Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 285
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Special ReportTop 400: A painful legacy
Legacy and outdated technologies are costly and are increasingly attracting the attention of regulators, according to Peter Hill
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Special ReportTop 400: Investing under the influence
Craig Stevenson argues that activist hedge funds strategies can be beneficial for investors but that collaborative approaches are more likely to be effective
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Special ReportTop 400: Smart factor investing
It is important but insufficient to focus on the factor exposure of an index – it is also necessary to optimise the associated risk and return, according to Noël Amenc
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Features
Focus Group: Do you get what you pay for?
Asset management offers poorer value for money than other service industries, if IPE’s latest Focus Group survey results are anything to go by. Eighteen out of 36 respondents feel that it is worse while only 10 feel that it is better. Passive management is considered best in terms of value for money and investor-friendly fee structures, followed by benchmarked long-only active management and smart beta. Private equity and especially hedge funds are seen as the worst offenders.
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Special Report
Liability-Driven Investment: The de-risking bear fight
As pension schemes line up to de-risk, Emma Cusworth finds the supply-and-demand dynamic on the UK yield curve is causing aggressive competitive behaviour, distorting bond market valuations
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Asset Class Reports
Developed Market Sovereign Bonds: Dollar doldrums
Central banks holding growing foreign exchange reserves around the world will need to find alternatives to US dollar assets. Joseph Mariathasan reports on the best candidates
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Features
High frequency problems
High frequency trading (HFT) has scuttled into the limelight this year since the publication of Flash Boys, Michael Lewis’ recent book on the subject. While most people agree that faster, smarter trading is generally good, and that rigged markets are an entirely bad thing, there is by no means agreement where HFT fits in.
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Opinion Pieces
Lighting dark corners
The European Commission’s planned revisions to rules on shareholder rights aim to encourage a culture of long-term equity investment across the EU.
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Opinion Pieces
TIAA-CREF expands
Six years after taking the helm as president and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), Roger Ferguson announced the acquisition of Nuveen Investments in April for $6.25bn (€4.5bn), including debt.
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Interviews
An artisan with solutions
Where one still finds asset managers attached to banks, the former tend to be junior partners. Not so at William Blair, whose founder always had an ambition both to finance and invest in small growth companies from day one in 1935.
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Country Report
Switzerland: A home game
An emphasis on domestic investments has left Swiss Pensionskassen with relatively stable returns. Jonathan Williams asks if there are opportunities outside traditional domestic fixed income, equity and real estate
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Special Report
Credit: Not-so-high yield
Investors in the super-hot high-yield market are finding terms and documentation moving significantly against them. Charlotte Moore uncovers the details and looks for signs of a tipping point
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Features
Growing pensions China style
China launched a massive stimulus pro- gramme in 2008 in its bid to fend off the ravages of the global downturn. While that largely succeeded, there are now long-standing fears of an asset bubble, particularly in property. Growth is predicted to slow this year to its lowest rate since 1990. The country is in the midst of an anti-corruption drive, which is hitting sales of luxury goods, and air quality is still awful.
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Features
Three is a magic number (again)
Last month I wrote about how bond-market valuations are supported by the shape of the yield curve. This month (inspired by a presentation by BNP Paribas’ Kokou Agbo-Bloua I saw recently) we will turn to equities.
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Features
Brinksmanship
The Dutch pension system has been on the brink of a large-scale overhaul for five years now. In 2009 the government postponed a wholesale revision of Dutch second- pillar pensions with two major studies into the sustainability of the Dutch second pillar. Their findings led to a slew of reform proposals – some sensible, some outrageous, all contentious.
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Features
Warning: contents may vary
Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for the internal market, seems determined to end his period in office with a blizzard of activity ahead of this month’s European Par- liament elections. The (much watered down) draft directive for IORP II and a paper on long-term financing of the European economy were closely followed by a draft directive revising shareholder rights legislation, complete with a controversial proposal for a mandatory say-on-pay vote at EU listed companies.
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Features
Little red box full of radical tricks
Every spring, the UK chancellor presents the public with a red box full of tricks, setting out the government’s economic plans. While pension tax relief has often been tinkered with, this year George Osborne announced a wide-ranging reform of the defined contribution (DC) at-retirement system, the implications of which will be far-reaching.
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Features
Can the EC play a long-term game?
As part of the European Commission’s reinvigorated attempt to promote future investment in key economic areas, it has now produced a legislative agenda for the long-term financing of investment.
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Features
The mission for pensions reform
Eleven years have passed since the European pensions industry digested, welcomed and, in some cases, bemoaned the Directive for Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision, or IORP I as it became known. This year, the European Commission once again took up the arduous task of updating this Directive, publishing its legislative agenda before submitting it to the European trialogue machine.
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Features
On the naughty step
Moves by members of the European Parliament to subject accountancy bodies to greater political scrutiny spell trouble for the IFRS Foundation, writes Stephen Bouvier
