Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 514
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Features
Fascinated by formulas
What was your first full-time job – and do you remember what you were paid at the time? In 1961 I took what I intended to be a job during a school holiday at what turned out to be an actuarial bureau. I was paid 375 gilders (€170) per month. ...
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Features
Global liquidity under threat?
Yield curve/duration An uncomfortable unease is permeating all asset classes across all markets. What will the Fed chairman Bernanke do next? Go for more tightening to show the markets that he too is as tough on inflation as his hugely respected predecessor? Or will he wait, giving the US economy ...
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Features
Shunning the black box
Imagine you are at a cocktail party by Lake Geneva on a warm summer evening, perhaps in Lausanne or Montreux. And as you sip a drink and enjoy the view of the sun setting behind the mountains you are aware of an ambiance of good feeling, you see people networking ...
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Features
When the state bows out
Latvia’s fledgling second pillar pension funds expect to receive a much-needed shot in the arm over the coming year if a plan to withdraw the State Treasury from the market is approved by parliament. “The State Treasury became involved in funded pensions because our pension reform was implemented in the ...
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Features
In a world of their own
Size matters when it comes to pension funds. The bigger the fund, the better value it can give scheme members, through economies of scale on the investment side. On the other hand, when a single pension fund has to cover an exceptionally broad geographical area, the costs can mount up. ...
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Features
Russia gets taste of market
Non-state (private) pension funds (NSPFs) consider September 1992 the birth date of the pension industry in Russia. At that time President Yeltsin signed a decree making it possible to set up the first funds. In legal terms they had to be socially oriented not-for-profit organisations. Then such a status was ...
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Features
Address the fundamentals
If you ask the question why invest in emerging market equities, the answer is pretty straightforward: emerging market economies are going to be a much more significant part of the global economy in the future and growth rates are generally higher than developed countries. Jim O’Neil at Goldman Sachs estimates ...
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Features
Fiduciary move for the long haul
The Dutch pension industry has seen two ground breaking initiatives in the past 12 months, both involving US based asset managers. The first was the decision by the electronics firm Philips to hand the management of its pension fund to Merrill Lynch Investment Managers The second was the decision of ...
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Features
Waiting to be discovered
When pension funds invest in traditional assets like equities and bonds they expose themselves to unintended sources of risk. The main sources unintentional risk are volatility and dividend yield for equities and credit spreads and liquidity for bonds. Once they detect these sources of risk most funds will either carry ...
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Features
New models but same game
A lot is expected of pension trustees these days – more than is reasonable for them to cope with on their own or relying on just their current advice, some would say. However, they are being offered affordable extra help, including for the provision of investment banking-style services that they ...
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Features
In the prime of life
At 25, the European Federation for Retirement Provision would appear to be in the prime of life having helped to steer the EU pension fund directive through. But it’s work is far from over, with a full agenda which includes helping to ensure the directive is indeed implemented as well ...
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Features
Go forth and multiply - or pay
Adult children have historically been the pensions providers of the elderly, providing their parents with financial support, shelter, or care. In the past, this arrangement gave couples a strong incentive for having children. Today, as the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal predicted, state pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems have removed this incentive. Pensions ...
