All Features articles – Page 313
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Features
Keeping on top of technology
Most pension funds acknowledge the importance of technology to their business, whether they install applications in-house or outsource their requirements. However, technology is not a one-time decision like choosing an office or organisational logo. The questions then arise of how often a fund should review its technology, how it should ...
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Features
Nexans linked 'by principles'
Just over a century since the creation of the Société Française des Câbles Électriques (1897), a pioneer in the world of electric cables, the firm began the 21st century in a new incarnation as Nexans, following a spin off from the Alcatel group (where it was the Alcatel Cable arm) ...
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Features
Moving in tandem
Over the last business cycle, the Euro-zone performed better than the US in those areas that drive the return on capital, notably productivity. Although Euro-zone GDP growth is likely to remain far lower than US growth, Euro-zone asset returns are likely to be as high, if not higher, than in ...
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Features
Widening perspectives
French asset managers are in no doubt about what will be the most important event in institutional asset management in France this year – the eagerly-awaited award of mandates by the Fonds de Reserve Pour Les Retraites (FRR), the country’s new pension reserve fund. The final selection of managers for ...
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Features
Re-engineering of plans under way
How is it possible to cut pension costs yet at the same time to remain attractive to employees? This is the conundrum faced by American employers. There is no ‘sure’ answer. What is certain is that the great majority of US pension fund sponsors are changing their benefit strategy. According ...
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Features
Securitisation powers on
Securitisation may be one of the newer forms of debt financing in the capital markets across the world but it is certainly one of the fastest growing across the world. The most mature and developed of the markets, in the US is only a couple of decades old but it ...
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Features
Simplification, protection and uncertainty
Last year was a year of consultation in the UK. As part of the government’s strategy to encourage retirement savings and restore confidence in pensions in the UK, both the Inland Revenue and the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) are undertaking simplification reviews. The Revenue published in the autumn ...
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Features
Warming up the punters
People climb mountains because they are there, but will German retirement savings funds use hedge funds just because a law makes it easier? For most institutional investors the idea of hedge funds is more interesting than actually using them at the moment. This is partly because the ability to invest ...
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Features
Ready for a shake-out
In the world of equities, much of the complexity of risk assessment and management has been simplified through the development of capitalisation-weighted indices and the spectacular growth of indexed funds on the back of this. At first sight, it appears a straightforward extension to apply the same approach to the ...
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Features
Setting the standard
ATP stands for supplementary labour market pension scheme in Danish and that’s exactly what it set out to provide 40 years ago this year. It started out firmly in the second pillar by providing benefits for those in employment, with others, such as the unemployed, excluded, explains Bjarne Graven Larsen, ...
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Features
Turning on the taps
‘How to tackle Germany’ occupied much conversational space at recent conferences. The Investment Act and the Investment Tax Act, which came into force on 1 January this year, brought hedge funds onshore for the first time, enabling an investor base already familiar with hedge fund index certificates to have direct ...
