Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 518
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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 ...
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Features
Cross-border assets post record high
Cross-border mandate investments by US-based tax-exempt institutions reached a record high of $1.17trn (€920m) as of year-end 2005, according to InterSec Research’s most recent direct manager assets under management survey. InterSec Research analyses cross-border mandate investments by US-based tax-exempt institutions through our direct manager AUM survey and universe analytics reporting. ...
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Features
Leading soundbites
Q1Are we moving out of a low interest rate environment? If so, do investors go from here? Q2In your view why are mega mergers such as Citigroup/Legg Mason and Merrill Lynch/BlackRock, happening and are there more to come? Q3The involvement of investment banks in pensions investment has been ...
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Features
Liabilities not checked by asset growth
Growth of institutional pension fund assets in the 11 major markets measured in local currencies reached around 17% in 2005 and assets now total $16.4trn (€12.8trn). However, despite this significant growth, up from around 7% in 2004, pension fund liabilities also increased by approximately 9% on average in local currency ...
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Features
Triumph of hope over experience
The worldwide demand for hedge funds and other absolute return funds will grow at an annual rate of 20% over the period 2005-8, according to the 2005 CREATE-KPMG report*. Since millions of people lost billions in the last equity bear market, this aspiration is understandable. It is also easy to ...
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Features
Siren morphs into girl next door
Promising alluring returns from investment processes that are sometimes mysterious and seldom transparent, hedge funds have been the recent sirens of the global asset management industry. Recent reports estimate assets in such vehicles have grown to $1.5trn (€1.2trn) worldwide, $325bn in Europe alone. While double counting is even more of ...
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Features
Busy doing not very much at all
When highlighting the merits of the profession of active manager, stock picking is often presented as the leading factor in the creation of value. After the downturn in the markets in 2000, benchmarked management was vilified in favour of investment management based on ‘convictions’ where small cap stocks, which had ...
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Features
It's going to be different this time
The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) is expected to have some of the greatest impacts of all financial services legislation introduced in the last decade. It is scheduled for implementation on 1 November 2007 and is the successor to the 1993 Investment Service Directive, a key component of the ...
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Features
GIPS - 20 years after
In 1987, when the Financial Analysts Federation began to develop standards on how investment managers should present their performance to prospective clients, I doubt that they had any idea the impact their efforts would make. Like a snowball rolling down hill, growing larger as it continues its journey, the presentation ...
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Features
Looking beyond the 3Ps
Investment managers will have their work cut out over the next year. If they want to keep abreast of market and regulatory developments they need to make significant changes to the systems and processes that support their businesses. Institutional clients have more expertise than ever before – and they are ...
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Features
No longer a mirage?
It is safe to say that the single European market for asset managers is moving ever closer due to developments in the last year. A real single market in asset management is something for which the Investment Management Association’s (IMA) has been actively calling for more than three years. As ...
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Features
What pension funds are looking for
Most people in our industry recognise that while pension schemes have become more demanding of investment strategies and implementation, most schemes remain in deficit and are becoming more mature. Accounting rules mean these deficits are much more visible with the result that pension provision has become a topic for national ...
