…still a long way from having ...
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Features
Innovation drives success
How does one manage an €18bn pension fund with only three staff? Most people would say the three staff have to work very hard. While that is correct, one then asks, how this fund manages to rank amonge the best returns within the industry with a strong funding position? The ...
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Features
A new practical instrument for duration management
Over the last two years an enormous amount of papers, articles and views have been produced, ever since the plans for the new Dutch financial risk framework (nFTK) for pension funds were revealed. They have focussed on every imaginable aspect of the proposed new framework, from asset and liability management, ...
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Features
Unleashing Dutch dynamism
Unlike the Dutch landscape, private equity activity in the Netherlands has been anything but flat. According to the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA), in 2004 the level of investment in Dutch private equity and venture capital rose significantly. This is confirmed by Tjarda Molenaar, director of the Netherlands National Association ...
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Features
Earmarked for early retirement
The new Dutch ‘levensloop’, the new life course, scheme - designed to encourage later retirement - will probably have to be adjusted within five years. Too many workers want to use it for early retirement, instead of a sabbatical or care leave. Benne van Popta, chairman of the Association of ...
