Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 937
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Features
Australia: Correction fears keep eyes on US markets
The recent run of the Australian equity market has pensions managers there guessing as much as outsiders. John Cann national manager remuneration and superannuation at Ansett Australia, based in Sydney, says: We don’t anticipate the Australian market is going to continue to be as strong as it has been in ...
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Features
Australia: Country risk premium to fade
After a two year run which saw industrial shares rise by 40%, Australian analysts are wary as to where things go from here. Chris Walker, head of Australian equities at Colonial Investment management in Melbourne, says: The rise occurred without much in the way of earnings growth. A lot of ...
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Features
USA: US markets still in business
Optimism, albeit cautious, about the US equity market is the view emanating from Trish Bridson, assistant director and head of North American equities at Kleinwort Benson in London. She says: “We see growth of between eight and 10%, driv-en mainly by earnings growth which we also think will grow by ...
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Features
Netherlands: Diversify and prosper
For the past few years, institutional investors in the Netherlands have been steadily adding international securities to their portfolios. This has prompted discussion of the benefits of diversification and of the management of the associated currency exposure. Our research shows that optimum diversification outside the Netherlands is far greater than ...
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Features
Dutch funds get taste for equities
Rachel Fixsen finds a shift away from the safety of bonds
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Features
'Optimise' for a happier risk-return marriage
Financial optimisation techniques are extremely useful tools, say Ronald Layard-Liesching and Constantine Ponticos
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Features
Index funds see appeal widen in Netherlands
Index funds play an important role for pension funds in the Netherlands. Larger funds in particular have invested a significant part of their equity portfolios in passive products. Even indexed fixed income funds show growth both in new funds as well as in absolute figures. Experienced investment managers have realised ...
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Features
The rational approach
Most major European countries seem to be sitting on a so-called pensions time-bomb, with unfunded state pension commitments threatening vast increases in taxation. The expected growth in the private sector has the marketing departments of UK investment managers and actuarial consultants salivating. But is every firm assured a rosy future? ...
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Features
Cash: Cashing in on the fear factor
Institutional cash funds take on the banks, reports Rachel Oliver
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Special Report
Shareholder value: a new term for an old problem
Han Kleiterp describes the dilemmas facing those institutional investors seeking shareholder value
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Features
Laying the first bricks in indexing
Compared with the stock markets, that other great investment market - the real estate market - has been badly served in most European countries. With a few exceptions, there is very little by way of benchmarks for commercial property in Europe. And investors - particularly investors from other countries - ...
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Features
Securities lending comes of age for Europe's pension funds
Chase Manhattan’s Global Securities Services in London is about to announce new global Custody Mandates in Europe-one a German pension fund and the other a large European foundation, the mandate of which is worth US$2bn and will be invested globally. Last year Chase took £50bn worth of custody business out ...
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Features
Unilever: was it a matter of style?
How did Gartmore Fund Managers come to lose £1bn worth of Unilever’s pensions business? When the £3.5bn Unilever pension fund announced last month that it was withdrawing its £1bn mandate from Gartmore and appointing new external managers instead, shock waves went round the City of London. According to Watson Wyatt’s ...
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Features
EFRP appointment to turn up the EU heat
The European Federation for Retirement Provision is to intensify its European Union lobbying effort with the appointment of a full-time Brussels-based secretary general in June this year. The EFRP has already offered the position to someone but the appointment is still to be confirmed. Colin Steward, the EFRP’s current part-time ...
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Features
Italian pension funds on standby
Over 800 hundred pension funds, created by Italian banks, insurance companies and mutual funds are awaiting the final decree in a series issued by the Italian government since the start of the year which will officially set up private pension provision. This decree, which is considered the most important is ...
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Features
Russia puts funds on firmer footing
Russian investment funds, illegitimately described as pensions funds will be forced to drop the name, when a pensions bill, strengthening the Russian pensions inspectorate and currently progressing through the Duma, becomes law. Russia’s 200 non-state pension funds involving the savings of 1.5 million Russians will also b e given a ...
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Features
French company schemes 'a winner', says survey
The new French company pensions law should be a guaranteed success according to a survey carried out by Frank Russell Paris for Groupe AXA. Sixty-nine per cent of the companies surveyed aim to set up plans under the new law. A total of forty companies responded to the survey, carried ...
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Features
UK committee criticised for pensions recommendations
The UK-centred debate over Europe’s pensions liability and its affect on EMU heated up last month when a lobbying group published a paper criticising the Parliamentary Social Security Committee for recommending that unfunded pensions liabilities should be included in the EMU convergence criteria. In addition, in mid-February, the committee held ...
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Features
Irish start on pensions reform
Ireland has taken the first step towards reform of its occupational pensions sector with the launch of the National Pensions Policy Initiative. The publication, on the 13 February, of a 72-page government document setting out possible policy courses marked the start of a national consultation exercise. The deadline for responses ...
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Features
New law means all change for French pensions
France’s long-awaited Pensions Law finally arrives, reports John Lappin
