Latest analysis – Page 61
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Features
Volatility hits some more than others
Most European pension funds put on a brave face during the wild stock market swings at the end of last month, but some handled the pressure better than others. The larger Dutch funds initially adopted a rather phlegmatic attitude as the panic first set in, emphasising the long-term nature of ...
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Features
Irish pension schemes face closure pressure
The stock market volatility witnessed in August has had differing effects on pension funds, depending on the country and its approach to pension investment. In the UK, it has resulted in higher deficits, increasing the possibility of an insurance buy-in and in the Netherlands, it has caused coverage ratios to ...
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Book Review
Book Review: Compendium of lessons for investors
A review of ‘Expected Returns. An Investor’s Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards’ by Antti Ilmanen, published by Wiley Finance, February 2011.
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Opinion Pieces
Plenty on the horizon
Even without fears of a double-dip recession, the wake of the 2008 crisis is keeping European Commission financial law drafters working hard at the legislative coalface. And that was before European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, warned, early in August, that the sovereign debt crisis was spreading beyond the periphery ...
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Opinion Pieces
Bonds defy downgrade
US pension funds are reassessing their fixed income investment policies after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US rating from AAA, despite the fact that the new AA+ rating did not force them immediately to sell Treasury bonds.
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Features
From our perspective: All-terrain vehicles
As one commentator points out in this issue, Dutch pension funds were regarded as high performance cars in the early 1990s. High equity allocations and a cash-flow positive status meant many enjoyed years of good returns in the 1980s and 90s, riding the heights of the equity bull market and barely scathed by the 1987 crash. Perceived as ‘rich’, by politicians, they could be taxed and any remaining surplus distributed to employers.
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Features
Attention to themes for the long term
Alternative indices may still represent a small portion of the market, but could become much more important in future because they satisfy investor needs for stability and diversity beyond traditional indices. This is the conviction of MSCI, one of the largest providers in this industry, as Theodore Niggli, head of the index business at MSCI, explains.
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Features
DC products 2.0
The new generation of DC products may well evolve in the way that the internet has turned into web 2.0, according to Nick Lyster and Amin Rajan
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Features
IAS19 washes whiter
Stephen Bouvier assesses some reactions to the revised IAS19 accounting provisions on employee benefits
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Features
Pieter’s Italian job
The best thing about August is holidays – this year two weeks by the beach in on the Italian Riviera with my wife and children. Italy is the best for family holidays; everything is to hand. Life is relaxed, the weather is fine, the food is good and the wine flows in the evening.
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Features
Funds unfazed by ban
Almost 70% of respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey told us they had not decided to suspend securities lending in light of recent market turbulence and the short-selling bans imposed by four European countries. However, a Danish fund that had decided to suspend securities lending stated that they had taken this action as “the earnings are too little compared with the risks”.
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AnalysisNews analysis: UK ground rent funds
Shayla Walmsley looks at why funds dedicated to ground leases are so appealing to UK schemes.
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Country Report
Italy: Hamstrung by law 703
Armando Piccinno reviews Italian pension funds’ asset allocation behaviour
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Features
Risk abides, man changes his mind
Financial risks grow and subside with economic cycles but always remain. Human attitudes towards them also vary. Arguably they matter more and often change the most. Allianz Global Investors’ first RiskMonitor survey, conducted in conjunction with IPE, paints a picture of pension funds’ current attitudes to risk and how they are changing.
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Features
Actual results may vary
On Friday 10 June, the Dutch government, together with employer and employee representatives, signed a comprehensive agreement to drastically reform the Dutch pension system.
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Features
Easier said than done
Often the solution to a problem is as complex as the problem itself. And a lot of things are easier said than done.
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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.
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Features
Not everyone loves the Pensions Agreement
After much wrangling, heel-dragging and finger-pointing, the Dutch government and social partners have hammered out a Pensions Agreement. In mid-June, the social partners and the cabinet unveiled an agreement that aims to increase the official retirement age for the first pillar (AOW) to 66 in 2020 and to 67 in 2025. First pillar benefits will be raised an extra 0.6% annually, amounting to indexation in line with real earned wages, a major demand of umbrella union FNV. Early retirement will remain an option, but against a loss of 6.5% of the AOW for each year.
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Features
MNOPF to reshape UK fiduciary landscape?
When the Merchant Navy Officers’ Pension Fund (MNOPF) announced it was appointing Towers Watson as delegated CIO, the UK pension industry took notice. While the £3.3bn (€3.7bn) scheme may not be big compared with some of the Dutch pension giants, it is influential in the UK, especially with its appointment establishing Towers in UK fiduciary management.
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Features
AIMA pushes for increased alignment
Eat your own cooking – that is the advice of CalPERS’s Kurt Silberstein, who recommends hedge fund managers add a little more of themselves to the pot if they want to entice pension funds to the table. In common parlance, hedge funds must do more to ‘align interests’ with investors.
