All Features articles – Page 256
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Features
The eternal triangle
The pension problem is simple: a question of assets, liabilities and the difference between them - an asset or liability. Risk is mostly simply and generally defined as the rate of change of an object. The rate of change of an asset’s value, its risk, we know by the term ...
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Features
Lessons for Europe
In 1981 Chile adopted a new pension system that has set a controversial pattern around the world. Unlike traditional systems, benefits are financed by investment accounts owned by workers. Chileans are sensitive about the starting point of their system, under Pinochet. But they do not worry about whether their system ...
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Features
Europe following US example
There has been huge growth in the demand for currency management over the last two years, managers report. Institutional investors are seeking both to reduce the risk of foreign exchange fluctuations while at the same time making the most of the opportunities for profit. Currency can be managed through a ...
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Features
Mercer expanding multi-manager service
International consultant Mercer says plans are “well under way” to expand its new multi-management service into the UK, Ireland and continental Europe following its US launch. The new business will use research into asset managers from Mercer Investment Consulting. Mercer says its Mercer Global Investments arm has now formally launched ...
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Features
Are one-stop shops feasible?
Firms that offer multi-management investment services can save pension funds a great deal of administrative hassle – they provide the client with a layer of diversification without them having to deal with a large number of individual fund managers. And some multi-managers in Europe are now going a step further. ...
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Features
Show me the money flows
In just a few years, the business of institutional investment research has gone through seismic shifts. These shifts have been prompted in part by the exposure of tainted recommendations and conflicts of interest among research analysts on both sides of the Atlantic. In some cases, analysts were not only expected ...
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Features
Freeing up managers
Pension funds are increasingly considering investing in currency hedge funds instead of using a currency overlay programme. Emmanuel Acar, head of London Risk Management Advisory at Bank of America, says this is one of the trends emerging in the currency management sphere. “Pension funds are now considering allocating to currency ...
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Features
French take notice at last
Private equity is relatively undeveloped as an investment by French pension funds. Until now, the pressures against private equity have worked both against the sector itself and the investor. Jane Welsh, senior investment consultant at Watson Wyatt says: “Opportunities to invest in private equity in France have been limited. The ...
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Features
Fund with know-how
The way corporate pension funds are managed will change with changes in the corporations that sponsor them. Few organisations demonstrate this better than DSM Pensions Services (DPS), the in-house organisation that manages the Dutch pension funds of the Dutch firm DSM, the former Dutch state mines. The company was once ...
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Features
Risk, return and pension funds
When it comes to economic policy, there is much to criticise about the centre-left government of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Despite an unemployment rate not seen since the 1930s – namely around 5m – Schröder’s government is still not doing enough to make Germany’s labour market more flexible. Schröder’s government ...
