Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 309
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Country Report
Italy: Economic reality bites hard
Job losses and a tough economic environment are forcing pension funds Fonchim and Cometa to review and restructure their investment objectives, writes Carlo Svaluto Moreolo In testing times for the Italian job market, two of the country’s largest pension schemes, Fonchim and Cometa, are gradually adjusting their investment strategies to ...
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Country Report
Italy: ENPAM gets back into gear
Embroiled in a scandal in 2011, has ENPAM now turned the corner? Carlo Svaluto Moreolo reports The ENPAM pension fund for medical professionals published its balance sheet in May, reassuring members that the dark days of the past are finally over. In 2012 the fund recorded a €1.3bn budget surplus ...
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Country Report
Italy: Mangusta Risk advocates pension funds spend more time on passive portfolios
Any adviser, large or small, would have seen an opportunity when the Italian pension market opened up less than 20 years ago, with the establishment of many new medium and large-sized pension schemes.
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Country Report
Italy: Three sparks needed to ignite the Italian pensions market
State Street Global Advisor (SSGA) is one of the leading Italian institutional asset managers, managing €10bn of domestic institutional investors’ funds as of June 2013. It holds 13 mandates from closed pension schemes such as Cometa and Fonchim and 15 mandates from casse di previdenza, a sector where the Milan-based asset manager is the undisputed leader, giving the firm a broad view of the Italian institutional investment market. Marco Fusco, SSGA’s head of southern Europe outlined the three sparks he believes are needed to ignite the Italian market.
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Country Report
Italy: Compulsory membership and education are key to improving pension system
Francesco Vallacqua is a research fellow of Center for Applied Research and Finance (CAREFIN) at Bocconi University of Milan. He has held positions as a consultant to governmental institutions and pension schemes, such as at Cometa, the fund for mechanical engineering industry workers, and is currently a board member of Espero, the teaching professionals’ fund.
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Country Report
Italy: COVIP weathers the storms of Italian politics
Covip annual statement: In 2013 membership of private pension schemes increases, albeit slowly, at 5.3% adding 290,000 more members to the total 5.8m. Funds have grown between 8% and 9% in 2012, compared to 2.9% growth of the trattamento di fine rapporto.
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Country Report
Italy: The recovery starts at home for Cometa as it seeks to stabilise its membership
At Cometa, the €7.3bn scheme for workers employed by the metal and mechanical engineering industries, the membership issue is more urgent. The scheme has about 427,000 members, less than half the one million potential members in the sector. The figure is unlikely to rise significantly in 2013 because of the condition of the sector, where factories are closing or laying off workers. So the scheme is focusing on keeping its current members.
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Opinion Pieces
Happy in the hot seat
Jeremy Woolfe asks Gabriel Bernardino, the chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, about the challenges he faces stuck in the crossfire of the conflicting interests of the European pensions industry
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Opinion Pieces
Peter Borgdorff, CEO, PFZW
“When I think of the destination of this money, I think of the woman who cycles from house to house and cleans someone’s bottom”
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Country Report
Switzerland: Rights and responsibilities
Nina Rohrbein analyses the consequences for Swiss pension funds, their advisers and asset managers of the referendum on executive pay
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Country Report
Switzerland: Funds play catch-up
David Pauls and Peter Zanella argue that Swiss pension funds must keep up with underlying economic and demographic reality, and that policy makers should stop moving the goalposts
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Country Report
Switzerland: Magic number crunching
Swiss pension funds have enjoyed a major recovery in the funding levels over the past months. But the fundamental problems remain, writes Barbara Ottawa
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Country Report
Switzerland: New challenges for asset managers
Richard Bruyère presents the results of Image & Finance’s latest research covering the institutional market in Switzerland
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Country Report
Switzerland: Smart on beta benchmarks
Swiss pension funds have mostly shied away from alternatively weighted benchmark strategies. Cécile Sourbes finds that adoption will depend on thorough analysis and transparency of data
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Country Report
Switzerland: Cage fight against complacency
Some think the second pillar is perfect, so 17 years ago four people set out to challenge that view with an innovative approach and an international viewpoint. Innovation Zweite Säule co-founder Werner Nussbaum tells Barbara Ottawa about challenges past and present
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Special Report
The Euro-Zone: A rising tide
A flood of global liquidity is floating all of the euro-zone’s boats – even those, like the Netherlands and France, whose economies have taken a turn for the worse. Lynn Strongin Dodds looks at the dynamics
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Special Report
The Euro-Zone: Understanding sovereign spreads
Lorenzo Naranjo and Carmen Stefanescu argue that European sovereign spreads are all about the flight to liquidity, not the flight to quality
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Special Report
The Euro-Zone: The Cyprus syndrome
Helen Fowler finds the risk-reward balance across European bank debt changing rapidly following recent resolutions
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Features
Rock ‘n’ roll yield
Music publishing rights are a proven inflation-sensitive cash-flow asset, and Martin Steward finds that fast-changing music consumption habits are generating not threats, but opportunities
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Asset Class Reports
Credit: When the well goes dry
As market markers retreat, Joseph Mariathasan notes that bond portfolio managers are holding more cash, using more derivatives, focusing on primary issues – and preparing for liquidity to get even drier
