Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 348
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Interviews
A new titan in Asian equities
The timing could have been better. Just days before the finalisation of the merger of the Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co and Chuo Mitsui Asset Trust & Banking Co, the latter was fined by Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) for an insider trading breach that took place nearly two years ago.
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Retirement questions
Here in the Netherlands we like to hold a special event for our colleagues when they retire. And there is usually something extra special when someone senior takes their pension.
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Features
Focus Group: Risky business
Twenty-seven respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey used liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies. On average, 63% of their liability risk was currently hedged.
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: Let’s work together
Private equity co-investment looks like a great deal for limited partners. But Martin Steward finds that it is demanding enough to require intermediation, even for large investors withestablished general partner networks
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Opinion Pieces
Politics of change
The nomination of Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to the White House may bring a lot of attention to the US pension fund industry. If he wins the election on 6 November, he could introduce a partial privatisation of Social Security, the compulsory insurance programme funded through payroll taxes. The first president to talk about privatising it was also a Republican one, George W Bush, but his proposal went nowhere.
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Features
Pensionsfonds, 10 years on
It is said that more tax literature exists in German than in any other language. This may be true, but Germany’s institutional investment set-up, as well as its five occupational pensions ‘vehicles’, seems almost as infuriatingly complex to the outsider as the country’s fiscal system.
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Features
The tug-of-war continues
It is difficult to argue against the notion that funded pension benefits should be well capitalised. Those who argue that the benefits should be more secure would say this is so precisely because they are such an important part of a person’s lifetime earnings. But there are plenty of arguments ...
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Features
The Brussels tug-of-war continues
Getting a place at the public hearing on the revised IORP Directive in Brussels was quite a challenge. The 400 seats the European Commission set aside for the pension fund industry were all spoken for within a matter of days. Nobody wanted to miss the chance to hear what Brussels ...
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Features
NAPF predicts the rise of UK super trusts
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) investment conference in Edinburgh last month focused on issues of scale in defined contribution (DC) schemes. Chairman Mark Hyde Harrison once again renewed his call for the launch of ‘super trusts’ – predicting that up to six of these larger vehicles could be ...
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Features
Property valuation
Any business that wants to stay in business needs to recognise revenue. And conveniently enough, recent machinations at the IASB have combined in a perfect storm of revenue recognition, the attractiveness of Far East property as an asset class, secrecy and oversight.
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Country Report
Germany: Providers of liquidity
As banks are withdrawing from project financing in real estate and infrastructure, Versorgungswerke like the BVK are stepping in and actively seeking investment partners, finds Barbara Ottawa
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Country Report
Germany: Are Pensionsfonds maturing?
Klaus Stiefermann, Sabine Mahnert and Dr Cornelia Schmid argue that a few regulatory adjustments could greatly improve occupational pensions
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Country Report
Germany: Two anniversaries and a critique
Mercer’s November 2011 summary of German corporate pension provision notes that “….supplementary pension plans… typically either adopt a book reserving approach, with or without segregated assets, or an insured pensions approach”. That’s diplomatic language for “not widespread with too little funding”, a situation that contributes to Germany ranking eleventh out ...
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Country Report
Germany: Ten years of master KAG – an interim assessment
Clemens Schuerhoff and Hans-Jürgen Dannheisig draw on their experience in specialist consulting to assess the achievements and challenges for master KAGs in Germany
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Country Report
Germany: No-man’s- land
Nina Röhrbein analyses how the current financial and interest rate environment is affecting German pension funds’ asset allocation
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Country Report
Germany: Navigating through stormy weather
When it comes to asset allocation, German pension funds are under increasing pressure from various sources, writes Torsten Köpke
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Special Report
Boutique Asset Managers: In at the ground floor
Even if the performance benefits of early-stage managers might be contested,Lynn Strongin Dodds identifies further positives in the form of negotiated fees, revenue sharing and direct-ownership opportunities
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Special Report
Boutique Asset Managers: IMQubator: giving talent a push
Capitalised in January 2009 with €250m from the Netherlands’ APG following the recommendation of a working group from the Holland Financial Centre, IMQubator intermediates the allocation of seeding and operational capital from third-party institutional investors to early-stage boutiques. Martin Steward spoke to founder and CEO Jeroen Tielman about the business ...
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Special Report
Boutique Asset Managers: Size bias
In today’s environment pension funds ought to seek absolute returns, write Jeroen Tielman and Hamlin Lovell. And if you are after absolute returns, it pays to go with smaller, younger managers
