All Features articles – Page 321
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Features
Balancing benefits and contributions
Since 2002, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was replaced by the union of Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics are replacing federal law such as pensions with republican legislation. With the two republics using different currencies – Serbia retains the dinar while Montenegro adopted the euro – a unified ...
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Features
Reforming zeal of a big-picture man
If there is such a thing as a European pensions ‘time bomb’, then Frits Bolkestein, member of the European Commission responsible for Internal Market, Taxation and Customs Union, is one of the individuals most likely to help defuse it. This year’s IPE Award for Outstanding Industry Contribution goes not just ...
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Features
Putting currency in the blend
We believe a sound investment approach for enhanced cash and short duration portfolios is through diversifying portfolios across global fixed income and currency asset classes. We view cash management in terms of actively managing along a risk spectrum, defined by the duration of the portfolio and the allocation to various ...
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Features
Money market funds come in from the cold
The only sure-fire success for a fund promoter in recent times has been to offer investors some form of safe haven. Anything that has provided the promise of low volatility and a return of the invested principal has found a willing buyer. Money market funds have been one such success. ...
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Features
Coming out of the woods
It is cold in Stockholm but asset managers are happy. The market recovery has translated into new mandates for some Swedish houses, with the rest contenting themselves with the fact that the worst is probably over. At a safe distance from the downturn, managers say it had its benefits. The ...
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Features
Committed to flexibility and customised pensions
Still the largest pension fund in the Netherlands, with over a million active members, 700,000 inactive members and 700,000 pensioners, ABP is the self-administered occupational pension scheme for the Dutch public sector. Aside from pensions, it offers disability and death benefits for survivors and dependants. ABP’s long-standing defined benefit structure ...
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Features
Confidence index rises
Institutional investors’ confidence rose in October, according to a new State Street index. “The October index shows investor confidence rose 1.7 points to 104.2 from a revised September level of 102.5,” says State Street. It added that the increase continues the trend seen throughout much of 2003. Confidence was at ...
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Features
Consolidating platforms
Industry utilities have a reputation for procrastination and entropy, but over the past five years Euroclear, the Brussels-based international depository, has displayed an admirable determination to seize the initiative and, even more unusually, to bite the bullet when it comes to making tough choices. The merger between fellow ICSD Cedel ...
