Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 407
-
Country Report
Netherlands: Save our system
The Dutch pension system is decaying due to legislation, accounting practices and the economic climate, writes Anton van Nunen
-
Country Report
Netherlands: In practice
Both the Frijns Committee and the DNB, the Dutch supervisor, have been clear in their assessments: pension funds need to bolster their governance in order to bring asset management and risk management more under control. Mariksa van der Westen and Miranda Schoutsen ask what pension funds are doing to meet ...
-
Country ReportNetherlands: Facing tomorrow’s risks today
Change is not an extravagant luxury, Piet Hein Donner, the Netherlands’ minister for social affairs and labour, told Mariska van der Westen
-
Country Report
Netherlands: Pensions should be a 'good deal'
Miranda Schoutsen spoke to Kees Goudswaard, the author of the report ‘A Strong Second Pillar’
-
Country ReportNetherlands: Old giants on slippery ice
Pension funds are like vulnerable old giants reaching with stiff fingers to fasten their skates before launching themselves onto the slippery ice of the future. Jean Frijns, chairman of the Frijns Committee, told us how he thinks these giants can be made fit for the future, Jean Frijns
-
Features
Pension fund returns bounce back in 2009
Improvements in global markets from March 2009 resulted in the majority of European pension funds posting double-digit investment returns by the end of the year.
-
Features
Finland mulls reforms
The Finnish government and labour market organisations are evaluating reform proposals made by two working groups aiming to identify ways of increasing working life and raising the retirement age. The working groups were set up after the agreement between social partners and the government in March 2009 to increase the ...
-
Features
Nod for investment consultants
This month’s Off The Record survey focuses on pension funds’ use of investment consultants and their satisfaction with the services provided. Some 62% of funds said they used investment consultants on a retainer basis, while 38% did so on an occasional or project basis.
-
Features
Diary of an Investor: Crikey!
“Oh dear, whoops and crikey”, are expressions used by the British to describe feelings when facing unusual situations. Well, I use them because we are being visited by Central Bank supervisor. These visits must evoke similar reactions from my peers in other European countries. Yet in Holland, no matter how the coverage ratio looks, we know we are all about to be told off.
-
Special Report
Lukewarm on weather derivatives
Nina Röhrbein reports on whether investors are turning to weather derivatives as a means of assuaging climate change concerns
-
Special Report
De-risking drives competition
Iain Morse reports from a cost-conscious UK custody market as trustees aim to comprehend, and lower, their risk exposure
-
Interviews
Modelling talent – and tails
We all know that finding alpha is tough. But managing a portfolio of alpha sources is also trickier than it seems. Many assume that a hedge fund manager’s idiosyncratic risk has a stable relationship with his beta exposures (which is unsatisfactory); and that idiosyncratic risk is normally-distributed and, by definition, non-correlated with other idiosyncratic risks (which is potentially disastrous). Very few have made significant progress beyond these assumptions, but it should come as no surprise that one of those few is fund of hedge funds Caliburn Capital Partners – because building portfolios of alpha is its raison d’être.
-
FeaturesWhen lightning strikes twice
Pension funds face a difficult challenge in coping with market volatility and modelling risk. Lisa Goldberg describes some of the available options in statistical analysis
-
Asset Class ReportsValue traps
Michele Gambera uses UK equities to reveal how excluding or including companies with negative earnings skews the P/E ratio of the market
-
Asset Class ReportsEuropean equities: Never out of style
Managing European equities has to be about avoiding style biases, finds Joseph Mariathasan. He speaks to five managers who have squeezed alpha from very different markets with very distinct strategies
-
Features
Bucking the trends
Martin Steward examines the big claims that are made for managed futures’ non-correlation with traditional assets, other hedge funds and even each other
-
Special Report
Europe's Pension Consultants: One-stop shop
Trustees now have various opportunities to delegate some investment decision-making. Gill Wadsworth asks whether fiduciary management is a better bet than implemented consulting
-
Special ReportEurope's Pension Consultants: Rapid change
Twin trends of consolidation and thriving specialist boutiques coincide with an urgent debate about the role of advisers and ownership of responsibility within the pensions governance complex. Martin Steward looks at optimising the cooks-to-broth ratio
-
Country ReportNetherlands: Change on the horizon
It has been the poster boy of the international pensions world, but the Netherlands is now reflecting on recent failings following the publication of the Frijns and Goudswaard reports, writes Liam Kennedy, as the prospect of a real cover ratio looms on the horizon
-
Country ReportBelgium: A time for courage and action
Karel Stroobants argues that doing nothing about the Belgian pension system is not an option if the country is to avoid collective impoverishment and generational conflict
