Latest analysis – Page 65
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Features
Schemes defy euro-zone uncertainty
Pension funds and investors in general faced an uncertain 2010, thanks in large part to the uncertainty around the euro-zone’s future.
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Features
Do investment innovations work?
The current crisis will be the mother of innovation. But Amin Rajan cautions that, after a traumatic decade, it is also time for a reality check: which of the modern innovations have worked, which have not, and why?
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Opinion Pieces
Language barriers
Pensions terminology is a confusing mishmash and needs to be simplified. It is causing problems not just for legislators but for all those who are pushing towards comparability in the finance and pensions industries.
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Opinion Pieces
Hard target
Are target-date funds (TDFs) serving the needs of their participants? To answer this question, JP Morgan Asset Management carried out research comparing participants’ behaviour with the common industry assumptions that inform TDF design. The conclusion is that the latter should be more conservative than experts might think.
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Features
Reality check
Anton van Nunen argues that instead of focusing on an undeliverable level of security, the Dutch regulator should recognise that 100% certainty is not attainable for pensions
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Features
Rare all-in business
The Danish pension and asset management industries are big enough to offer global custodians some glittering prizes. The mighty ATP, with assets in excess DKK610bn (€82bn) and effectively part of the state pension system, selected BNY Mellon as its global custodian in 2006.
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Player and dealer
I caught up with an old pal at the IPE Awards in Monaco in early December. As a previous IPE winner, we at Wasserdicht Pension Funds were invited to a special reception to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the awards. But beforehand, Pim and I met for an aperitif.
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Features
The year ahead
This month’s Off the Record survey asked European pension funds for their outlook for 2011, and received varying views and concerns.
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Opinion Pieces
Deficits in focus
The EU has now made a significant concession to accommodate the demands made by eight CEE member states and Sweden in August last year for the incorporation of future pension funding shortfalls into national annual budget statistics. Their governments claimed current rules effectively punish them for having made reforms to their pension systems that involved channelling some contributions away from the state system and into private funds.
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AnalysisNews analysis: Dutch pension system stands at crossroads
NETHERLANDS – What nobody had thought possible for the much-praised Dutch pension system, until recently, has become reality. With several pension funds announcing benefits cuts, the sector – dominated by its capital-funded mandatory pension schemes – has just entered a new phase.
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Features
A cornerstone of excellence
In the fifth and final article in a new survey, Jervis Smith and Amin Rajan argue that outsourcing is no longer a nickel-and-dime business
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Features
Heavyweights reject Solvency II
Policymakers, pundits and pensions gurus gathered in Brussels recently to attend the European Commission conference on the Green Paper on pensions. And while the event’s official line may have been safety, sustainability, transparency, working together – with László Andor, commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion, pointing out that funding ...
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Features
Stalemate ahoy
The debate on the reform of pensions and the creation of systems that are “adequate, sustainable and safe” has now moved from the European Commission and into the European Parliament. This institution is now developing its follow-on to the Commission’s Green Paper that set out a series of questions in July. But Parliament’s challenges appear to be formidable.
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Features
Global systems lack an ‘A’
Comparing more than a dozen pension systems worldwide, some might expect at least one to achieve the highest mark. However, Mercer, working with the Australian Centre for Financial Studies (ACFS) on comparing retirement arrangements across the globe in its second Melbourne Mercer Global Pension index, was unable to award an ...
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Opinion Pieces
Public vote for change
The Republic victory at the November elections has huge implications for public pension funds. The results are, in fact, supportive of reform to retirement systems that are threatening to bankrupt several state and local administrations. A few newly elected governors advocate moving towards a hybrid pension model where at least ...
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Features
Case study of a US asset manager
“Asset management is a craft industry and may always remain so. Its food chain is changing but predictions about consolidation are too simplistic. In manufacturing, consolidation is occurring in ownership, not activities: as size has proved an enemy of alpha, the craft end is being fragmented to create independent and ...
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FeaturesThe yin and yang of multi-boutiques
In the fourth article in a new series, Neeraj Sahai and Amin Rajan argue that boutique is a state of mind. Only savvy leaders can create it
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Features
Fiduciary expands in UK
Towers Watson received important backing in October for its implemented consulting offering following its appointment to an expanded ‘delegated CIO’ brief by the £3bn (€3.5bn) UK Merchant Navy Officers’ Pension Fund (MNOPF). Terminology aside, this is a fiduciary management agreement and as such is the largest in the UK to ...
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Features
NAPF delegates meet the new government
The National Association of Pension Funds’ annual conference in Liverpool came at a time of uncertainty for British pensions: there was the announcement of a new Pension Protection Fund (PPF) levy; the release of Lord John Hutton’s report into public pensions; and Steve Webb’s assurance to the industry that auto-enrolment ...
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Features
German education funds a no-brainer
Germany has jumped on the bandwagon of education funds, with pension funds sensing an opportunity for uncorrelated returns above bond yields with an altruistic benefit. On average, a German student wanting to graduate from a private university needs €25-30,000, of which only a small proportion is covered by grants.
