All Features articles – Page 84
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Features
Burying IFRS Stateside
For more than a decade, international accountants have dreamed of a single set of global accounting standards. But the failure of standard setters on both sides of the Atlantic to agree on a common treatment for bad-debt provisioning by banks leaves the world facing a multi-GAAP environment for at least a generation, writes Stephen Bouvier
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Features
Collective lessons from professionals
Experience shows that the benefits of intergenerational solidarity and collective pension risk sharing are often not appreciated, particularly by those who feel they are shouldering a greater share of the burden than they ought.
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Features
Time for a debate
This autumn our government is orchestrating what it calls a ‘national debate’ on the future of our Dutch pension system. We at Wasserdicht Nederland have always taken a prudent approach to our pension schemes and we have remained well funded. Unlike many other Dutch funds, we have not had to implement benefits cuts – something I hope our members appreciate.
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Features
Not the destination but the path
Vassilios Papathanakos and David Schofield explain why it’s easier to estimate volatility than forecast returns, and why it matters for superior returns and better risk management
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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
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
All new IAS19: the verdict
The International Accounting Standards Board issued revisions to its pensions-accounting standard IAS19 in 2011. But has the project delivered the goods? Stephen Bouvier asks KPMG’s Naz Peralta about the evidence
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Features
Focus Group: Do you get what you pay for? (Part 2)
Just half of the participants to this month’s Focus Group think diversity on a pension fund board is important – but three respondents ranked it as “very unimportant”. “[It is important] both in terms of employer representation, member representation, cultures and gender. Diversity is a key aspect of our communication strategy,” said a UK fund.
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Features
Pension Fund Governance: ABP to the ballot box
For the first time, the €309bn Dutch civil servants fund has held elections for its accountability body. More controversially, pensioners will now sit on the main board, writes Mariska van der Westen
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Features
Can the UK import concepts from abroad?
Government plans for pensions caused ripples in the industry after the official opening of the 2014-15 UK parliamentary session.
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Features
How we run our money: My door is always open
Alfredo Granata and Paola Muratorio tell Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about their fund’s drive to invest in the real economy and its openness to new ideas
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Features
Put the trust back
Italy is a self-perpetuating paradox. Structural and historical forces keep the country under constant pressure; yet they drive a search for innovation to solve long-lasting problems. The pension system is a perfect example.
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Features
Pensions cart before the horse
It may come a surprise that the UK, Europe’s leading pension market by assets, has been one of the least innovative in terms of benefit design – something the present government is keen to rectify.
