Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 544
-
Features
Don't look back
The Finnish pension system is still over-regulated and not structured in way that meets the long-term interests of pension funds. Lobbying has had some impact but as yet this is insufficient . It appears that the market has yet to convince its regulator that the idea that taking a forward-looking ...
-
Features
Northern lights
Norway’s long-awaited pension reform allowing defined contribution (DC) schemes will come into effect next year. Among the main provisions is that all employers with two or more employees will have to provide some type of pension plan for their staff. This will bring 600,000 new pension savers onto the market. ...
-
Features
Iceland casts eye abroad
The Icelandic pension fund sector is undergoing parallel developments that are having a direct impact on the management of its assets. The first is an ongoing process of consolidation, which has gradually reduced the number of pension funds from an original 100 to a current 48 and which is anticipated ...
-
Features
Shift to global markets
The global custody and services agreement between Nordea and Bank of New York, announced in August this year, signifies a wider trend in the Nordic region, away from domestic banks and towards the international global custodians. Under the agreement, which covers around €240bn of assets (about half of Nordea’s total ...
-
Features
Long life complications
The cost of any promise to provide someone with an annual pension for life depends on how long that person lives. Improvements in mortality have meant that people are living far longer than was anticipated. In the past 40 years, life expectancy at age 65 has increased on average by ...
-
Features
Still waiting for changes
The source of the major challenge for Portuguese pension funds is clear: it’s the state. But not in the way seen elsewhere in Europe, where governments place investment and other restrictions on pension funds. Rather it’s its all-encompassing presence in the pensions arena and the resulting universally held belief this ...
-
Features
Comfort from derivatives
IPE asked three pension funds in three countries – Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland – the same question: ‘Do derivatives perform a useful function in pension fund portfolios or are too costly, complicated and risky?’ Here are their answers: Hasser Jørgensen, chief investment officer at Denmark’s PFA Pension which ...
-
Features
Outsourcing maestro axed
The sudden removal of veteran executive Ramy Bourgi and head of securities Neil Henderson from their posts at JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services (WSS) was perhaps inevitable following the long telegraphed collapse of the custodian’s flagship outsourcing arrangement with Schroders Investment Management. That said, given the retirement of Tom Swayne, head ...
-
Special Report
Vive la différence?
One of the biggest challenges of an investor seeking to engage on matters of corporate governance is understanding and then working with the multiplicity of different corporate structures and share-owning cultures that exist around the world. Hermes Pensions Management, 100% owned by the BT Pension Fund, is just such an ...
-
Features
Home is where the parent is
SEB Asset Management (SEB AM) threw a party for its staff earlier this year. The reason for the celebration was that the bi-annual Prospera survey had ranked SEB AM first among the 30 asset managers operating in Sweden. This put them ahead of international titans such as Goldman Sachs JP ...
-
Features
More questions than answers
How deep will the changes to the pension accounting rules go? How will they affect companies’ financial strategies? Will they trigger the termination of defined benefit (DB) plans in the private sector? These are just a few of the questions haunting the US pension funds’ industry after the Financial Accounting ...
-
Features
More challenges to come
If they haven’t already, many pension fund investment managers will shortly be considering how to position their funds to meet the challenges of the new year and it certainly looks as though the new year will produce just as many challenges as this year has. It does not look like ...
