All Features articles – Page 71
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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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Assessing AIFMD
Kai Braun considers the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) and finds that operating models have stabilised
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Ahead of the Curve: ASEAN - the next emerging economy?
Andrew Graham asks whether the ambitious integration plan of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will unlock the region’s potential, or whether the complexity of the task will overwhelm any chance of success
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Pensions Accounting: Sometime, never… maybe?
On 31 July, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued an Accounting Standards Update (ASU) addressing three aspects of pension-plan accounting.
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Long-term views required
For institutional investors with long-term time horizons, equities make a lot of sense, particularly when bond markets appear to be in a government induced bubble
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FeaturesHow we run our money: Geroa Pentsioak
Ramón Nieto, CIO of Geroa Pentsioak, explains his fund’s success in achieving high returns
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Focus Group: Fixed in the mind
Some 44% (16 respondents) of the investors polled this month say that fixed income has become more important in their portfolio over the past five years. Ten of these say it has become much more important.
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FeaturesESG: Real green opportunities
How sustainable are real assets? Can property, accounting for one-fifth of carbon emissions, be green? And how future-proof are infrastructure assets? Jonathan Williams seeks answers
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Pulled in two directions
It is understandable that politicians covet institutional capital to help finance future economic growth
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Diary of an Investor: Ten years on
This month I celebrate 10 years as investment director of the Wasserdicht pension funds and it is heartening to receive warm congratulations from so many friends in the Netherlands and abroad.
