Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 516
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Features
Using overlay strategies
In May, The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead tendered a E599m currency overlay mandate for the £1.3bn (E1.9bn) Berkshire Pension Fund. It is one of a string of pension funds who are looking at diversifying risk through currency overlay. Other recent funds include Strathclyde, which hired Mellon Capital Management, ...
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Features
Managing the custody relationship
Often, pension funds fail to obtain full value from their custodians. Increasingly, custodians are providing value added services and pitching themselves to pension funds. Observers say that pension funds need to understand what services they are getting. “It’s not unusual for many pension funds to go through the whole process ...
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Features
New index re-ignites fundamentals debate
The debate about the merits of so-called fundamental indices will be enlivened by claims that a new computer-driven ‘merit-based’ index – from boutique firm London & Capital – has consistently “trounced” the NASDAQ, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Broadly speaking, fundamental indices only include companies with strong fundamentals ...
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Features
FTSE research chief Beckley departs for Record
FTSE Group’s research and development director Carl Beckley is leaving the index provider after almost eight years to join Record Currency Management. “We are in the process of looking for a replacement both internally and externally and will be making an announcement on any replacement in due course,” a FTSE ...
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Features
S&P and TSX develop gold index
Standard & Poor’s and Toronto Stock Exchange operator TSX have announced plans to create the first real-time global gold index. “Based in Canada, the new index will track key gold mining companies from around the globe,” they said. The new S&P/TSX Global Gold Index will be available by the end ...
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Features
Key to business cycles
The concept of business cycles is relatively modern phenomenon. In the 19th century business cycle were perceived as temporary economic crises. In the 20th century economists began to chart the regularity with which these crises occurred and to regard them as predictable rather than random. Different economic cycles have different ...
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Features
UK pension industry split on national scheme
The UK’s pension industry appears split over the government’s proposed national pensions savings schemes. Investment providers have welcomed the idea but consulting firms have warned of higher costs and unintended consequences. The government White Paper, following up on the Pensions Commission proposals, said it would introduce a new low cost ...
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Special Report
Big European funds back UN investment principles
Some of Europe’s largest pension funds have signed up to the United Nations’ new set of six responsible investment principles. Signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), launched at the New York Stock Exchange, include national pension funds in Norway, Ireland, France, Sweden as well as names such as ...
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Features
Swiss postal fund MD quits
Walter Kohler, managing director of Pensionskasse Post, a CHF12.2bn (e7.8bn) fund for Swiss postal employees, quit his post last month. Pensionskasse Post said Kohler’s resignation was prompted by “differences on future strategy” between him and the fund’s other executives. These executives include Yves-André Jeandupeux, who is president of Pensionskasse Post’s ...
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Features
An idea whose time has come
As debate continues in the UK over the future of pensions, the proposal to found multiemployer ‘Super Trusts’ has many supporters. The National Association of Pension Fund’s idea for umbrella pension schemes under which many employers would shelter has many advantages – most obviously economies of scale. But how well ...
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Features
The challenges ahead
Setting up occupational pension schemes seems to be the future trend in Greek social security system. Until 2002, Greece was not familiar with the term “occupational pension scheme”, unlike other EU countries where supplementary provision already played a vital role in the social security system. In that context, the institution ...
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Features
Carrot or stick choice
The reforms of Germany’s pension system (the fundamental pension reform in 2001 (‘Riester pension reform’) and the Pension Sustainability Act and the Retirement Income Act which became operative in 2005), with a reduction of the state benefit level and an increased focus on occupational and private pensions, were a operations ...
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Features
Where size matters
The EU pensions directive is focusing the minds of Belgian pension funds. But it is not the implementation of the directive that is causing the major concern but a series of proposed changes that accompany it. The directive should have been introduced last September but legislation transposing its provisions into ...
