All Features articles – Page 268
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Features
New fashion balanced
The progressive move by pension funds from balanced to specialist management has been one of the dominant trends in the asset management industry over the past 10 years. The process, which began in the US, has extended to Europe and now seems irreversible. The main reason for the move is ...
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Features
The point where risk becomes too risky
The investment landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years, forcing pension schemes to look at their long-term investment strategies in a different light. What may be surprising, however, is that performance does not have to play the sacrificial lamb in this changing environment. Fixed-income mandates and liability-matching solutions ...
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Features
Look hard before changing
Put in an executive nutshell, the revised IAS19 should have little, if any, noticeable effect upon the asset allocation in German pension plans. However, asset allocation is changing and will continue to change in response to a number of inter-related developments. Asset allocation is driven initially by market movements, namely ...
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Features
Now for the difficult bit
The Pension Fund Directive must be implemented in EU national laws by 23 September 2005. Its gestation was tortured and long – about 12 years – reflecting the considerable difficulties involved in obtaining agreement on the scope: what was included, and, equally significantly, what was not. The directive deals with ...
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Features
Risk budgeting takes centre stage
How does ‘new balanced’ asset management work in practice? Allianz Global Investors’ (AGI) product Global Vision provides one example. Global Vision is the brainchild of Lee Thomas, a managing director of PIMCO and the head of its international portfolio. Thomas got the idea when PIMCO, 70% owned by Allianz, absorbed ...
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Features
Managing in a cold climate
For Theo Jeurissen, investment manager of the e22bn Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek (the Dutch metalworking and mechanical engineering sector pension fund), the two newest issues are: how to deal with the rule changes requiring pension fund valuations to use market rates when valuing a portfolio rather than a fixed 4% ...
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Features
Consultants' perspectives
For most consultants in Europe today, there is little use beginning a conversation on asset allocation by talking about pure alpha. Liabilities are the ship and alpha merely the wind which takes it to the longed-for destination. Consultants are spending more time explaining the nature of that ship to the ...
