Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 378
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Features
Define risk, please
Off to talk to the chairman of the pension fund board. ‘Well Pieter, many members are still phoning the administration helpline to ask about investment policy. The recent television programme that criticised the industry for not paying more in premiums means we are still in the firing line.’
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Opinion Pieces
Defusing Short-Termism
The European Commission’s (EC) new green paper, ‘The EU Corporate Governance Framework’, clearly aims to encourage company owners to take a more active role in influencing management.
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Opinion Pieces
Battle to stave off crisis
Andrew Cuomo is one of the most admired recently-elected state governors – primarily for his efforts to get the budget under control and bring taxes down.
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Features
Martin Steward: Longevity risk, rewarded and unrewarded
“You must hedge your unrewarded risks!” pension funds are told. But what are unrewarded risks? “Interest rate, inflation and longevity risk, for starters.” Sure, but why do we call them ‘unrewarded risks’?
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Features
Liam Kennedy: Risk handicap
“Political risk is the hardest of all to handicap”, a well-respected analyst told me recently. Many investors largely disregard the political risk factor in emerging markets after the likes of Goldman Sachs successfully propagated the BRICs narrative and the old story of ‘risky’ emerging markets and ‘safe’ developed markets was ...
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Features
From our perspective: What’s your co-operation plan?
As long-term expected portfolio returns settle at modest annual rates of well under 10%, basis points really do count as the pension fund community – and its sponsoring stakeholders – look to deliver pensions at a reasonable cost to all concerned.
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Features
Hutton warns against ‘pick & mix’
The publication of the final report by the UK’s Independent Public Service Pensions Commission, more commonly referred to as the Hutton Report on pensions, was published in March.
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Features
NAPF gets to grips with SIPs and BRICS
Lord Hutton’s final report on UK public sector pensions was not the only matter discussed at the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) Investment Conference in Edinburgh, although the presence of the former work and pensions secretary was certainly felt.
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Features
Germany’s fiduciary confusion
The simmering debate over institutional interest in fiduciary management in Germany – or rather the lack of it – has boiled over in recent weeks, with an array of consultants and asset managers weighing in on costs, transparency, conflicts of interest and even the very meaning of the term.
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Book Review
Books: The wheat and the chaff
"Investment Beliefs: A Positive Approach to Institutional Investing", by Kees Koedijk and Alfred Slager, 2011, 205 pages
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Book Review
Books: In a ‘death spiral’
‘The Day After the Dollar Crashes: A Survival Guide for the Rise of the New World Order’, by Damon Vickers, Wiley 2011, 190 pages
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Country Report
Germany: Deutschland AG adapts
The last 10 years have seen a dismantling of the ‘Deutschland AG’ network of cross shareholdings, writes Nina Röhrbein, but there is still room for improvement
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Country Report
Germany: Rise and fall of funded pensions
Funded schemes for German civil servants are drawing criticism – for investment policies, low contributions or because they are being discontinued in many cases. Barbara Ottawa reports
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Country Report
Germany: Liberal tradition
Versorgungswerke, the odd ones out in the German funded pension system, are a successful model of funding first pillar pensions. Barbara Ottawa reports on the critical factors
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Country Report
Germany: A market dominated by providers
Pensionsfonds are established in the German occupational pension market yet bureaucratic hurdles hamper further development, write Alfons Schwarz and Ralph Rost
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Country Report
Germany: Could do better
Norman Dreger reviews Germany’s position in the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension index and outlines areas for improvement
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Country Report
Austria: The long wait
Barbara Ottawa reports on why Austria is still waiting for an amendment to the law on Pensionskassen and what the industry is doing in the meantime
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Special Report
Longevity: Beyond buyout and buy-in
The time seems right to develop an international secondary market for longevity risk that allows pension funds to deal with the downside of longer lives, writes Mariska van der Westen
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Special Report
Longevity: Uncertain life expectancies
In the Netherlands, sharply rising life expectancies have been an issue since 2009. Every pension fund is using its own numbers, and the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) forecasts diverge from the Dutch Actuarial Association’s. André de Vos tries to sort the confusion
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Special Report
Longevity: Age concerns
In Europe, Germany faces the most pressure to deal with an ageing population finds Jonathan Williams
