All Features articles – Page 309
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Features
Europe needs you!
The problem facing European pension systems was articulated in surprisingly stark terms by a senior official at the European Commission at a meeting in Brussels recently. The issue was not couched in the regular Brussels-speak – indeed, it would be hard to have been more explicit. “We need more people,” ...
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Features
Europe still a runner
After a strong and sustained recovery in Euro-zone equities that started last year, asset managers are now asking how long has the recovery yet to run. The answer will depend to some extent on valuations. Are Euro-zone stocks still fairly valued or has the recovery made them too expensive? Catherine ...
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Features
How the good times returned to Europe
Comparing performance returns between pension funds in different European countries is by no means an exact science. Indeed, comparing pension fund returns between two performance measurers in the same European country can be equally imprecise. Take Switzerland for example. Publishing its 2003 universe figures, performance measurement firm InterSec recorded that ...
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Features
Feathering their own nests?
Germany’s 603 Abgeordneten (members of parliament or MdBs) preside over a nation dejected at the prospect of the gradual erosion of their statutory pension system. Some observers suggest that the generosity of the MdBs’ pension scheme simply adds insult to injury. Currently the monthly salary for an MdB is E7,009. ...
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Features
Making global footprints
ABN AMRO prides itself of being “pretty global” on the asset management side, says global chief investment officer Andrew Fleming. “We have asset management offices in 30 locations worldwide, with money being managed in 22 of these,” he points out. “Few other asset managers are as genuinely global as we ...
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Features
French warm to new plans
When France underwent its major pension reforms last year, all eyes were on the big issue of public sector change - the hurdle on which French governments had stumbled badly in the past. That the government finally won its battle for actuarial equivalence between public and private sector pensions with ...
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Features
Liquidity and risk transfer
Is there – in reality – something that can be called a hedge fund with defining characteristics? If so do they apply to everything that are now called hedge funds? Hedge fund activities are very broad. They have characteristics that are defining such as they sell securities short as well ...
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Features
Pensions wait in West Wing
Alan Greenspan is not just the Federal Reserve chairman. He’s become a Washington wise man whose influence extends far beyond monetary policy. So it took his congressional testimony at the end of February to remind all American politicians that social security urgently needs to be fixed. Up to that point, ...
