All Features articles – Page 355
-
Features
Costs driving flight from DB
Historically, defined benefit (DB) rather than defined contribution (DC) has been the commonest type of occupational pension in the UK. It is still the dominant plan type. The latest benefit design survey by consultant Watson Wyatt found that 58% of the occupational schemes surveyed were DB while only 23% were ...
-
Features
Independence day for managers?
In this month’s Off The Record we look at the issue of investment and independence. How much value do European pension fund managers and administrators place on the independence of their investment managers – and how much are they are prepared to pay for this? The question arises because many ...
-
Features
Last days of GSTPA
At the beginning of 2002 it was widely predicted that, come the following November, one of the securities industry’s more ambitious projects to streamline the transaction chain – involving a major step change in technology and processes – would have degenerated into farce. Well, sure enough, a debacle duly occurred, ...
-
Features
Directive keeps them guessing
When it comes down to multinational pension arrangements in Europe, and, more particularly, the endeavours of European legislators to find a solution to the issue of pan-European pensions, the strangest scenarios can often seem quite commonplace. And so it was at the 2002 IPE Multi Pensions conference in Amsterdam at ...
-
Features
Drag factors on recovery
With the continued threat of war in the Middle East hanging over the markets stalling a full-scale recovery, analysts agree that Europe’s equity markets still can’t find real stability, despite some relatively good trading recently and the ECB’s larger than expected 50 basis point interest rate cut. Many predict that ...
-
Features
European platform
State Street went into the Deutsche deal from a position of strength, according to its president and COO Ron Logue. “We won more business in 2002 than in any other year. All in all, wins exceeded business losses in a ratio of three to one. “Relative to the competition we ...
-
Features
Follow first principles
It is important to recognise that asset allocation is inherently a two-stage process. The first step should be to formulate a benchmark position, based on weighing the investor’s return desires against their tolerance for risk, be it in absolute terms or relative to a liability ‘benchmark’. Once the investment policy ...
-
Features
Off the floor
With the FTSE 100 index poised to push up through key resistance levels, sentiment in the London equities market has brightened. But strategists are not holding their breath. Share prices in the UK are unlikely to make any lasting upside progress just yet. The fact that prices have come off ...
-
Features
French savings plans' rapid progress
For the last two years, the concept of employee savings, such as saving plans or schemes for profit sharing, has received much publicity from the media. The potentially large volumes of assets available has attracted a number of new providers. For a company, the choice of a fund manager is ...
-
Features
Get to grips with hedge funds
‘More talk than action’ is a comment often made during discussions about hedge funds for European pension funds. In this article, I would like to present the perspective of a pension fund trustee on this topic. The conclusion will be, in short, that the debate about the use of hedge ...
-
Features
Gearing up for pensions
Asset management in the Baltic states is a mixed scene, ranging from investment funds and private pensions in Estonia and Latvia to negligible retail activity in Lithuania. In Lithuania, tax complications have so far prevented the establishment of local investment funds. Meanwhile the private pensions market will only start operating ...
-
Features
Get ready for replays
The European Central Bank may have cut interest rates five times in 2002, but the market opinion is that “it’s not over till Wim Duisenberg sings”. Over the 12 month period, the ECB slashed the interest rate by 2% – the last cut arriving in December – but market participants ...
-
Features
Good for the long term
Investors, disenchanted with equities and suffering low yields on government bonds, are turning to corporate bonds in droves to access the historically high yield premium on which they are currently trading. European investors, deprived of the returns they traditionally made from trading between the legacy currencies, have taken advantage of ...
-
Features
Making it happen
Ralph Vitale is the man with the mission of planning and implementing the integration of the Deutsche global securities services (GSS) business with State Street, where he is executive vice president, responsible for securities finance. “This is an enormously complex transaction, as it covers a lot of people in a ...
