All Features articles – Page 248
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Features
The Dutch revolution
“The Dutch pensions industry had come from being a virtually unknown pension power 10 years ago, to being the global pension revolution leader today,” said Keith Ambachtsheer, academic and strategic adviser to pension plans. Ambachtsheer, who runs KPA Advisory Services in Toronto, was one of the high profile speakers to ...
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Features
Huge leap of faith needed
France’s new retirement savings scheme came under scrutiny at a conference organised by AFPEN, the French Pension Funds Association, in Paris recently. The Forum de l’Épargne Retraite saw concern that France’s two new retirement savings vehicles - one for the individual, the PERE, and one for collective company arrangements, the ...
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Features
Totting up the fees
Is a multi-manager arrangement good value when compared with more traditional forms of institutional management?
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Features
Fighting the good fight
“Whatever happens we must not lose,” this may seem a battle cry from a general rallying his men in an historical battle. Instead it was uttered in the less eventful occasion of an interview, and it applies to the Italian pension scenario – perhaps not a far cry from a ...
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Features
French reforms at work
Two reforms are at work in France. The retirement reform law of August 2003 aims to secure the sustainability of the French retirement system by giving everyone the opportunity to build his own pension by way of specific retirement savings provisions. This law is complemented by the draft law implementing ...
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Features
MAN to fund liabilities
German engineering giant MAN Group has confirmed plans to remove e1.72bn in pension liabilities from its balance sheet and finance them via an external fund. A spokesman for MAN said the move, to happen in phases, was linked to the overall trend among big German companies to switch to international ...
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Features
Looking into the futures
The returns of commodities futures are negatively correlated with stocks and bonds. Commodity futures provide diversification at times when stocks are performing at their worst. Commodity features have a positive correlation with inflation. These enticing characteristics are the conclusion of a study* by Gary Gorton, of the University of Pennsylvania’s ...
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Features
Tougher times in giving market
UK charities have enjoyed bumper returns on their investments over the past year. The average charity fund achieved a total return of 13%, according to preliminary results for the latest Charity Fund survey from WM Performance Services. However, the gains are largely caused by the strong market rally in the ...
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Features
Steady as she goes in the Midwest
The investment market in North America was nothing less than astounding in 2004 and a competitive buying environment combined with low interest rates has fuelled that trend in 2005 so far. Foreign investors have always had the US on their radar screens, but the investment environment in recent years has ...
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Features
Going for the middle ground
For years, a typical allocation of 70% equities and 30% fixed income delivered double-digit equity returns. However, the fall in equity returns seen over the last five years has pushed many pension funds into deficit. Pension funds can continue allocating 70% to equities and hope that they recover sufficiently to ...
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Features
Still scratching heads
Currently, there is some concern that member states will not meet the September deadline for implementing the IORP directives. However Ivo van Es, the European Commission official in charge of the implementation of the directive, has said that the EC expects all 26 member states to fulfil their obligations. So ...
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Features
Linkers and inflation outlook
Not viewed as the most exciting of assets for many years, index linked bonds seem to be undergoing something of a renaissance these days. While performance might have dropped off somewhat this year, during 2003 and 2004 most index linked bonds outshone their conventional, nominal bond peers. “Though we are ...
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Features
Too much information
There is no doubt that running a global equity portfolio is a macho activity that any red-blooded CIO would like to put their name to. It is also a good fallback in the event that a merger takes place and the loser in the battle for CIO has to be ...
