All Features articles – Page 70
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Features
Diary of an Investor: A different world
Last month I was over in London for a short business trip to visit some credit managers. Before I headed back to the airport I meet up with Thijs, a good friend of mine. Thijs recently moved from his role as CIO of one of the large industry funds in the Netherlands to a big corporate pension fund in the UK.
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Features
Focus Group: Future threats (and delights)
For one-quarter of respondents to this month’s Focus Group, the biggest credible threat to the global economy and financial markets in 2016 is the bursting of quantitative easing-fuelled asset price bubbles. “Inflationary effects can quite suddenly bring markets down, if confidence is lost,” says the CEO of a Dutch fund.
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Features
NAPF Conference: Out with the old, in with the new
The recent National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual conference in Manchester signalled significant change for the industry
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Features
Systemic challenges
Several asset managers and investors are raising concerns about liquidity in the public markets in 2016
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Features
Equity Earnings: Burning the furniture
Many companies with strong balance sheets are using that position to bolster weak income statements
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Features
Briefing: Time for TEE?
The UK government is mulling over a massive shake-up of pensions tax relief in a bid to incentivise retirement savings
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Features
Reject the behavioural myth
One of my hopes for 2016 is that awkward questions start to be asked about behavioural finance. Hardly an industry event went by this year without at least a passing positive reference to the approach
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Features
Auto-enrolment in Italy: An unlikely champion
Italy tried automatic enrolment in 2007 and it failed. Workers were given six months to decide whether their severance pay money, or TFR, should be kept on their company’s books or transferred to a second-pillar pension fund
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Features
Alternative Credit: Portfolio role for alternative credit
Alternative credit provides a breadth of diversity that can help investors create better risk-adjusted portfolios for outperformance in a tough market, writes Nimisha Srivastava
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Features
Asset Allocation: The big picture
Risk markets have regained their poise after the China-triggered summer sell-offs, the mood aided by Chinese interest rate easing and the prospect of more European liquidity. The oil price, having fluctuated, appears to be finding an equilibrium which, given its proxy as a barometer of risk, may signal a pick-up in risk appetite.
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Features
Asset Allocation: Ahead of the Curve - Sales drive private-equity alpha
A recent study of 450 realised private-equity deals finds that sales growth is a key component for alpha generation, according to Ian Roberts
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Features
Research: A new mindset for a new age
In the second article on a new pension survey, Pascal Blanque and Amin Rajan argue that it is harder to make rational decisions in this age of ultra-low rates
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Features
African Private Equity: The bright continent
Carolyn Campbell describes how Africa’s expanding middle class, rising GDP and government policies are fuelling opportunities for private equity
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Features
Pan-European Funds: DC across borders
Running a single pan-European pension scheme is an attractive idea for employers with staff in more than one country
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Features
Pensions Accounting: Is it enough?
The bid of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) to persuade the European Union to endorse International Financial Reporting Standard 9 (IFRS9) on financial instruments, remains controversial.
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Features
Q3 Returns: China volatility hits Europe’s funds
Volatile equity markets caused third-quarter losses for most of Europe’s pension funds, as fears over China’s economy spread.
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Features
Pensions and shareholders
It is remarkable but perhaps unsurprising how little attention institutional investors pay to the governance of the pension funds of investee companies.
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Features
Pensionsfonds: Still ironing out the kinks
The industry has welcomed a new proposal that could give German Pensionsfonds more flexibility, but some are disappointed it is not part of a broader reform.
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FeaturesHow we run our money: Nobel Foundation
Gustav Karner, CIO of the Nobel Foundation, explains how the eponymous awards are funded
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Features
The perils and promise of financial repression
In this first article in a series on a new survey, Pascal Blanqué and Amin Rajan argue that quantitative easing leaves pension plans at the wrong end of an arbitrary redistribution of wealth
