Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 533
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Features
MiFID on radar screen
In my June 2005 column I wrote that, given the immense scope of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), and the extremely tight April 2007 implementation deadline set by the European commission, “burying one’s head in the sand is patently not an option”. The good news is that in ...
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Special Report
Going with the two-way flow
Only around 20% of company reports include information on stakeholder engagement, according to a recent survey – Corporate Responsibility – a United State? – carried out by Context, a London-based corporate responsibility (CR) communications and strategy consultancy. “One can assume that if a company is not reporting on it then ...
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Special Report
Inform, on form
SRI is still a relatively new concept which is still considered by many to be some way down the list of priorities as companies and their senior executives feel the pressure to focus more and more on the bottom line. The reason it finds itself so far down the list ...
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Features
New portfolio dividing lines
Storebrand Investments, the asset management arm of the giant Norwegian insurer Storebrand, is one of the first major financial institutions in Norway to reorganise the management of its assets along lines of alpha and beta strategies rather than equities and fixed income. The asset management splits its asset management into ...
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Features
A tricky balancing act
It has been said that one of the most overused words on the UK pension scene over last few years has been found to be ‘crisis’, but that does not mean a crisis does not exist. Indeed the word ‘crisis’ has never seemed more appropriate than at the moment, and ...
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Features
Moving smartly up the agenda
It used to be a simple enough thing. Allocate to equities, and ignore your risk exposure. Strong markets, and pension surpluses, meant you didn’t have to worry. With the heady days of the 1990s gone, pension funds are facing tougher times, and risk management has become an important issue. Not ...
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Features
Limits to help technology can provide
Unsurprisingly, software developers say they can help, and many pension funds are turning to technology providers. The Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company in Finland, for example, has implemented a risk budgeting application from New York based provider RiskMetrics. Ilmarinen is using RiskMetric’s application on an application service provider basis. RiskMetrics ...
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Features
Straatman and profits of doom
It’s not every day that someone moves from working for the Dutch civil service pension fund to teaming up with a flamboyant UK pizza-and-pubs magnate. But that’s just what Jan Straatman is about to do. His decision to leave his berth at ABP Investments, where he was chief investment officer ...
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Features
Why pension pooling is a reality
As a panelist at a recent IPE conference, I was asked: “For all the talk about cross-border pension pooling, is anyone actually doing it?” A fair question, because so much pooling-related activity in recent years has gone on behind the scenes. The design and implementation of a first generation of ...
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Features
Start of the pooling plunge?
Several years of work have gone into Unilever’s giant asset pooling vehicle. After a long period of decision-making, logistics and negotiation, the €5bn multi-fund vehicle, named Univest, was finally launched at the end of last year. The multinational consumer products group set up Univest to provide a central investment pool ...
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Features
Diving much deeper
Pooling has occupied increasing column inches of the trade press over the past year, as Irish and Luxembourg service providers have sought to promote their respective solutions. Pooling occurs when the assets of one or more pension schemes are aggregated in an underlying pool in order to realise economies of ...
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Features
A new paradigm for Europe
Multinational corporations have sought to co-ordinate the activities of their pension funds across multiple countries and most recently the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) has been introduced through a European Commission directive. The industry must find a way to integrate these different pension offerings so the well meaning aspiration ...
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Features
Separating men from boys
As alternative investment managers continue their never-ending search for alpha it is clear that for most the priority is in generating the smoothest returns possible with the lowest possible volatility. In our business - currency - this is problematic as we operate in a universe of limited choice in terms ...
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Features
Market conduct under microscope
Under the renewed Dutch pension law, one of the new tasks of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) will be the supervision of the quality of information pension funds provide their members and pensioners with a second supervisor for the funds. Within the pensions industry this announcement caused ...
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Features
Mind the gap: managing your duration
Like any investment approach, liability-driven strategies need to be used within a mix of tactics and instruments. Liabilities need to be taken into account, but not at the expense of performance. Experience has shown that good managers can still add to performance whilst managing liability, if placed in the right ...
