Latest analysis – Page 66
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Opinion Pieces
A private equity rethink
At the end of a tumultuous decade, US public pension funds are re-evaluating their relationship with private equity firms. Disappointing returns, high fees and a number of scandals are pushing pension fund managers either to quit investing in this asset class or to take more control themselves. But no solution ...
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Opinion Pieces
EIOPA: Mixed feelings
The new European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) opens its doors in 2011 with the prospect of greatly increased powers and a fivefold increase in staff in due course. EIOPA replaces the existing Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pension (CEIOPS), which is one of the three ‘level three’ ...
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Features
Legal battle with Henderson on cards
The dispute between a group of 30 pensions funds and Henderson over the management of two private finance initiative (PFI) funds is a salutary reminder of the need for pension funds and their advisers to minutely scrutinise complex investment agreements. PFI was developed in the UK in the 1990s as ...
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Features
Here comes the nudge
Saving and a frugal approach to life is easily preached. But as decades of ever-increasing loans and credit card debt have shown, the British have never been good at living within their own means, or putting aside money for a downturn. In fact, figures showed a marked increase in credit ...
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Features
The high wire act of asset allocation
Diversification is staging a reincarnation, according to Barb McKenzie and Amin Rajan
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Features
Pitfalls of fiduciary management
Christiaan Tromp outlines the necessary criteria for successful and long-lived fiduciary management partnerships
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Opinion Pieces
Social reform tensions
The campaign for the November mid-term Congressional elections is heating up, and one topic raising temperatures is social security reform. Depending on the outcome of the elections in the House and the Senate, the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR), due by 1 December, will be received in a different political environment.
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Opinion Pieces
IAS19 volatility danger
Perhaps unsurprisingly, pension fund representative bodies have registered their objection to the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) fair value proposals for defined benefit (DB) pension accounting. There is also backing from two major US organisations and a European one, plus general support by a second European body.
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Features
GPS: Blow to funds’ optimism
European pension funds say they have become more concerned about their own organisation’s ability to meet its financial objectives during the third quarter of 2010, with pessimistic views outnumbering optimistic views.
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Features
Pensions Green Paper has industry reaching for fine-tooth comb
The European Commission takes pains to emphasise what its latest Green Paper on pensions does not do. The paper, for instance, does not make any specific proposals. Nor does it recommend increasing the age at which people can draw a pension. Nor does it try to force people to take out a private pension. The only thing the Commission wants the Green Paper to do, it says, is start a debate about “whether and how” the European pensions framework should be developed.
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Opinion Pieces
Getting its Act together
US pension funds won two important battles in the debate that led to the approval of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in July. One is concern over the use of swaps to hedge plan risks, and the other is with stable value funds. The Act is also so complex that institutional investors are still waiting to see how it will affect them. It runs to more than 2,300 pages and its full impact might not be felt for years: according to conservative estimates, regulators have been conducting nearly 100 studies and writing more than 350 new rules implementing the changes.
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Opinion Pieces
The Commission hides its teeth
The authors of the European Commission’s policy paper, ‘Towards Adequate, Sustainable and Safe European Pension Systems’, are clearly aware that solving Europe’s pension challenge is a formidable task. Not only are there the oft-cited demographic problems and injustices to workers who move across national boundaries, but there is also the fragmented nature of member states’ legislative frameworks to consider.
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Features
GPS: Pension fund managers more optimistic than last quarter
European pension funds were more optimistic about the economy in their own countries during the second quarter of 2010. Pension fund managers were also more positive about the financial situation of their own fund than in the first quarter. However, the rise in optimism about the economy in their own ...
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Features
Industry Research:IPE European Institutional Asset Management Survey 2010
The European Institutional Asset Management Survey (EIAMS) this year celebrates its tenth anniversary. Invesco commenced the survey in 2000 and three years ago asked IPE to undertake it.
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Features
Exploiting uncertainty in investment markets
In the first in a series on a new study, Barb McKenzie, Neeraj Sahai and Amin Rajan argue that subdued asset growth is set to drive out mediocrity from the asset industry
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Opinion Pieces
Stephen Cooper, board member, International Accounting Standards Board
The issue of accounting for pensions has always been fraught for standard-setters who by necessity concentrate their efforts on the needs of investors who are, after all, generally considered to be the primary users of financial statements
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Features
Better late than never
On 29 April the IASB published its proposals to revamp IAS 19, employee benefits, which “aims to make fundamental improvements to the recognition, presentation and disclosure of defined benefit plans by mid-2011. These improvements will make it easier for users of financial statements to understand how defined benefit (DB) plans affect a company’s financial position, financial performance and cash flows.”
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Features
BP oil spill fuels investor concern
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is threatening to affect more than just the environment. Investors in BP, including pension funds, have been warned they could suffer in terms of both income and regulation if BP’s share price continues to fall and the dividend payment suspension continues beyond Q3 2010.
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Opinion Pieces
Cash Balance
Coca-Cola is the latest big US company to convert its final salary pension plan to cash balance, thereby becoming part of a trend highlighted in a recent survey of the Fortune 100 companies by professional services firm Towers Watson. Of these companies, the number replacing their traditional defined benefit (DB) plans with account-based retirement plans for new employees continues to increase.
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Opinion Pieces
Derivatives
Proposals for legislative measures on uncovered, or naked, short selling of securities and the trade in derivatives – two crucial areas in the EU’s wholesale upgrade of financial legislation post-financial crisis – are open to response from interested parties until 10 July.
