Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 555
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Features
Cyprus' hints of progress
Of the 334,000 people registered with Cyprus’ first pillar social security system around 142,500 have some form of additional pension provision. Some 30,000 of these are employees of central government who benefit from a pay-as-you-go system. The rest are covered by some form of funded or part-funded scheme. Among them ...
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Features
Moving in right direction
The Greek securities services market has in the past been something of a backwater. But recent market infrastructure and pensions reforms have given global custodians hope that there are good times ahead. Like many other countries in Europe, Greece is facing a growing pensions liability problem and the government has ...
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Features
Maltese resurrection
After many years of an exclusively state operated pension system in Malta the occupational scheme seems to be set for a comeback. Company schemes existed in until 1979 but these were replaced by state provision when the government of the day decided that state provision should be good enough for ...
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Features
Staying on top of liabilities
The pension fund of Boots, a UK pharmaceuticals retailer, put liabilities management on the map when it moved its entire portfolio into fixed income securities in 2001. The aim was to achieve closer match between assets and liabilities, thereby removing risk from the sponsoring company’s balance sheet. Few UK pension ...
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Features
Moving into mainstream
Emerging market debt (EMD) is an asset class that that encompasses sovereigns and corporates, high yield and investment grade and dollar as well as local currency instruments. Given this complexity, it is no wonder that market attention has only focused on the headline crises that have left deep-rooted prejudices within ...
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Features
Risk moves centre stage
The UCITS III Directive has set Europe’s cats among the pigeons and has far reaching consequences for all institutional investors as regulators and investment manager trade organisations consider its impact on the broader issues of appropriate, and best, practice. This is none truer than in the field of risk management ...
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Features
Simulating DC outcomes
Defined contribution (DC) pension schemes are complicated financial products. However, they are ideal subjects for stochastic simulation methods1, and research on them has developed to the point where we now have the basis of a commercially feasible DC pension model2. This article begins by explaining the structure of this model. ...
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Features
For FTK read PVK
The Dutch authorities’ decision in September to delay the FTK for pension funds by a year, while broadly expected, was still significant. The central bank said that the new Financial Assessment Framework (nFTK) would not be compulsory for pension funds until 1 January 2007. The decision followed consultation with the ...
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Special Report
US voting demands
A group of 14 institutional investors from the UK, Netherlands, Australia and Canada have called for an overhaul of the American voting standard regarding the election of US corporate directors. They say it is “prone to abuse” and “inconsistent” with democratic values. In a letter addressed to the American Bar ...
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Features
Risk sharing on agenda
Pension fund deficits and international accounting pressures are encouraging employers in some European countries to move from defined benefit (DB) pension plans to defined contribution (DC). The effect is to shift the financial risk of the pension from the employer to the individual employee. So can pensions be designed to ...
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Features
Celebrations on hold
Despite a more than 6% return in the first half, Swiss pension funds have no reason to celebrate due to low bond yields, says the Swiss pension fund association ASIP. Zurich-based ASIP and consulting firm Watson Wyatt reported a 6.2% return for the first six months – driven by strong ...
