All IPE articles in June 2002 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
-
Features
Keeping tabs on 100 schemes
With more than 60,000 employees worldwide, the basic retirement benefit guideline at British American Tobacco (BAT) is that each scheme should be competitive in relation to local market practice. “Our employees are literally scattered around the globe, with no real concentration in any one country. Trying to coordinate our retirement ...
-
Features
Norway issues vast $5.5bn equity RFPs
Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), overseer of the $75bn (E81bn) Norwegian petroleum fund, has announced a $5.5bn equities RFP with the initial tender process being run through the IPE-Quest electronic manager selection system. NBIM is looking to appoint new external active mandates in five different regions: Europe, UK, Japan, Australia ...
-
Features
SwissAir names five sub-fund managers for e600m
SwissAir has announced the names of managers appointed to run e600m in five sub-funds belonging to the recently restructured pension scheme. The fund has appointed managers to five mandates, each valued at approximately e120m. Wellington has been appointed to run both an active US equities and an active European equities ...
-
Features
Minister involves ABA at highest level
The ABA, the German Occupational Pensions Association, has called on labour minister Walter Riester to defer his plans to scrap deferred compensation in 2008. Speaking at the association’s annual conference in Bonn, the chairman of the ABA Boy-Jürgen Andresen, said he would prefer to see the deferred compensation scheme, remain ...
-
Features
Wary about transparency
More transparency is bad for pension funds? Apparently yes, according to the last survey made by Greenwich Associates among portfolio managers at more than 300 of the largest US-based institutions. The majority of them (53%) think that the financial market has changed for the worse with the introduction of Reg ...
-
Features
What's value added any more?
‘Value added’ has become a catchphrase in the global custody vocabulary. An all-embracing concept, it has been habitually applied to any service offered beyond the traditional core custody offerings of safekeeping and settlement. However, the concept of what adds value is coming under the microscope as pension funds and fund ...
-
Features
One man one vote, but winner takes all
A number of currency managers use a variety of fundamental and technical inputs into their decisions on when to hedge currency risk. But, how can these sources of insight best be combined? Each factor could be given an equal share in determining the hedge ratio – one man, one vote ...
-
Features
Always looking for more
Custody today is a commodity – or so the line goes. And with the number of providers in the market steadily diminishing and technology levelling the playing field, who’s going to argue? Talk to Europe’s pension funds, however, and the debate on the role of custodians becomes less clear-cut. How ...
-
Features
'The role of annuity markets in financing retirement'
This is a welcome new study, which will appeal both to the general reader and to those seeking to understand the structure and valuation of annuities. Although based on US material and experience, it comes at a time when there is much debate in the UK and elsewhere about whether ...
-
Features
Upsetting the apple cart
Defined contribution (DC) is poised to make a clean sweep of collectively agreed nationwide pension schemes in Sweden. One after the other, these schemes have become contribution-based. In 1996 the plan for blue collar workers in the private sector was changed from a defined benefit (DB) to DC scheme, known ...
-
Features
New index gives better picture of market
The Italian equity market is awaiting the arrival of a new index. The Italian stock exchange, Borsa Italiana, and global equity index provider Standard & Poor’s have established a partnership to launch a new index intended to become the benchmark for the Italian equity market. The new index, to be ...
-
Features
Putting new building blocks in place
The pension scheme for construction industry workers in Ireland is very different to other Irish plans. Not only is it an industry-wide scheme, it is also a statutory scheme. “Apart from the national social welfare system, ours is the only statutory scheme in Ireland,” says Pat Ferguson, administrator of the ...
-
Features
Fitting neatly into bond portfolios
Pfandbriefe are essentially a form of asset-backed security that is primarily issued by the German mortgage banks to refinance their loan portfolios. Making up some 20% of the total lending business in Germany, the mortgage banks have been restricted by the German Mortgage Bank Act to lending on residential and ...
