All Features articles – Page 85
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Features
Risk in emerging markets and beyond
Book review Emerging Markets in an Upside Down World: Challenging Perceptions in Asset Allocation and Investment, Jerome Booth (Wiley, £29.99)
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Features
The big picture
The ECB’s actions and words after its June meeting were met with approval throughout the world’s capital markets. As much of what was announced was already priced in, there was a fairly muted response, which wasn’t sufficient to weaken the euro too much.
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Features
Sounding boards
Charlotte Valeur argues that fund governance should be improved with more pro-active communication between investors and boards, independent of the investment adviser
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Features
Bolt the penthouse door
The apparent recovery in the UK and converging spreads in euro-zone bond markets mask deep structural flaws in economies that have seen little genuine reform, argues Eamonn Butler
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Features
Bond managers are worryingly sanguine
ECB president Mario Draghi unveiled his latest measures to arrest disinflation and rouse dormant corporate lending markets in June. Soon afterwards, big records started tumbling.
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Features
Burmese days
Rachel Fixsen finds mixed views about Burma as an investment destination for European pension funds
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Features
Time for a change
Earlier this year, the investment team had a briefing from Rolf, the long-standing chairman of trustees of the Wasserdicht Pension Funds here in the Netherlands. Things are changing, at least in terms of our internal governance, and Rolf came along to tell us about it.
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Features
Time to come together
M&A activity is expected to increase as the global economy recovers. Gail Moss looks at the implications for pension funds that sponsors and trustees should consider
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Features
Financing the real economy
The credit funds industry is evolving fast to meet the needs of the world’s SMEs. Claudio Bocci and Gianmatteo Guidetti provide a survey of the products on offer
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Features
Inflection point of emerging markets
In this article, the first in a series delving into a new study, Nick Lyster and Amin Rajan ask whether emerging markets are becoming yesterday’s story or are merely rebooting their growth engines before the next leap
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Features
What price opportunity?
An overhaul of the Norwegian oil fund’s active management approach should free it from most of its current investment restrictions, according to a report co-authored by the former chief executive of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), David Denison.
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Features
Vital statistics
Headline numbers may obscure the fact that smarter business models are reversing outflows in the fund of hedge funds industry. Emma Cusworth looks at the trends behind the figures
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Features
Time for trusteeship
Senior staff at China Investment Corporation (CIC) are talking about investment governance these days, reflecting growing recognition of the importance of sound non-executive or supervisory board oversight for all kinds of entities, be they global companies, sovereign wealth entities or pension funds.
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Features
Ongoing FTK delay annoys pensions sector
Tensions are rising in the Dutch pensions sector. Every day that details for the new financial assessment framework (FTK) fail to appear – let alone pass Parliament – pension funds, providers, advisers and asset managers must anxiously weigh their options.
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Features
Another eventful summer
The Spanish Treasury joined the UK, Germany, France and Italy as the fifth European sovereign to issue inflation-linked bonds on 13 May, raising €5bn for 10-year paper that was four times oversubscribed.
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Features
Put the trust back
Being outside the EU doesn’t mean you escape regulation. Swiss pension funds are complaining about excessive regulation – in this case, the burden is homemade and only to some extent fuelled by the financial crisis.
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Features
Falling (further) behind
“Pensions are safe”, Germany’s one-time pensions minister, Norbert Blüm, famously said in the 1990s. That ill-judged statement still influences discussions about the German state pension system even today.
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Features
Scania and the benefits of independence
Volkswagen’s bid for heavy vehicle manufacturer Scania has divided Swedish institutional investors, with the division no more apparent than among its buffer funds.
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Features
What are the benefits?
The European Commission unveiled its proposals for a uniform pension benefit statement this spring. The idea has had a mixed reception, as Gail Moss finds
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Features
Smaller firms, better mousetraps
While innovation can take place in companies of any size, smaller companies sometimes get the edge through fresh thinking and nimble structures. Christopher O’Dea finds that innovation opportunities are abundant both abroad and at home
