Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 412
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Special Report
Stock responses
The speed and extent of this year’s equity bull market has arguably made it trickier to position for the longer-term economic recovery. Martin Steward asks portfolio managers about the courses they are setting
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Asset Class ReportsStill the wild frontier
US small and mid caps remain the crucible of corporate capitalism and opportunity. But Joseph Mariathasan finds that the challenge is in steering through the sheer variety of stocks and managers
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Country Report
CEE: Pensions and the economic crisis
The global recession has affected the countries of central and eastern Europe in markedly different ways. Krystyna Krzyzak analyses the significant impacts of the crisis on the region’s supplementary pensions systems
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Features
A handmaid’s tale
The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the International Accounting Standards Board and its US counterpart, the Financial Accounting Standards Board is key to understanding why European businesses are in danger of drowning in what increasingly resembles a tide of accounting effluent.
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Features
UK covenant semantics
Almost 18 months into the financial crisis, UK pension funds are still struggling to ensure employer covenants will protect pension plans should a company go under or be unable to plug the deficit. But lessons have also been learned in that time. This suggests trustees are at least improving their own governance.
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Features
Fiduciary futures
Pension funds outside the Netherlands struggled to understand fiduciary management only two years ago, but now the concept is thriving and evolving independently in different European countries, a report finds.
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Interviews
Concentrating on value
“Believe it or not,” says David Barse, president and CEO of Third Avenue Management, “I think we’re boring. Our portfolio might look interesting, but we never change our style or basic investment philosophy for different markets, or even for different asset classes, market-caps or regions. I once overheard an investor who thought he’d muted the conference phone say, ‘This guy says the same damn thing every time’. I thought that was the greatest compliment.”
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Opinion Pieces
The sands shift
December 2009 may have marked the end of the downturn in US for the job market and retirement savings, after two very tough years. There were signs of stabilisation with companies starting to hire again, while employees who survived received statements from their pension funds that were no longer horrible.
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Special Report
SMID sweet spot
Patrick Quinn argues for specific small and mid-cap mandates – and active management – as attractive risks at this point in the economic cycle
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Features
Global macro lessons
They may seem worlds apart, but global macro managers might have some useful things to teach pension funds, writes Martin Steward
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Features
Spreading the risk
Diversified growth lives up to its name, covering a diverse range of institutional strategies with diverse potential uses for pension funds, finds Christine Senior. But is the strategy discredited?
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Special Report
Dark forces
Uncertainties govern any future projection of the equity risk premium, argue Wim Barentsen and Svetlana Rodionova, making scenario analysis essential to APG’s asset-liability matching process
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Opinion Pieces
AIFM Directive delayed
Delayed scheduling in Brussels of the Alternative Investment Fund Directive — by about six months — might be bringing smiles to the faces of the anti-reform lobby. They would not mind at all that the Directive’s final clearance, through a European Parliament plenary session, is now estimated for June or ...
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Features
Ong’s law of finance
When leading financial practitioners and academics convened in Qatar earlier in the autumn at the launch of QFinance to discuss the future of financial services regulation, it seemed that the economic tsunami of 2008 was finally receding and normality was returning. Banks have spent most of the year rebuilding their ...
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Opinion Pieces
Will Price, International Organisation of Pension Supervisors
We live in a world of integrated markets where co-operation and cohesion of our diverse regulatory approaches is key to understanding and mitigating the impact of the global financial turmoil.
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Special ReportPricing equity risk appetite
Historic excess returns from equities tell us little about the risk premium embedded in valuations at any given time. Toby Nangle and Hartwig Kos explain how a forward earnings-based model allows them to take account of extreme economic scenarios that could disrupt those earnings
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Special Report
Dynamic alpha risk budgeting
Dynamic management of core/satellite allocations might seem an ideal strategy for maximising return while minimising costs. But this approach can be difficult to execute, argues Daniel Wallick
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FeaturesGoing beyond sound-bite leadership
In the final article in this series, Neeraj Sahai and Amin Rajan conclude that asset mangers can no longer afford to confuse the buzz of the investment function with leadership
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Special Report
SMART portfolio management
Static portfolio management techniques fail because they cannot respond to changing economic conditions. Arun Muralidhar offers an alternative
