All IPE articles in January 2024 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
-
AnalysisHigh stakes as pension funds take on Tesla
A group of Nordic pension funds is tentatively standing up to Elon Musk’s electric car giant, in reaction to a labour dispute at Tesla in Sweden. The strike at the end of October by 130 Tesla workers affiliated with IF Metall led to a wave of sympathy strikes which spread to Norway, Denmark and Finland.
-
Special ReportFiduciary management special report: Has the UK peaked?
After years of growth throughout the 2010s, the number of fiduciary mandates has levelled off. Will trustees still opt for fiduciary now that insurance risk transfer is cheaper and consolidator funds have received the green light?
-
AnalysisLabour market evolution: the macro trend that investors cannot ignore
Macroeconomic factors can overwhelm micro ones for investors. The impact of COVID is a good example. But the short-term impact of COVID on labour markets can mask structural trends in the evolution of labour markets that have much more profound long-term impacts, according to a paper by PGIM
-
Asset Class ReportsDebt investors face European uncertainty
High interest rates and inflation are the biggest concerns as recession looms
-
Country ReportPoland’s pension online dashboard takes shape
Wider access to personal financial information is a step in a good direction – but will savers appreciate it?
-
Country ReportFirst-pillar pension reform versus fiscal consolidation in Romania
The law reforming the first-pillar pension system could amplify fiscal deficit problems in the shorter term
-
AnalysisNet zero marks the second era of climate finance
Monica Defend, Vincent Mortier and Amin Rajan discuss progress and holdups on the global journey to net zero
-
Opinion PiecesWhy DC pensions should choose private equity as first step into illiquids
Governments, regulators, central banks and even trustees are talking about illiquid investments and the productive economy. This is correctly driven by an underlying belief that illiquid assets can improve overall portfolio risk-adjusted returns. But most importantly, if defined contribution (DC) trustees are already keen to get behind productive finance, where do they start if they currently allocate nothing to illiquids?
-
Opinion PiecesReasons to be cheerful in ESG-land
In 1979 Ian Dury, an influential British musician, released a song called ‘Reasons to be Cheerful, Pt 3’, which quickly became a classic. Let us consider why the world of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing offers grounds for good cheer in the year ahead, even if it is not as rousing as the song.
-
Country ReportSecond-pillar pensions in Central & Eastern Europe
Assets, membership and asset allocation
-
Opinion PiecesPensions are instrumental in Europe’s unfinished capital markets project
This summer will mark 10 years since Jean-Claude Juncker, former EU Commission president, outlined a vision for a European Capital Markets Union (CMU) – a project both uncompleted and still acutely needed.
-
Country ReportBulgaria’s pension funds look to Europe
The country’s pension sector is seeking greater flexibility in investment fund options
-
InterviewsGrégoire Haenni: How Switzerland’s CPEG is building resilience
Grégoire Haenni, CIO of CPEG, the public pension fund for the Swiss canton of Geneva, talks to Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about his views about markets and the fund’s sustainability journey
-
Features
Insurance-linked securities wind brings good news for investors
In the two decades prior to 2022, the negative correlation between stock and treasury bond market returns has been a key driver of institutional investor portfolio construction. Fixed income allocations provided investors significant relief during equity market downturns and increased expected risk-adjusted returns for the popular 60/40 stock/bond portfolio.
-
FeaturesNet zero’s bond index problem
The fixed-income space has not been short of sustainability innovations over the years.
-
FeaturesNLP can help identify linkages between equity market peers
Natural language processing in AI provides a way to gain insights from unstructured data at scale, allowing access to information across a broad set of investment opportunities
-
Opinion PiecesIBM revives defined benefit pensions in the US
This January 2024 marks an important turning point in the US retirement industry. Technology giant IBM, which has always been seen as a bellwether of American business practices, is keeping its 401(k) plan, but will stop matching contributions of up to 6%.
-
Asset Class ReportsFixed income: Investors put weight behind bond markets
Exposure to bonds is rising at the fastest rate since the financial crisis, as investors focus on high-quality paper and the shorter end of the yield curve
-
InterviewsBarings: A bond investor for changing times
Martin Horne is the new global head of public assets at Barings bond investor, but he is a bond guy through and through.
-
FeaturesWill delayed economic bad news hit the market this year?
Global economic growth was below potential in 2023, but still markedly stronger than the forecasts had been indicating at the start of the year, with the US leading the way and even the likes of Europe and the UK, though hardly stellar performers, posting better than expected economic activity.
