All Features articles – Page 83
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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
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
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
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
How we run our money - Prudent and dynamic
Miguel Branco, deputy director of Banco de Portugal pension fund, tells Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about his fund’s investment and risk strategy
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Features
Evergreen mandate takes root
Mark Mansley and Faith Ward of the UK’s Environment Agency Pension Fund tell Jonathan Williams about the scheme’s plans for an ‘evergreen’ sustainable equity mandate and discuss how investment management agreements of indefinite length will spread
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Features
Keeping it in the family
Jennifer Bollen asks why buyers of private equity secondaries tend to be owners of primary interests already, and finds the current hot market conditions explain some of the advantages
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Features
The high stakes of stakeholder group reform
Changes to the governance and funding structure of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) now seem inevitable, after it was adopted as one of the core policies for new European commissioner Jonathan Hill.
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Features
Integrity matters
While they have been few in number, the various scandals at European pension funds have brought to light the need for clear and coherent codes of conduct for pension trustees and staff, writes Gail Moss
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Features
Race for solutions picks up pace
Incumbent managers have a natural advantage with mature pension funds in the provision of solution-type services, finds Pádraig Floyd
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Features
Pensions in the picture
Just three years after Europe’s pension fund representative bodies were successful in their proposal to create a separate occupational pensions stakeholder group within the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) – under the previous CEIOPS committee of pension and insurance supervisors a single stakeholder group covered both sectors – there is now a proposal to merge the two stakeholder groups. Although this will have to be ratified by the European Parliament, here are a few points that might help those involved understand why this issue really matters.
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Features
Post-crisis or pre-crisis?
History warns us that the next crisis is just around the corner. Arturo Bris outlines the shapes it is taking and what we can do to mitigate it
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Features
Not quite a revolution
The introduction of a new accounting framework in the UK and Ireland could lead to much less upheaval in pensions accounting than some plan sponsors fear, discovers Stephen Bouvier
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Features
How we run our money: Aisle four - asset management
Steven Daniels, chief investment officer at Tesco Pension Investment, tells Taha Lokhandwala about his role as Tesco’s in-house asset manager
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Features
The Irish word for ‘appropriate’
Following a recent High Court ruling, Ireland’s pensions industry has found itself questioning whether the current minimum funding standard (MFS) for schemes can endure.
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Features
Buy-and-hold birth pangs in Asia
In this second article on a new study, Nick Lyster and Amin Rajan debate that the notions of risk premia and time premia are slow to take root in the predominant savings culture of emerging markets.
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Features
Blank canvas for Swedish banking fund
After a year and a half of deliberation, SPK’s new investment strategy is finally coming together. When the SEK24bn (€2.6bn) pension fund for saving bank employees moved into its new premises in central Stockholm at the beginning of the summer, it did so with a completely transformed investment portfolio.
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Features
I’ll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak
The court scene from The Merchant of Venice dramatises the balance between justice and equity. Argentina’s conflict with its ‘holdout’ creditors, which led to default on its New York-law bonds, suggests that it ought to be required reading for sovereign debt investors.
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Features
The changing bond climate
Green bonds, until very recently a niche product, are gaining in prominence as the market grows above $500bn (€369bn).
