All Features articles – Page 421
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Features
Euro assets under cloud
Inflationary pressures, stagnant interest rates and an ever weakening euro are keeping investors out of Europe, leading to a lack of consumer confidence and keeping the markets across Euroland on an ever downward spiral. “Inflation in particular is becoming more of a serious issue,” says Harald Sporleder, a European fund ...
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Features
S&P futures span Atlantic
Standard & Poor’s, in conjunction with two derivatives exchanges, announced the launch of futures and options on the S&P Europe 350 index and on three of its industry sectors. The three sectors are the financial, information technology and telecom services. Spanish futures and options exchange MEFF and the Chicago Mercantile ...
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Features
Avoid the real high risk zone
Benchmark. The very word sounds solid and reliable. Obsessive attention to tracking error, though, perpetuated by the more emotive term ‘benchmark risk’, leaves the underlying structure unscrutinised. So while there is a belief that a small tracking error provides safety, little thought is given to the risk associated with the ...
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Features
London 'back on front foot'
The London Stock Exchange, often seen to follow rather than lead, took rivals by surprise in May with the announcement of plans for its own listing, alongside the first signs of a real ‘European strategy’. Commenting on the announcement of the intention to list, Don Cruickshank, chairman of the exchange, ...
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Features
Complexity may hold back new plans' growth
The pension reform known as the ‘Riester package’ will be implemented with amendments to some 19 laws, and by introducing one new law for the certification of pension products for the third pillar. Most important is the introduction of a system of tax allowances and direct subsidies, which will be ...
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Features
Driven by 'Best Value'
Since Best Value came into force last year, UK local authorities (LAs) have been required to provide quality of services at the right price in all areas related to administration, functioning and investment strategies by putting into place clear standards of cost and quality, using the most efficient and effective ...
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Features
Europe's biggest LTCI market
Long-term care insurance (LTCI) is booming in France: the market has grown by almost 50% in the last 18 months. Everything is relative, of course, and total sales amount to just 750,000 policies sold, and that is over a 15-year period. Although LTCI policies have been around for a long ...
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Features
Consultants on the block
Consultants are getting a taste of their own medicine, in the form of a manager selection performance measurement scheme launched by the WM Company, the UK-based performance measurement and investment administration firm. But some consultants have chosen to put themselves in the spotlight, says Peter Warrington, executive director at WM, ...
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Features
EMAC's surprise boost for directive
There is light at the end of the seemingly perpetual European pensions directive tunnel. The unanimous vote of the European Monetary Affairs Committee (EMAC) on June 19 to adopt the Karas report on the occupational pensions directive, brings the possibility of a supporting vote by the European Parliament a decisive ...
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Features
Bringing life to Italy's post office
Erik Stattin is an unusual occupant of an executive’s chair in the traditional world of Italy’s postal service. But then Posteitaliane is less and less its traditional self with each mail delivery – witness its very successful life assurance operation Postevita, which he runs. Now pensions business is on his ...
