All Features articles – Page 269
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Features
Continental investors hold their course
European institutional investors are taking strong measures to address solvency concerns and improve investment performance, as evidenced by their widespread adoption of new investment approaches and unprecedented levels of turnover of external asset managers. Despite these newly aggressive tactics, however, Greenwich research suggests that many institutions are hesitating in adopting ...
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Features
Practical implications of using derivatives
Practical implications of trading derivatives can make pension funds reluctant to implement a derivatives program. Outsourcing has benefits but could be in conflict with upcoming governance rules. An in-house derivative program is cost effective, transparent and not as difficult as it may seem. An attempt to demystify derivative implications. In ...
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Features
Smoothing over the differences
Since the beginning of this year all companies listed on stock exchanges within the EU have been required to prepare their consolidated financial statements in accordance with the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Companies listed on exchanges outside the EU have a further year before the requirement applies to ...
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Features
Prepensions refuse to lie down
The trade unions, in particular FNV and CNV, in cooperation with the employer’s organisations, such as the VNO-NCW and MKB, have stopped the current Dutch liberal-Christian Democrat government from totally overhauling the pension sector. Nonetheless, further changes are due to come in the coming months. The Museumplein-agreement between social partners ...
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Features
Dress rehearsal for Europe's pensions
As a centre for servicing investment funds, Ireland –or more precisely the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin – has been growing at a rapid rate. In the past year, according to London-based funds industry analyst Fitzrovia International, domiciled net assets in the Irish funds industry grew by more than ...
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Features
The new role for equities in a liability driven world
One of the major changes in pension fund investing in the last twenty years has been the growth in use of equities and benchmarks to measure their performance. In an inflationary context, bonds were a poor match, and with pensions linked to growth in earnings, equities came into fashion as ...
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Features
Working until you drop
The touchy subject of retirement age. Should people be compelled to retire at a certain age, and what age should that be? Many European states and employers impose official or mandatory retirement ages at which employees are expected to retire. However, these age limits were set at times when life ...
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Features
Equity duration - how viable?
[This article is more than 15 years old. For a more recent IPE article about equity duration please click here or see our equity asset class reports] Whether the concept ‘equity duration’ is useful has been a topic of debate for several decades and there is still no consensus on ...
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Features
Duration extension - to do or not to do?
The Dutch pension-funds regulator has issued a new consultation document in October 2004. This contains provisions which will form the basis of financial regulation from 2006, when the new Dutch Pensions Act comes into force. The new regulatory framework (Financieel Toetsingskader, or FTK in Dutch) will consist of a solvency ...
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Features
Reserve fund takes first steps
The National Pensions Reserve Fund was set up in 2002 to act as a cushion against some of the expected growth in future liabilities of Ireland’s state and civil service pension arrangements. Its purpose is to act as a demographic equalisation fund, helping to redress potential underfunding which may arise ...
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Features
NIB takes full ownership of FundPartners
NIB Capital, ABP and PGGM’s jointly owned merchant banking venture, is to acquire full ownership of its asset-structuring arm FundPartners. Hague-based NIB Capital currently owns 50.1% of FundPartners, which provides asset structuring and custody monitoring services to the Netherlands and Benelux pensions industry. NIB Capital bought a majority stake in ...
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Features
SSGA launches pooled fund liability matching for schemes
State Street Global Advisors has launched a flexible pooled vehicle, which lets schemes match future liabilities within different inflation environments. SSGA said its new ‘Pooled Asset Liability Matching Solution’ (PALMS) “enables pension funds to match their projected future liabilities within different inflation environments using a flexible and cost-effective pooled vehicle”. ...
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Features
Tsunami support fund launched
Pension funds are founded for one sole purpose – to make sure workers get a decent pension when they retire. So it came as a bit of a surprise when two of Europe’s biggest pension funds, ABP and PGGM, announced they were setting up a support fund for the elderly ...
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Features
Irish funds venture shy
Since the go-go eighties, Ireland has been punching above its weight in cultivating a profile as a home of technological innovation. In 2003, private equity funds invested in Ireland totalled e255m. This represented 0.194% of the country’s GDP, and one of the highest percentages in Europe, higher than Germany, Belgium ...
