All IPE articles in June 2002 (Magazine) – Page 3
-
Features
Capture 'pooling' savings with captives
With an increased focus from both human resources and finance on cost-effective employee benefit programmes, we continue to seek ways to contain cost while maximising benefit attractiveness. Increasingly, companies are resorting to the next level of creativity in order to squeeze the bottom line costs, without neces-sarily taking away from ...
-
Features
Spending the risk budget
Risk budgeting is a multi-faceted problem, and there are many kinds of interpretations. These arise from the different ways we can define risk and the ‘budget’. When we are analysing the risks within a pension fund, it is best to view the pension fund as a part of the sponsor’s ...
-
Features
Steel schemes break mould
When the employers and the trade unions in the Belgian metal industry came together in 1999 to discuss the formation of what was to become Le Fonds de Pension Metal, they were conscious they were breaking the mould. It was the first time that a sector-wide plan had been contemplated ...
-
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 ...
-
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
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
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
'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
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
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
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
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
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 ...
- Previous Page
- Page1
- Page2
- Page3
- Page4
- Next Page
