Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 538
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Features
Positive approach to New Year
IPE asked pension funds in three countries – Germany, Italy and Norway – the same question, ‘What do you hope will happen in 2006, and what do you fear?’ Here are their answers: Dirk Lepelmeier, head of investments at Nordrheinische Ärtzeversorgung (NAEV), which has an AUM of €7.5bn “The ...
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Features
Telling it how it is
Client reporting has improved greatly in recent years. Fund managers now produce reports that are almost as slick as those of management consultants. Most pension trustees and officers seem to be happier with what they receive today compared with five or 10 years ago. Standards had to be raised. It ...
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Features
Breaking the mould
While Austrian-born California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been grappling with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), in the land of his birth the Austrian government was having considerably more success trying to bring its own public service pensions arrangements into line with those of the rest of society. “It ...
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Special Report
Double jeopardy
The emerging market spells a quantum leap in investment risk for most pension funds which now view them as an essential alpha generator as traditional asset classes have become both more unpredictable and disappointing in terms of their returns. But what of the newly coined ‘emerging emerging market?’ A class ...
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Special Report
Going for engagement
By the end of the first quarter of next year ABN Amro will have rolled out its SRI offering to France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. The offering is based on the approach adopted by the bank’s Swedish subsidiary Banco Fonder, the main centre of ABN Amro’s SRI activity ...
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Features
Extending the home market
Erste-Sparinvest KAG, the investment management arm of Erste Bank and the Austrian savings banks, is Austria’s second largest investment manager, and third largest manager of institutional assets. Assets under management currently totalling €27bn are managed in retail mutual funds and large-scale institutional funds. Erste-Sparinvest also manages close on €2bn in ...
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Features
Fee rises strain mutual loyalties
Is TIAA-CREF losing its soul? Certainly it’s losing some business and critics have started questioning the results of the ‘Merrillisation’ of this $360bn (e303bn) management company founded 87 years ago by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie as a non profit organisation to provide low-cost retirement plans and insurance for teachers and researchers ...
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Features
Towards a settlement
The media frenzy in the UK has moved on and now as the dust is starting to settle it will be up to pensions professionals and the government in the UK to fully absorb the recommendations of the Pensions Commission. There was a lot to take in - the final ...
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Features
Word on the street
Secretary of state for work and pensions John Hutton said it was an “important milestone towards a lasting pensions settlement”. “Put quite simply, we can not go on as we are. But it is also vital that we get reform right for future generations, and we are determined to reach ...
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Features
Unvarnished Farnish
The “good things” in Lord Turner’s report were welcomed by Christine Farnish, chief executive of the National Pensions Fund Association at the IPE MultiPensions conference in Amsterdam last month. “First of all he is saying the UK needs a simpler pension system. He is suggesting very fundamental reforms to the ...
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Features
Too open and too loose?
An argument between Age, the older people’s platform, and the European Commission is simmering over how effective the EU’s peer review system is, just as the EU’s executive body gets ready to publish a series of non-binding suggestions for how member states can step up pension reforms. Following the submission ...
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Features
What do funds have to lose?
The number of securities class action suits in American courts has been growing consistently, a fact that those foreign companies listed on US exchanges are well aware of. According to the Stanford University Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, there were 327 securities class action lawsuits filed in 2001, an increase of ...
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Features
Time to take back control
The UK local authority pension fund sector1 has changed enormously over the years and today is characterised by increasing oversight, market complexity and externally managed investment strategies. Once renowned for its in-house approach to investing, the sector has long since delegated active control over the investment process to consulting firms, ...
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Features
Virtual debate on challenges
November saw the first-ever IPe-Symposium, an online conference for the European pension industry. The topic for the free event was “The challenges in meeting Europe’s occupational pensions liabilities”. Some of the most senior figures in the field participated and some 668 delegates, from 46 countries, registered to participate - with ...
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Features
Go global or go local?
With pensions funding now top of the agenda for sponsors as well as trustees, many multinationals are keen to understand more about the schemes they back. Using a large international consultancy to get an overview can help them do this, and some companies are going down that route. But at ...
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Features
Keeping in with the rating agencies
For companies that depend on the bond markets for financing, the importance of their credit rating cannot be overstated. A satisfactory credit rating in this context means at least single A (the lowest ‘investment grade’ rating) but many issuers aim to achieve AA and a few are AAA. The choice ...
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Features
Corporates aware of 'financial risk'
Treasurers at UK companies may be aware of the call for matching assets to liabilities, but putting this into investment practice is another matter altogether. According to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, nearly half of treasurers and CFOs at British companies believed investors would prefer them to follow ...
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Features
De-risking the pension scheme
In recent years, corporate sponsors of pension schemes have found themselves in a constantly changing environment. Defined benefit pension commitments are now recognised as a major source of financial risk for most global businesses and companies realise that their credit ratings and their ability to finance themselves are likely to ...
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Features
Portability: benefit or burden?
In October 2005 the European Commission published a draft directive on the portability of occupational pension rights in the EU. (Like all other directives, the requirements would be considered minimum standards; member states could maintain or create more favourable conditions for employees.) The Commission has always promoted the freedom of ...
