All Features articles – Page 71
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Features
Assessing AIFMD
Kai Braun considers the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and finds that operating models have stabilised
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Features
Asset Allocation: The big picture
The US Federal Reserve’s decision in September not to hike rates, along with its comments about soft inflation trends and global developments, surprised the markets with its dovishness. However, although rates fell across the curve and the dollar weakened, equities and other risk assets have not taken much solace from these easier financial conditions.
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Features
Asset owners in Paris
Next month world leaders will gather in Paris to discuss the future of the planet. It might be a sweeping generalisation to view the UN Climate Change Conference as such a crucial event, but the summit marks the first time since 2009 that governments stand a chance of concluding a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
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Features
Focus Group: General belief in FX hedging
Three-quarters of the investors surveyed for this month’s Focus Group hedge some of their foreign exchange (FX) risk, while just one fund hedges it all. This is a similar proportion to when investors were last polled in April 2013 (81% in 2015 compared with 78% in 2013).
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Features
German Discount Rates: Biases in pension discounting
In common with many countries, falling interest rates have hit German companies and pension funds significantly by increasing their discounted liabilities.
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Features
High-Yield Bonds: Uncharted waters
Is the sell-off in high-yield bonds an indicator of broader weakness, or an opportunity for contrarians to pick up yield?
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Features
Resist the bubble temptation
It is a safe bet that another financial crisis will be along soon. No doubt that is not something that investment and pensions professionals want to dwell on but it needs to be faced.
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Features
Capital Markets Union: A single market for capital
Pledging to “knock down barriers” and let capital flow freely across the European Union, Jonathan Hill, commissioner for financial stability, announced in September how he would achieve the European Commission’s pledge for a Capital Markets Union (CMU).
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Features
UK Local Government Pension Scheme: The only certainty is change
After years of uncertainty, UK chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne has signalled his desire for radical structural change among the UK’s local authority pension funds.
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Features
Finland: Funds defend investment stance
Finnish pension funds Valtion Eläkerahasto (VER) and Ilmarinen have defended their levels of investment in the local economy in the face of concerns that Finnish institutions are becoming less able to invest in domestic equities.
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Independent spirit
My friends at BIG Asset Management are here for one of their regular client visits. At Wasserdicht we don’t do lunches and the format is the traditional Dutch one, with rolls and buttermilk.
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FeaturesFrom our perspective: Numerical expectations
What’s in a number? Quite a lot can rest on the choice of a single figure when it represents a pension fund’s long-term return assumptions. Much rides on these assumptions, which affect current and future contribution rates. There is a great deal to lose if the balance between current and future generations gets out of kilter.
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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
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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
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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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
Pensions Accounting: A five-year plan
It’s that time again. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has just launched a public consultation on its work plan for the next three years
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Features
Demographics: Global Growth - Doldrums ahead
Niels Jensen argues that an ageing population and lower productivity are the biggest threats to global economic growth
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Features
Ahead of the Curve: Brands and the city
Doreen Wang says financial analysts should give a company’s brand a bigger line item in investment valuations
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Features
Asset Allocation: The big picture
Another summer passes with huge market moves and chaotic trading days. China’s stock markets ‘wobbles’ are still ongoing, and while emerging markets – especially in Asia – are still being sorely buffeted, more developed markets have attained some degree of calm.
