All Features articles – Page 252
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Features
Politicians play hardball
According to the government official statistics, the ratio of people 65 years old and over in Japan would double from 17.3% in 2000 to 35.7% in 2050. Without substantial reforms, social security pensions would be unsustainable in this century, so the pension reform is currently the biggest political and economical ...
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Features
A match made in heaven
In the aftermath of the bursting of the internet bubble, pension funds were forced to cope with an extremely unfavourable environment. Stock markets were plunging and interest rates were falling to historically low levels. Pension funds in general, and European pension funds in particular, have therefore seen the gap between ...
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Features
Joined-up thinking
Robin Ellison, the incoming chairman of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), may not be the first UK pension person to lose their bearings in Brussels. But he’s almost certainly the only one to actually get completely lost in the Belgian countryside. It occurred when he was en route ...
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Features
Lattelekom: one of a kind
First Closed Pension Fund, the pension fund for telecoms and electricity supply workers in Latvia, is the only registered pension fund in the country where the employers are also the pension fund’s shareholders. One of the legal requirements of the Latvia’s reformed pension system is that companies that wish to ...
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Features
Pensions in a nutshell
Oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell is running a feasibility study on the possibilities of merging its worldwide pension asset and investment advice departments. According to Shell spokesman Henk Bonder the initial focus is on combining the asset and investment advice departments of its UK and Dutch pension funds. This does not ...
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Features
Pioneers can pay a price
Sweden is known for its pioneering approach to pension provision. It introduced member choice of investment in its state Premium Pension defined contribution pension scheme, and make asset and liability modelling obligatory for its Allmänna Pensionsfonden (AP), the funds that back the government’s pay-as-you-go scheme. Such innovations depend upon modern ...
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Features
Risk-controlled repos
With repos, or securities repurchase agreements, many larger pension funds can lend directly, dispensing with the expense of money market fund manager fees altogether. The problem of dealing with the collateral exchanged in the repos process can be a hurdle, but this can be outsourced, says Bank of New York ...
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Features
Residual or strategic?
Large amounts of pension fund cash are held in current accounts: it is estimated that 40% of all cash is held this way. But money market fund providers say there is a better way. Putting the cash in funds not only generates better returns, but also improves credit security. Money ...
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Features
Use risk wisely
The belief that risk management means merely minimising or eliminating investment risk has few followers today. It is now widely accepted that investment risk is necessary to drive returns, and that it is the function of risk management to enable the asset manager to maximise the use of risk to ...
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Features
The turning of the screw
Would you be willing to lock up investments for your grandchildren to use in 50 years time if the return was going to be fixed at 4.21% annually for the total period? The answer for most people would be obviously no. Yet the French treasury issued e6bn of 50 year ...
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Features
ABS market forges ahead
Europe’s asset backed market enjoyed pretty good health in 2004 – fewer downgrades than upgrades, hardly any defaults, and narrowed spreads. And, says Denis Badalucco, manager of HSBC Asset Management’s Asset Backed Securities (ABS) funds, liquidity also improved over the course of the year. “For our money market asset backed ...
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Features
Trend to direct accounts
A clear trend emerges from the research by SüdProjekt that directly held portfolios as used in Anglo Saxon markets by investors will become more frequent in 2005 in Germany. Just over half of investors surveyed covering 45 institutions with assets over E700bn, will allocate more assets here, almost 30% significantly ...
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Features
Looking after your family's financial health
The past five years have proved to be a bit of a learning curve for investors, who have been confronted with the true nature of the risk involved in investment management. High-net-worth families have been no exception and the process of wealth management has evolved on several fronts. Alex Scott, ...
