All Features articles – Page 93
-
Features
Can a pension fund be too big to fail?
Will the Financial Stability Board extend the ‘too-big-to-fail’ resolution to pension funds?
-
Features
Carbon investment: worth the risk?
Gyorgy Dallos argues that the financial risks associated with investing in fossil-fuel companies will increase as they extract in more hazardous places and stricter carbon constraints are enforced
-
Features
Command, control and organisation
Gail Moss outlines the duties of the investment committee chair – one of the most influential positions in a pension fund
-
Features
The inconstant constant
Regulation threatens the existence of Constant Net Asset Value money market funds. David Turner asks if investors will miss them
-
Features
IASB: Plans on disclosure
The International Accounting Standards Board has always had a problem with disclosure
-
FeaturesNorwegian oil fund: unification or division
As the largest pot of institutional money in Europe and the third largest in the world, the Norwegian Pension Fund Global was bound to be the topic of debate during Norway’s recent election
-
Features
Will Draghi repeat Trichet’s mistake?
This month, one of the interviewees for our Strategy Review advises us to “look at the strength of the euro”
-
Features
Mixed evidence on financialisation
Lorenzo Naranjo and Carmen Stefanescu note that commodity futures volatility has been rising since the era of ‘financialisation’ – but also that the correlation with equity market volatility long pre-dates this period
-
Features
Focus Group: The real thing
Just under half of the respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey expect their allocation to real assets to increase a little over the next five years. On average, respondents currently invest 24.4% of their fund in real assets – although some investors have a more expansive definition for the term than others. One fund included the 5% it has in private equity, for example; two others included their listed equities; and two even included bonds, without specifying whether these were inflation-indexed.
-
Features
IORP II: Keep it proportional
PensionsEurope gives a general thumbs-up to Brussels’ planned improvements to governance standards for occupational pensions
-
FeaturesPolish reform: A lot not to like
Managers of Polish pension funds can at least be grateful their industry has not been entirely nationalised
-
FeaturesTime for an overhaul
With yields rising and pension schemes continuing to increase their allocation to bonds, Peter Ball asks how trustees can plug the deficit in their schemes
-
Features
In the pipeline
It’s a fine September morning and I am over the North Sea in a helicopter together with Geert, our bright young spark in the investment department. But it’s not just a day out and we are all dressed in hard hats and waterproofs since we are on our way visit a gas installation. Our proposed investment is nowhere to be seen, though, as it is a share in a gas pipeline network on the seabed.
-
Features
Politics and sovereign wealth
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global is now the third-largest institutional investor in the world, after Japan’s Government Pension Fund and China’s SAFE
-
Features
Top managers run more than €2.5trn in assets
The UK’s leading 100 asset managers now run more than €2.5trn in institutional assets, according to IPE’s annual ranking.
-
Features
IORP: what to expect this autumn
The calm comes before the storm. Almost two months of holiday have just gone by, and the European Commission is back this month with one major task – make a legislative proposal for the revised IORP Directive.
-
Features
Focus Group: Pressure to find a balance
A majority of the respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey (60%) use LDI techniques to manage their liabilities. Of these, almost half (seven respondents) thought yields from core government bonds and rates on interest-rate swaps could fall even lower than they did in the summer of 2012.
-
FeaturesBe smart with smart beta
Stefan Dunatov emphasises the importance of consistency between strategy, investment beliefs and implementation when exploiting techniques like smart beta
-
Features
Between a rock and a hard place
Investors are unsure whether the current market rally can outlive central bank action, argue Nicholas Lyster and Amin Rajan
-
Features
Buyout now while stocks last
Pension longevity transfer, whether through full insurance buyouts, bulk annuities or longevity swaps, is still largely a UK business.
