All Features articles – Page 593
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Features
Loans built into bond pricing
Competitive pressures can only increase the onus on pension fund managers to maximise returns, consistent with the security that trustees and pensioners require.One of the most important of these techniques is to access the repo or bond lending value inherent in portfolios. Bond lending can be a discretionary activity performed ...
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Features
New rules prompt Spezialfonds boom
Interest in Germany’s Spezialfonds is booming. Insurance companies and pension funds in the country almost doubled their investment in this type of fund last year, thanks in part to an obscurely worded change in investment regulations.In 1995 insurers invested DM15.8bn ($xxbn) of assets in Spezialfonds -a type of investment fund ...
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Features
Fidelity boosts DC
Fidelity Pensions Management Group has appointed Alex Weiland, as director with responsibility for sales and marketing. He has joined from Gartmore where he was head of defined contribution and product development and will be involved in developing the group’s defined contribution pensions business. He replaces David Calfo, who is leaving.
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Features
CCIM favours equities
In the past months, moderate world economic growth and a low inflation and interest rate environment have been propitious for an asset allocation favouring equities over bonds and cash. Although the times of monetary expansion are over and interest rates are trending higher, the rise is modest and will remain ...
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Features
Norway's parties clash on oil fund
The Norwegian election result could lead to a smaller portion of the country’s Petroleum Fund being invested in equity markets worldwide.The failure of Norway’s Labour party to achieve an overall majority has opened the way for several weeks of horse trading as parties try to form a workable coalition government. ...
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Features
Comparing plan values
Is it possible to compare different employers’ pension plans? Buck Consultants in Geneva certainly thinks so and has devised for the Swiss market a method of calculating a ‘technical value’ for each employer’s plan. The exercise was based on a database consisting mainly of internation-al companies operating in Switzerland.We have ...
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Features
Finding the right counterpart
The Register of International Securities Financing Counterparts is a central database, held and managed by Securities Finance International, containing profiles of many of the world’s major securities lending custodians, agents, intermediaries and proprietary borrowers. Selecting the right counterparts is a critical part of the securities lending process. Use of the ...
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Features
Croydon looks for whizz kids
The London Borough of Croydon is busy poring over replies from fund managers to its recent advertisement. The local authority invited expressions of interest” from fund management companies in managing their overseas equities investments. This may or may not result in a formal tender for the overseas equity mandate, the ...
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Features
New CSAM director
Credit Suisse Asset Management has announced the appointment of Richard Brumby as director, head of UK institutional funds. He was formerly with Schroder Investment Management where he managed institutional client portfolios. His role will be to develop institutional client service on the UK equity side. He will report to CSAM ...
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Features
LBSS extends custody services
Leading Swedish bank Nordbanken AB has appointed Lloyds Bank Securities Services (LBSS) to provide sub-custody services for its UK portfolio values at £110m ($175m). The portfolio was previously handled by Barclays Securities Services, but the arrangements were reviewed when Barclays was taken over by Morgan Stanley.LBSS has also been appointed ...
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Features
Italy: the future is DC
Italy’s first law regulating private pension plans was Law Decree 124/1993, issued on 21 April 1993. The most significant elements are that: only DC plans are allowed for employees (with only the self-employed being able to choose DB); strict limits are placed on the amount of tax-deductible contributions that can ...
