In Depth – Page 47
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Interviews
Breaking the bonds
Last month’s Strategically Speaking looked at how the dynamics of ageing, pension fund decumulation and tighter capital adequacy had influenced Schroders’ transformation from UK equities investor to global multi-asset manager.
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Features
Still at the station
Investors cursing themselves for missing the private equity secondaries train in 2009 can still get onboard, finds Martin Steward
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Interviews
Consolidating and concentrating
There has been a lot of change at Finasta Asset Management over the last two years. In 2009 parent company Finasta Group was sold by Lithuanian heavyweight Invalda to Bank Snoras, which had its own asset management outfit. This division was merged with Finasta Asset Management at the beginning of 2010, creating a rather odd-looking entity that was ripe for ‘synergies’.
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Interviews
Positioned for the new era in pensions
There are some clear long-term trends in pension asset management in Europe. Collective is giving way to individual provision. Defined benefit (DB) schemes are closing, crystalising liabilities and deficits, and implementing LDI programmes. This, together with accounting and capital adequacy standards and the decumulation phase of an ageing demographic, is pushing funds into fixed income. Where growth assets are still required, investors look beyond domestic markets because growth is expected to come from emerging economies.
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Features
Russian bank roulette
Shares in the bigger Russian banks are spiking on the belief of further consolidation and privatisation in the sector, writes Richard Hemming
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Interviews
Latin translation
“We have a saying in Spain,” says BBVA’s head of global asset management Luisa Gómez Bravo. “‘No vendas la piel del oso antes de haberlo cazado’.” Don’t sell the bearskin until you’ve hunted the bear. The proverb comes in response to the question of how the €140bn asset management unit of one of the biggest global banking brands remains so little-known among Europe’s institutional investors.
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Interviews
Winton’s global equity strategy
The West London offices of Winton Capital Management, best known for the diversified managed futures programme that has helped it grow into one of Europe’s biggest hedge funds, feel more like a university campus than an HQ of an asset management firm.
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Features
Get converted
The convex payoff of convertible bonds is well-suited to these uncertain times. But Martin Steward asks how easy – or desirable – it is to maintain optimal convexity
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Interviews
Bridges to somewhere
Mark Weisdorf knows a thing or two about how and why pension funds invest in infrastructure assets. Before joining JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) to set up its infrastructure investments group in 2006 he developed the real estate, private equity and infrastructure strategies for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s CA$130bn (€92bn) portfolio, experience that led to his founding Mark Weisdorf Associates, a consultancy dedicated to advising institutional investors on their allocations to these asset classes.
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Interviews
The lion that’s finding its courage
The nightmare for any fund management firm is losing key managers whose clients follow them out of the door. It can tear apart a firm’s credibility, leading to further fund outflows and a further loss of credibility – a ‘death spiral’ that can demolish once mighty firms.
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Features
Cashflow kings
Any long-term investor should be a dividend investor, notes Lynn Strongin Dodds. But the rules of the game are changing
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Interviews
Facing forward, facing outward
Janus was the Roman god of doorways, and by extension of beginnings and endings. Double-faced, he looked both forward and backward, which is why he lent his name to the month of January. Janus Capital Group also takes its name from this god, but rather than facing forward and backward, ...
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Features
Barbarians at the gate
Gold may be a good hedge against an investment portfolio’s fiat currency exposures. But, Martin Steward asks, does it matter that some investors may be holding it for very different reasons?
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FeaturesNatural Catastrophe Risk - Cats land on their feet
Catastrophe risk delivered positive returns in 2008 amid rising downside correlation but was not immune from credit exposure, finds Martin Steward
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Interviews
From growth to profitability
Arjun Divecha likes to talk personal hygiene. In particular he likes to tell a story about HengAn International, China’s leading producer of sanitary towels and diapers.
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Interviews
Munsters targets pension market
Robeco is boosting its efforts to cater to the Dutch pensions industry. This is not a huge surprise, considering the fact that CEO Roderick Munsters joined the asset manager from pension giant APG, Mariska van der Westen and Liam Kennedy write
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Interviews
Beware falling knives
The Mudrick Capital Management project was set in motion in 2008 to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – “the largest supply of over-leveraged corporations ever seen” combined with the most severe recession since the 1930s “has kicked off a distressed cycle that will be unprecedented in terms of length and depth of supply”, its website declares.
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Features
Pension funds – future farmers
Pirkko Juntunen records the growing popularity of farmland investment in the developing world
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Interviews
Steady hand in a storm
These are interesting times at Copenhagen’s BankInvest. Its 20-strong global equities team was recently reduced to 17 as its head, David Dalgas, resigned, followed by chief portfolio managers Klaus Ingemann Nielsen and Kenneth Graversen. The team still boasts an average of 10 years’ experience, and it maintains that the resignations would not lead directly to changes in its (low turnover, fundamentals-based) global equity portfolios.
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Features
Survival of the fittest
Surviving the financial meltdown has left the strongest names ready to monopolise the wave of public and private sector refinancing. But Richard Hemming still finds that a return to the heady valuations of the pre-crisis unlikely
