Latest analysis – Page 53
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Rear-view mirror
A couple of weeks ago I made my way to Amsterdam’s Beurs van Beurlage for a festive evening, the annual dinner of the Dutch Committee of Institutional Investors. It’s always a good occasion to catch up with old friends, even if you’d rather give some of the guests a wide berth.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Lack of trust blamed for low savings
While euro-zone household savings, including retirement provision, grew steadily from around €600bn gross savings at the end of the century to a peak of €910bn in 2009, they fell to €834bn by 2011.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Colleges count losses
US college and university endowments had the worst returns of any insitutional investor in the year ended 30 June 2012
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AnalysisNews analysis: Regulators stick with 25% property shock
EIOPA includes 25% capital charge in latest IORP Directive recommendations.
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Features
Just who can you trust?
With anti-Europe sentiment running high, bailout fatigue widespread and austerity resentment reaching a fever pitch, the Dutch election of 12 September was widely seen as a bellwether ballot. For a while, the euro-sceptic Socialist Party seemed destined for a landslide win, with polls showing the socialists taking 39 seats in the 150-seat lower house – a 24-seat gain – leaving the conservative VVD of prime minister Mark Rutte in the dust.
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Features
The Draghi put is no turning point for the euro
As I write on 13 September, it’s been a good week for europhiles. On 6 September,Mario Draghi unveiled the ECB’s plan for Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT). The German Constitutional Court ratified the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on 12 September. And the Dutch electorate favoured two pro-euro parties.
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Features
Soft and hard factors
Daily, at thousands of pension funds, judgements are formed on asset managers. Those managers may largely be hired and fired on the basis of hard numbers, but relationships are assessed (and sustained through hard times or otherwise curtailed) on the basis of a combination of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors. Tough economic and market conditions increase the importance of those factors. But which ones do pension funds pay closest attention to?
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Features
No short or decisive war
The essayist Robert Wilson Lynd wrote that “belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions”. The twentieth century conclusively laid to rest the notion that wars between nations would end with the symbolic exchange of border provinces or notional reparations. The economic consequences of the First World War were profound and long lasting, just as the Second World War shaped politics in ways we still see today.
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Features
A long road to a new form of lending
In recent years, a number of asset managers have touted infrastructure’s profile as an asset class. They point out that infrastructure is largely uncorrelated with other asset classes, not to mention that it matches institutional investors’ long-term liabilities perfectly.
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Features
Profits with purpose are still an uphill battle
Not all profits are born equal. This simple view was put forward by Towers Watson’s global head of investment content Roger Urwin as he unveiled the consultancy’s latest research project, Telos, conducted in conjunction with Oxford University.
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Features
Dealing with the financial crisis
The vast majority of sovereign debt will end in effective default – at least that is according to Philippa ‘Pippa’ Malmgren, president of Principalis Asset Management.
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Features
EFRP seeks priority in insolvency cases
Responding to the European Commission’s White Paper on Pensions from February late last month, the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP) has called for the proposed review of the IORP Directive to grant pension funds greater security in the instance of sponsor insolvency.
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Opinion Pieces
Long-term Matters: Kay - make your voice heard
The Kay review is the best thing we’ve had on short-termism for decades
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Features
Pensions Accounting: A man on the moon? Easy
IFRIC Draft Interpretation D9, Employee Benefit Plans with a Promised Return on Contributions or Notional Contributions, refuses to die
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Features
Diversification 2.0
With asset class correlations no longer following their historic norms, a new form of diversification focused on risk is emerging, according to Jim McCaughan and Amin Rajan
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Opinion Pieces
LIBOR litigation looms
US pension funds are still trying to understand the impact of the LIBOR scandal on their assets to assess whether they should launch a class action against the banks involved in the case. The matter is highly complex and could lead to tens of billions of dollars in claims, not just from pension funds but also from cities, states, lenders, insurers and other investors who say they were hurt by the allegedly manipulated rates.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: EU clears the decks
The Brussels legislative programme for the financial sector will be as frenetic as ever from now until early 2013. It is a race to achieve as much as possible before electoral canvassing by MEPs starts ahead of the parliamentary elections in May 2014.
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Features
Bearing the brunt of margin calls
Earlier this year, the industry cheered as Brussels granted pension funds a temporary exemption from the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). Yet concerns over the impact of the regulation on funds persist, reprieve notwithstanding.
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Features
Kay seeks corporate governance ‘settlement’
John Kay’s long-awaited final report on long-term decision making within the UK’s equity market did not offer many surprises. Many of the proposals had already been hinted at in February’s interim report, such as the abolition of quarterly reporting to aid companies in more long-term thinking.
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Opinion Pieces
Long-term Matters: Hedge fund concerns
Hedge funds have, without doubt, delivered ‘loadsamoney’, especially for their staff and their richest and smartest customers over the past few decades. And there is also no doubt that short-selling can send a useful signal to the market about hidden risks.
