All IPE articles in January 2015 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
New ways to talk to your members
As European social welfare budgets come under pressure, persuading stakeholders of the need both to make retirement provision and to save towards it is becoming more crucial. Yet planning and funding a communications strategy to achieve this will be wasted if members neglect to read or simply ignore the literature. ...
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Features
Markets and pensions
Do financial markets reward countries that have a fully funded and mandatory second-pillar pension system? It is hard to say. But it’s clear they do not penalise countries that dismantle theirs.
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Features
Some Kodak moments
At the recent IPE Conference and Awards event, the audience voted on many questions but two really were extraordinary moments worth capturing.
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FeaturesInterview: Yngve Slyngstad, NBIM, Master of the universe
Yngve Slyngstad is one of the most influential asset owners in the world. As chief executive of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), he oversees the day-to-day affairs of the Government Pension Fund Global, the sovereign wealth fund that claims ownership of 1% of all equities worldwide – and 2.5% of those listed on European exchanges.
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Features
How we run our money: KZVK-VKPB
The two schemes are separate legal entities but are managed through a single fund and investment team, led by CIO Wolfram Gerdes
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Country Report
When the trend is not your friend
The convergence between asset management and consultancy was a topic for discussion at a conference on fiduciary management organised by the German Federation of Financial Analysts and Asset Management (DVFA) in Frankfurt last November.
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Features
Focus on pension funds’ social purpose
One of the most important victories during the recent bargaining process over the revised IORP Directive is related to the fundamental nature of pension institutions.
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Features
Selfish EU governments put future of union at risk
Selfish EU governments are putting the continued survival of the European Union at risk, Ireland’s former taoiseach John Bruton has warned, as he told IPE the UK was likely to be the only outlier in a two-speed Europe.
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Small & Mid-Cap Equities: Keeping it in the family
Germany’s Mittelstand shows why mom-and-pop shops, despite the risks, can create superior success from local networks and a longer-term view of their businesses. Joseph Mariathasan investigates
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Small & Mid-Cap Equities: Northern exposure
While the Swedish stock market in general can be rather volatile, this goes to an even greater extent for Swedish small-caps. But as Caroline Liinanki finds, for those able to handle the short-term market movements investing in smaller Swedish companies has been a very profitable move
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Small & Mid-Cap Equities: Taking small-caps global
Brandes Investment Partners has been managing global small caps since 1997. “It’s a big pond with a lot of fish but very few anglers,” as director of investments Luiz Sauerbronn puts it.
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Small & Mid-Cap Equities: The M&A effect
The M&A theme tends to be big in small-caps: these companies are growing, often via their own acquisitions; and becoming assets coveted by both LBO from below and large-caps from above. Our featured strategies feel its effects as both a blessing and a curse.
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Asset Class Reports
Investing In Small & Mid-Cap Equities: Focus from diversity
Rummaging through successful small-caps portfolios reveals a diversity of opportunity, finds Martin Steward. This diversity enables portfolio managers to express very well-defined styles in their portfolio risk
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Features
A divergent opinion
If there is one big idea running markets around the world at the moment, it’s the ‘great policy divergence’. I’ve articulated the idea more than once: just last month I suggested it would take a “brave, brave soul to bet against the dollar”.
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Features
Supply, demand and the Juncker plan
A plan to meet the EU’s infrastructure needs was announced as 2014 drew to a close, with new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker launching an investment fund that will be leveraged up to €300bn with institutional capital and guarantees aimed at reducing risk.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Data managers
Technological tools, data management, attention to governance and transparency are the most important issues for pension fund CIOs right now.
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Special Report
Special Report, The M&A Cycle: Will it be different this time?
In the past, studies have questioned whether M&A adds long-term value and there is plenty of academic and anecdotal evidence of badly-botched integrations. “There are plenty of train wrecks out there,” as Steve Allan, M&A practice leader at Towers Watson, puts it.
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Special Report
Special Report, The M&A Cycle: Feeding frenzy
While European valuations have dipped recently thanks to growth fears, cash and equity-rich trade buyers are still competing for assets against the private equity titans like never before, finds Lynn Strongin-Dodds
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Special ReportSpecial Report, The M&A Cycle: Raw Deals
Mergers and takeovers can be traumatic for bondholders. Beverly Chandler finds portfolio managers carefully scrutinising their covenant protections
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Special Report
Special Report, The M&A Cycle: The M&A premium
There is no doubt that when M&A picks up, potential acquisition targets attract inflated bids. But Christopher O’Dea finds little evidence of a market-wide M&A premium, and even sectors that are usually targets are seeing prices driven much more by other factors
