Latest analysis – Page 51
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Social and labour issues
Disputes between Brussels and national governments are likely to emerge when the European Commission unveils in June its position on the rules concerning national social and labour law (SLL).
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Opinion Pieces
Big picture questions
BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, has reached a record $3.8trn (€2.8trn) in assets, about 60% of which is for institutional clients, including pensions. CEO Larry Fink, commenting on his firm’s 2012 results, said that the institutional business will launch a “strategic client programme” this year.
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Features
Ireland’s challenge
Ireland’s presidency of the European Council is an opportunity for the country to showcase the progress it has made in repairing its finances and its economy since the bailout at the end of 2010.
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Features
Don’t hope for a Basel III scenario for IORP II
After the Basel Committee unveiled a softer version of the Basel III measures for banking institutions in January, the European pensions industry saw the watered-down legislation as a glimmer of hope. Many crossed their fingers that Brussels would take a similar approach to regulatory frameworks currently being developed for insurance ...
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Features
Lies, damned lies and valuations
The Barclays UK Government Inflation-Linked Bond index experienced a 13 standard-deviation event on 10 January.
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Features
Implementing the impossible
The boxer, Muhammad Ali, once said: “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.”
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Features
Risk ahead!
“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.” General Stanley McChrystal is supposed to have said this in 2010 when commenting on a PowerPoint slide outlining the risks of the US army’s engagement in Afghanistan.
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Features
Sweden’s buffer funds come out swinging
Future-proofing the Swedish pension system is a key item on the political agenda, following the conclusion of a review of the AP buffer funds commissioned by the department for finance and one by parliament.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Enforcement problems
Enhancement to the EU’s successful UCITS legislation for cross-border collective investments is now underway. But there are nagging concerns that whatever the outcome for UCITS V, the good work could be undone by member states and their judicial systems failing to enforce common rules.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Back from the edge
If there was a clear message from the whole ‘fiscal cliff’ debate, it is that social security will be affected sooner or later. Employees need to realise that company-sponsored pension plans will become an even more important supplement to their retirement income.
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AnalysisNews analysis: Are regulators denying real estate's long-term credentials?
Long-term investments could be recalibrated under Solvency II, but property might miss out.
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NewsFrom Our Perspective: Better the virtuous circle
Pension funds are urgently needed to finance the jobs and growth Europe desperately needs.
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Features
Better the virtuous circle
In theory, insurers, pension funds, endowments and other long-term investors will match their liability stream with long-term investments in the productive economy. So, over several economic cycles, their investments fund their liabilities, but their investments in government debt also help pay for the roads and schools that benefit current and future members and pensioners. Their equity and corporate-bond investments finance company growth and foster employment. Property and infrastructure investments help them attain real, inflation-linked cashflows, while also financing long-term economic expansion.
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Features
ETFs: Part of the furniture
Amin Rajan argues that the success story of exchange traded funds is here to stay
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Opinion Pieces
A dozen reasons to be hopeful
The Chinese word for crisis has two characters – ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. Holding apparently contradictory ideas together is not easy. So here are 12 reasons to be hopeful in 2013.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Soup-kitchen future?
There are increasing forecasts of widespread poverty for Europe’s pensioners in future decades. For a start, there are the 60m citizens in the EU who do not have an occupational scheme. Longevity combined with feeble returns on investment, plus millions of young, non-contributing unemployed people, support the forecast of misery.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Battle of the benefits
Obama’s healthcare reform will be the biggest new law affecting US companies in 2013. But will it have an impact on pension funds? Healthcare and retirement benefits are managed separately, but a change in costs for the former will eventually affect the latter.
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AnalysisNews analysis: Resistance to the AIFMD is futile
The Dutch fought the law, but the law will win, says Shayla Walmsley.
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Features
Generational imbalances
Nowadays, it is much harder to define the broad interest groups that are representative of a country as a whole. Previous decades were notable for the division between capital and labour, which persists in the consensual political and decision-making models of continental Europe. But tripartite decision-making between employers, unions and government now seems rather antiquated as membership of organised labour groups has declined over the past 20-30 years and western economies have deindustrialised.
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Features
Dutch pension system knocked off its perch
The Netherlands, after leading the Melbourne Mercer Global Pensions Index for three years in a row, has been dethroned by Denmark – a new entry and the first country to ever claim the top grade.
