All Features articles – Page 88
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Features
A model but no debate
One of the most outspoken critics of pensions accounting and the IASB is Tim Bush. Since 2011, Bush, a former ICAEW Council member, and self-confessed MBA-group-think-phobe, has taken the lead on governance and financial analysis at PIRC. His assessment of accountancy’s shortcomings is disarmingly blunt – not only have accountants lost the big picture, they have the detail wrong.
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Features
Focus Group: Feeling deflated
Participants in this month’s Focus Group are quite concerned about disinflationary pressures and the threat of deflation – especially in the euro-zone. Taking the euro-zone as a whole, the ‘core’ euro-zone, and the UK, respondents consider near-zero inflation as ‘inconceivable’ only in the latter. By contrast, four out of the 20 investors polled rate the risk of deflation as ‘high’ in the euro-zone as a whole.
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Features
Engaging with the engine of Europe
Of the nearly 270 signatories of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment - which includes a pledge to be active, engaged shareholders - there are only six German pension funds. While the picture in neighbouring Austria, where only one fund has pledged allegiance, and Switzerland – with just three pension supporters – is comparably low, in terms of engagement, it is a matter of comparing apples with oranges.
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Features
Two sides to private equity
A recent NBER working paper suggested that private equity delivered absolutely no risk-and-cost-adjusted return beyond what is available in public markets. Anthony Harrington takes a closer look at this surprising finding
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Features
Farmland, infrastructure and ESG
At this year’s National Association of Pension Funds Investment Conference, delegates gathered in Edinburgh looking to bridge ideas and investment strategies for the future. Sessions on smart beta, liability-driven investing (LDI) and multi-asset solutions were popular.
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Features
Favour Europe and the euro
Lorenzo Naranjo and Carmen Stefanescu argue that balance of payments and current accounts suggest Europe is strengthening while China weakens
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Features
A few reactions…
The leaked draft of the IORP II Directive has generally received positive reactions from experts in the European pensions industry.
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Features
IORP II: Stand by for a saga
Pity the poor European Commission when it announces its long-awaited plans for a complete upgrade of EU rules governing occupational pensions.
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Features
Long tech, short toil
Bob Swarup likens today’s environment with the second industrial revolution and the six-year depression it unleashed, and advises investors to get on the right side of the current technological revolution
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Features
Three is a magic number
Ever since US 10-year yields bounced off of a low of 1.4% in July 2012, the investing commentariat has been predicting the end of the bond bull market and sky-high levels for benchmark rates.
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Features
Sailing towards sustainability
Antony Barker, of the UK Santander Group Pension Scheme, tells Jonathan Williams how his fund is on a path towards sustainability, and how property and consumer disposable income play a key role in the new asset allocation
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Features
Asset allocation was key in 2013
Economic commentators in 2013 often swayed in the wind over the course of the year. Equity markets went from bull to bear, and back to bull again, as emerging markets felt the stinging chaos of capital flows, in both directions.
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Features
Why 7 February didn’t cow the bulls
When ex-Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke mentioned the possibility of ‘tapering’ the bank’s quantitative easing programme back in May 2013, the first market response was somewhat confused.
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Features
Be honest about the cost
Flood protection is generally reckoned to be a sound investment, given the relatively small outlay compared with the high cost to life and property when water inundates homes, shops and factories. When the British Isles were pounded by the severest storms in living memory in February, attention naturally focused on whether budget constraints had jeopardised flood protection, and whether greater expenditure would be needed to secure communities and prevent future floods.
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Features
Little nests, birds and all that stuff
Keith Ambachtsheer’s ideal pension plan would not concern itself with labels such as defined benefit (DB) or defined contribution (DC) – rather, it would look at outcome and work its way back to a solution enabling such an outcome.
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Features
DB, DC and all that
Wasserdicht’s Dutch pension fund is one of the few that has maintained a strong solvency ratio throughout the crisis of the past few years.
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Features
A sovereign story: the Argentine experience
Rani Mina and Mark Stefanini argue that precedents set by the Argentine default experience could well be applied to future sovereign defaults including in the euro-zone
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Features
Focus Group: Cautious optimism
Of the 34 investors polled for this month’s Focus Group, 56% are confident that the world economy and financial system is over the worst. As a proportion of the poll, this is up on last year, when the split was almost 50/50. The surprise, perhaps, is that the swing has not been stronger, given the stellar performance in 2013 of developed-market equities.
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Features
Quarter century of a rising tide
Nina Röhrbein charts the main events, issues and trends of the past 25 years that have influenced the shape of environmental, social and governance investing
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Features
Unique challenges of climate risk
Climate change risk means the role of the CIO will never be the same again, argues Julian Poulter
