All IPE articles in July 2011 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
-
Country Report
Italy: The fiscal rubacuori
As Silvio Berlusconi struggles to maintain authority under a deluge of legal cases, his mandate has been undermined. Maria Teresa Cometto argues that the losers will be the economy and the pension industry as fiscal reform will be postponed in favour of achieving short-term political gain
-
Special Report
Portfolio Construction: A roadmap for portfolio rebalancing
Will Kinlaw and Jay Moore discuss how pension funds can avoid traffic jams, road construction and the associated costs of delays as they get portfolios back on the road to strategic asset allocation weights
-
Special Report
Portfolio Construction: Offensive or defensive?
Kathryn Kaminski argues that the adaptable, liquid,systematic profile of managed futures makes it a more efficient long-term approach to tail risk than insurance-style strategies
-
Special Report
Portfolio Construction: Defensive or offensive?
Jerry Haworth argues that options-based volatility strategies have five ‘killer apps’ that make them better tail-risk hedges than managed futures – as long as you buy them at the right time
-
Special Report
Portfolio Construction: Convexity complexities
Buying absolute return or tail-risk insurance strategies complicates the portfolio rebalancing process. But Martin Steward finds that a solvency management framework can re-impose some objectivity on that process
-
Country Report
Italy: Fondo Pensione Complementare Pegaso
Fondo Pensione Complementare Pegaso was founded in 1997 as the contractual pension fund for the Italian utilities sector. Its membership base consists of mainly electricity, gas and water companies, at present it has around 500 member companies.
-
Special Report
Portfolio Construction: Risk as a profit centre
Managing and monitoring tail risk is not just about insuring against extreme losses. Boryana Racheva-Iotova describes the potential for expected tail loss measures to feed into tactical portfolio optimisation where variance is traditionally deployed
-
Country Report
Italy: Amundi SGR SpA Seconda Pensione Fondo Pensione Aperto
The supplementary pension fund of Amundi Asset Management is a defined contribution plan, founded in 1999. Subscription is voluntary and open to employees of Amundi and other individuals, independent of profession.
-
Special ReportPortfolio Construction: Hedge fund ALM
The 2008 crisis showed how liquidity mismatches can undermine apparently robust hedge fund portfolios. Peter Meier and Jann Stoz argue that measuring returns autocorrelation can enable investors to assess mismatches using only fund of fund-level information
-
Special ReportPortfolio Construction: The changing asset allocation framework
Stacy Cuffe, Lisa Goldberg and Frank Nielsen describe the move from asset-class allocation to risk-based allocation, and the problem of ‘risk-grouping’
-
Special ReportPortfolio Construction: Preparing for all probabilities
Emma Cusworth discusses strategic asset allocation weights adjusted for the economic cycle
-
Country Report
Italy: Hamstrung by law 703
Armando Piccinno reviews Italian pension funds’ asset allocation behaviour
-
Special Report
A tailor-made trend
Nina Röhrbein reports on a recent surge in demand for sustainable indices, but questions whether they match client needs
-
Features
What do regulators need?
Pension regulators come in a variety of shapes and forms. Sometimes those forms change to reflect prevailing wisdom on the best constitution of financial regulatory and supervisory bodies.
-
Opinion Pieces
A labour of love
This is a busy time for pension fund professionals in the US as they try to figure out the impact of new rules issued by the department of labor (DoL) on fee disclosure and fiduciary responsibility. Changes are likely to occur soon for plan sponsors, providers, investment managers, brokers, and advisers of 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans, which reached a record $4trn (€2.8trn) in total assets and 82m participants at the end of 2010, according to Plan Sponsor.
-
Country Report
Italy: Uncertainty reigns supreme
The Italian pension sector is facing a period of overdue reform, the second-pillar needs strenghtening and the restrictive law 703 hampers investment decisions. But Carlo Svaluto Moreolo wonders if the government has any desire for change
-
Features
Risk remains a top issue
Over three-quarters of respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey stated that risk management had been raised as an agenda item on their board in the past 12 months. This was slightly lower than reported at the same time last year (85%), but still clearly shows its importance as an issue for pension funds.
-
FeaturesInvestment innovations: a scorecard
Pension plans have an open mind about innovations, say Neeraj Sahai, Jim McCaughan and Amin Rajan
-
Special Report
Measuring social impact
Work needs to be done to standardise the measurement of the social impact of investments. Michele Giddens warns against oversimplifying the question
-
Features
Keen on illiquidity
Peter Wallach of the UK’s Merseyside Pension Fund tells Nina Röhrbein how the scheme’s philosophy affects its investment strategy
