Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 281
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Asset Class Reports
US Equities: Catching the technology wave
Joseph Mariathasan discusses where US technology companies sit in relation to a once-in-a-generation paradigm shift: the move from desktop to mobile and the cloud
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Special ReportSmart beta: A genuine revolution
Remember 130/30 funds? Most investment journalists do, because they delivered one of those periodic lessons in a major peril of their profession – getting caught up with next hot product
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Special Report
Smart beta: Blurring the lines
The smart-beta or factor revolution is breaking down the boundaries between active and passive management. But Brendan Maton finds this introducing as many new questions as solutions
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Special Report
Smart beta: A match made in smart-beta heaven?
Combining fundamental indexation and minimum variance appears to smooth out the bumpy ride usually associated with harvesting the value-risk premium, finds Charlotte Moore
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Special Report
Smart beta: Collecting the premiums
Martin Steward spoke to Denmark’s PKA about its pioneering approach to extracting risk and return from equity markets – and beyond
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Special Report
Smart beta: Smart beta's Tower of Babel
Smart beta systematically introduces different risks than those contained in the market portfolio – and yet mandates are still generally benchmarked against the market. Brendan Maton writes about the urgent need for more suitable measures of risk and return
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Special Report
Smart beta: A question of governance
Andrew Ang and Alfred Slager shared the stage at a recent seminar. Martin Steward reports on how the debate has moved from the ‘if’ questions to the ‘how’
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Special Report
Smart beta: Every drop of return
Martin Stewardspoke to the Environment Agency Pension Fund, 2013 IPE Award winner for smart beta, about its adoption of diversity weighting, fundamental indexation and low-volatility strategies
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Special ReportThe smart beta family tree
The range of new forms of ‘beta’ can leave investors bewildered. Martin Steward’s illustrative taxonomy offers a flavour of how these solutions might be categorised and how they relate to one another, and lists the key research papers that first described each methodology.
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Country Report
Belgium: Belgian funds on course
Belgium has doubled occupational pension fund participation in the last 10 years and returns were a healthy 6.7% in 2013, writes Iain Morse
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Country Report
Belgium: A DC future: KBC Pensioenfonds
KBC has introduced a DC pension fund for new members starting from the beginning of 2014 and closed its DB fund. The fund is one of Belgium’s largest pension schemes, founded in 1941 with €1.2bn in assets and 15,500 active members.
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Special Report
Europe’s Pension Consultants: Are fees wasted?
After a recent academic paper raised serious questions about consultants’ competence in manager selection, Gail Moss talks to the industry about the nuances of the research and the defence of their practices
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Special Report
Europe’s Pension Consultants: Talking heads
IPE put some questions to pension consultants and fiduciary managers, here is a selection of their views
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Special Report
Europe’s Pension Consultants: Shifting plates
Liam Kennedy questions Chris Ford about ideas, advice and implementation in a changing consulting industry
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Features
Rising sun or false dawn?
Daniel Ben-Ami looks back on a year of ‘Abenomics’, and finds optimism in the early hours of a new day for Japan’s economy and markets
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Features
A sovereign story: the Argentine experience
Rani Mina and Mark Stefanini argue that precedents set by the Argentine default experience could well be applied to future sovereign defaults including in the euro-zone
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Features
Quarter century of a rising tide
Nina Röhrbein charts the main events, issues and trends of the past 25 years that have influenced the shape of environmental, social and governance investing
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Features
Be honest about the cost
Flood protection is generally reckoned to be a sound investment, given the relatively small outlay compared with the high cost to life and property when water inundates homes, shops and factories. When the British Isles were pounded by the severest storms in living memory in February, attention naturally focused on whether budget constraints had jeopardised flood protection, and whether greater expenditure would be needed to secure communities and prevent future floods.
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Features
Why 7 February didn’t cow the bulls
When ex-Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke mentioned the possibility of ‘tapering’ the bank’s quantitative easing programme back in May 2013, the first market response was somewhat confused.
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Features
Dutch design
The long and winding road of Dutch pension reforms has reached an interesting juncture: will the country stay true to its collective DB past, or turn into DC country?
