All Features articles – Page 83
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Features
Diary of an Investor: A happy median
A couple of weeks ago, my old friend Pim came over to the Wasserdicht offices in Utrecht to tell me about his new proposition. I’ve known Pim for many years and he has pitched to me many times, although each pitch has been from a different company.
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Features
Divergence trades, depression trades
“It’s one of our big themes,” said Kathleen Hughes, head of European institutional sales at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, talking about central bank policy divergence over meet-the-press drinks in early September, four hours after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi had taken the deposit rate further into negative territory and announced plans to purchase covered bonds and asset-backed securities. The euro had a terrible day; Goldman Sachs had a pretty good one.
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Features
DC plans in search of credibility
Worldwide, diversity increasingly characterises defined contribution (DC) schemes. There are employee-managed plans in Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. There are trustee-led plans in Australia, Brazil, Chile, continental Europe and South Africa. There are state-supervised DC plans in China, India, Malaysia and Singapore.
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Features
The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of costs
Controversies around pension funds’ asset management costs in various countries tell us something about the mood of the times, but they also suggest that changes are needed in the way pension boards select and justify their strategy choices to members and the wider world.
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Features
Focus Group: Contending with the ‘do-gooders’
Just over half of respondents polled for this month’s Focus Group said their fund has an overall ESG policy. Around the same number have an active engagement policy for corporate governance issues – and 21 have decided to exclude specific investment areas due to ESG considerations.
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Features
The big picture
ECB president Draghi is certainly making a name for himself with his market-jolting, memorable speeches. In 2012, his strident call that the euro would be saved “whatever it takes” marked, or arguably triggered, Europe’s move out of its crisis. In August, Draghi made a speech in Jackson Hole that surprised many with the nature some of its statements, in particular his opining on Europe’s fiscal policy.
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Features
Risk – beyond the numbers
Risk can always be reduced to a set of numbers. But trustees play an important role both in setting the right risk objectives and in interpreting the signals, writes Gail Moss
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Features
We’ve been here before
It looks like the International Accounting Standards Board has IAS19 in its sights once more, reports Stephen Bouvier
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Features
The UK regulator has got its teeth back
Champagne corks were popping back in August near the UK’s south coast when Brighton-based UK Pensions Regulator (TPR) ended a six-year legal battle with the insolvent Lehman Brothers.
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Features
Avoiding the trap
The decision by the IFRS interpretations committee to re-examine its asset-ceiling guidance should serve to focus minds once again on how defined-benefit plan sponsors can address the danger of a trapped surplus. Stephen Bouvier explores the issues with two experts from Aon Hewitt’s UK practices
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Features
No rush for auto enrolment
As part of their commitment to turn around their economies, Spain and Portugal have tackled pension issues, both by reducing expenditure and by taking the first steps towards making retirement systems fairer and more efficient.
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Features
Teenage years
Fiona Reynolds faced a protest storm soon after coming on board at PRI as executive director. Jonathan Williams caught up with her 18 months into her job
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Features
The shore will turn the ship
After five years of intense negotiations and acrimonious disputes, the Dutch have finally settled on a new financial framework (FTK), expected to take effect, at least in part, as of January 2015.
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Features
Risk-sharing professionals
Gail Moss compares how self-employed professionals are served by specialist collective DC pension funds in three European countries
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Features
Pension pot pitfalls
Like compulsory voting, compulsory pensions have not taken off to a great extent: Australia practices both, Switzerland has had mandatory supplementary pensions since the 1980s, and pensions are compulsory for most workers through collective labour agreements in the Netherlands.
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Features
Miracle redux?
Investors are hoping Mexico’s reforms spark another growth surge. As Christopher O’Dea reports, the best play may be in the local bond market
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Features
Russia in the limelight
With or without the situation in Ukraine, the shooting down of flight MH17 and international sanctions, the economic outlook for Russia is questionable. We asked two respected observers whether pension funds should pull out
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Features
No place like homes
Christophe Caspar looks into whether or not European housing is a safe home for fixed income investors
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Features
Focus Group: Political risk versus reward
Unsurprisingly for anyone who has caught a news broadcast during 2014, 20 of the investors polled for this month’s Focus Group think that political risk has increased over the past 12 months, with the five remaining funds saying it has stayed about the same. None feels that it has decreased.
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Features
Minimum variance, maximum duration
The prevalence of highly-indebted companies and sectors in minimum-variance portfolios could expose investors to interest rate risk, warns Mehdi Guissi
