Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 526
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Features
Positive currents in DC market
More retirement savings, easier investment choices, lower management fees. A worker’s dream? No it is not, according to recent research about new trends in US defined contribution (DC) plans. Thanks to regulatory and market pressures, in 2006 DC plans, like 401(k)s, will conquer more participants and will be more understandable. ...
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Special Report
Land of opportunity
“Companies addressing issues such as global demographic developments, rising consumption of raw materials and energy and the increasing environmental impact and effects of these are acquiring competitive advantage over those that were not” says Andreas Knoerzer, head of sustainable investments at Bank Sarasin. Sarasin has been involved in sustainability ...
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Features
Long and short of duration
The need for pension funds to match their assets more closely to their liabilities has put the topic of duration at the top of the agenda. Pension funds are faced with the problem of finding fixed income instruments with the right durations. The problem is greatest at the long ...
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Features
Alchemy to the rescue?
Portable alpha offers pension funds the investment equivalent of alchemy – transmuting non-performing into performing assets. Using swaps or futures contracts - a process known as equitisation - funds can transfer or ‘port’ the alpha generated by one asset class to other asset classes in their portfolio. In this way, ...
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Features
Applying an objective view
One of the reasons that portable alpha has yet to be adopted by pension funds may be that it does not appear to meet their needs. Although it is conceptually attractive, its seems to have no practical application. Ronald Ryan, founder and CEO of US-based Ryan Asset Liability Management believes ...
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Features
Plague of history
Last year the outlook for Austria’s pension schemes, the Pensionskassen, was not very promising. “The Pensionskassen started in 1990 as a way to enable companies to shift the risk of corporate pension funds from their balance sheets,” recalls Kurt Bednar of Mercer in Vienna. “They gained in popularity as equities ...
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Features
Conflicts still a possibility
Last month the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) warned consultants, asset managers and pension fund trustees to guard against potential conflicts of interest in a highly concentrated consultant industry. The financial watchdog’s ‘Financial Risk Outlook 2006’ raised concerns about an over-dependence by pension fund trustees on the advice, skill and ...
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Features
MetallRente records double-digit sales growth
MetallRente, the pension fund for employees in Germany’s metalworking and engineering industries, has recorded another year of double-digit growth in sales of its corporate pension. As of December 31 last year, MetallRente says it insured 155,417 workers in the sectors, an increase of around 15% on the previous year. The ...
