Latest analysis – Page 62
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Features
Bernardino: Solvency II not a simple exercise
With the introduction of Solvency II less than a year and a half away, the pensions industry is still unclear what kind of regime it will face and how aspects of the Directive, drafted for insurance companies, may be applied to diverse European pensions.
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Features
Systemic reforms just a utopian dream
Experts and analysts believe the idea of a systemic reform of France’s pension industry faces major hurdles and that it is unlikely to be implemented due to funding and political wrangling. They also say that building up a new pension regime from scratch would be the best way to simplify the French system and avoid increasing the deficit.
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FeaturesInvestment innovations: a scorecard
Pension plans have an open mind about innovations, say Neeraj Sahai, Jim McCaughan and Amin Rajan
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Features
Convergence over harmonisation
Niels Kortleve, Barthold Kuipers and Wilfried Mulder offer reasons why the European Commission should focus on convergence of EU pension regulation rather than harmonisation
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Features
Should fiduciaries manage assets?
Anton Van Nunen writes on the changing role of fiduciary managers. Should they manage pension assets themselves despite the potential conflict of interest?
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FeaturesNordic investors warm to EMD
Investors in Nordic countries show rising interest in emerging market debt as a way to take part in the emerging market story. Jan Willers reports on findings of a recent survey
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Features
An avarice for absolute return
Pirkko Juntunen looks at the unique pension investment policy employed by Swedish construction company Skanska
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
We Dutch value consensus – perhaps we even need it in the way we need our dikes and polders to manage our low-lying lands.
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Features
Risk remains a top issue
Over three-quarters of respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey stated that risk management had been raised as an agenda item on their board in the past 12 months. This was slightly lower than reported at the same time last year (85%), but still clearly shows its importance as an issue for pension funds.
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Opinion Pieces
MiFID II
The European Commission is preparing its revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I) that provides harmonised regulation for investment services. MiFID II is due to be published in September 2011, slightly delayed from the earlier deadline of July.
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Opinion Pieces
A labour of love
This is a busy time for pension fund professionals in the US as they try to figure out the impact of new rules issued by the department of labor (DoL) on fee disclosure and fiduciary responsibility. Changes are likely to occur soon for plan sponsors, providers, investment managers, brokers, and advisers of 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans, which reached a record $4trn (€2.8trn) in total assets and 82m participants at the end of 2010, according to Plan Sponsor.
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Features
Martin Steward: The numbers game
Everyone knows about the spectacular growth of online gaming over the past 10 years. You probably have companies making money from this business tucked away in your portfolio. Less well-known is its effect on some venerable casino-based games. It hasn’t drawn players away from casinos – quite the opposite – ...
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Features
Liam Kennedy: Infrastructure pains
The US pioneered the development of modern fast roads with its interstate highway network in the 1950s and 60s. Yet the August 2007 collapse of the Mississippi Bridge in Minnesota highlighted the decrepit state of some of this infrastructure. And it is not just roads that need to be developed.
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Keeping it real
I’m on my way to Brussels for a meeting. Since my car is in the garage for its annual service I decide to take the train. In the old days it used to take three hours from Amsterdam to Brussels but, since we built the new high-speed rail line, it takes less than two. I say we built it, but actually the Belgians built their own part and finished a lot later than we did.
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Features
In pursuit of a good mix
Just over 88% of this month’s respondents said they invested with managers who use quantitative tools – although we should acknowledge some self-selection bias. Of these, 29% have a specialist quant manager section in their portfolio (and a further 12% only have them in their hedge funds) while 35% have quants working across their entire portfolio.
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Features
Come up, we’re sinking
Feeling conflicted about inflation? If so, take comfort in the fact you are not alone. At the moment, everyone on Planet Earth appears to have ambivalent feelings about the topic. In the space of just two weeks, the industry has generated surveys, studies and reports prophesying that either inflation is about to spread across the planet like The Blob, devouring income and destroying wealth, or that the spectre of deflation is about drag us all back to the 1930s.
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Features
From our perspective: Get reforming
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a boulder up a hill, continually, only to watch it roll down again and to repeat the procedure again and again.
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Features
A question of faith
“We want to strengthen faith in the second pillar,” the Swiss government frequently points out when defending its plans for structural reform of the Swiss mandatory occupational pension system. But according to the Swiss pension fund association ASIP, it is not individuals’ faith that needs strengthening.
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Features
Changing of the guards at Aba
The sceptre has been handed over – in this case, it is actually a shiny metal cigar case which the first chairman of the Aba, Albrecht Weiß (1890-1961), received from members for his sixtieth birthday in the early years of Aba’s existence.
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Features
Economic situation mirrored by gifts
“Some of my clients are doin’ real good, some not,” said a Texan attendee at this year’s CFA Annual Conference. “But we are proud to be Americans.”
