Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 560
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Features
Pragma assesses new EU members
The 10 new EU member states ought to encourage defined benefit-type pension schemes and introduce three-pillar systems, according to a report from Brussels-based consultant Pragma. Nine international institutions, including the two largest Dutch pension schemes ABP and PGGM, sponsored the EU-wide study. It aimed to give the new members’ reserves ...
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Features
Sweden’s PPM appoints board for ‘better advice’
The Swedish Premium Pension Authority, PPM, has created a four-strong scientific advisory board, which includes Michael Orzag of Watson Wyatt. The board is to function as a reference point for PPM’s work and give the authority advice in areas of academic research, financial economics as well as communication. It comprises: ...
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Features
MAN to fund liabilities
German engineering giant MAN Group has confirmed plans to remove e1.72bn in pension liabilities from its balance sheet and finance them via an external fund. A spokesman for MAN said the move, to happen in phases, was linked to the overall trend among big German companies to switch to international ...
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Features
Linkers and inflation outlook
Not viewed as the most exciting of assets for many years, index linked bonds seem to be undergoing something of a renaissance these days. While performance might have dropped off somewhat this year, during 2003 and 2004 most index linked bonds outshone their conventional, nominal bond peers. “Though we are ...
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Special Report
FRR reflecting interests of community
The French pensions reserve fund, Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR), is in the process of devising and awarding SRI mandates. It has already appointed consultancy Bfinance to help with the request for proposals, and the tender process was launched at the end of June. The whole manager selection ...
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Special Report
Fund members' social conscience
Danish industry-wide pension fund PKA, which has assets of more than E12bn, has recently adjusted its ethical guidelines for the fund’s investments. But this is certainly not the first time that ethical investment has been on the fund’s agenda – PKA has worked with ethical aspects of its investments for ...
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Special Report
Mainstream-type returns is key
The UNISON staff pension scheme in the UK has committed all of its equities investment - two-thirds of total assets - to SRI. In September 2003, the fund put £100m (e150m) into an SRI mandate run by Morley Fund Management. At the time, it was the largest sum ever to ...
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Special Report
Encouraging change in firms
Directors of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) decided to adopt a policy of responsible investment in 1999. USS, the occupational pension fund for UK Universities, with assets of about £20bn (e30bn), is the second largest corporate pension fund in the UK. David Russell, adviser on responsible investment at USS, says ...
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Special Report
Walk before you can run
Although most people in the investment industry agree pension funds are becoming more interested in SRI, there are many different ways of approaching it. From choosing how strictly they should judge companies they invest in, to defining why they want SRI in the first place, pension funds face a series ...
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Special Report
Active dialogue comes to fore
Gradually, socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming more ingrained in the way that participants in the market do business. A survey by Mercer Investment Consulting in April concluded that SRI practices were becoming mainstream among investment managers. Within 10 years, it said, SRI would become a common component of mainstream ...
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Features
French reforms at work
Two reforms are at work in France. The retirement reform law of August 2003 aims to secure the sustainability of the French retirement system by giving everyone the opportunity to build his own pension by way of specific retirement savings provisions. This law is complemented by the draft law implementing ...
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Features
Solving Britain's pensions crisis
Not very long ago, Britain’s pension system was the envy of Europe, if not the world. Other European countries faced the prospect of ever higher government spending and budget deficits as their populations aged: their high state pension promises were beginning to look rather reckless. Britain, meanwhile, had funded schemes ...
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Features
Ask the expert systems
Over 30 years ago, the US economist Benjamin Graham distinguished two basic approaches to investing – qualitative and quantitative. In his book ‘The intelligent investor’, he wrote: “The first or predictive approach could also be called the qualitative approach, since it emphasises prospects, management and other non-measurable, although highly important, ...
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Features
Tracking smarter money
Now that asset managers have access to financial information resources like FactSet the hurdle to entry into the mainstream use of quant techniques has been lowered. Managers who want to gain or maintain a competitive advantage must focus on areas with a higher entry hurdle, where the information is less ...
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Features
Currency and behaviour
Portfolio investors have progressively accepted the argument that international diversification provides risk/return benefits. However, the currency dimension has remained an emotional issue and currency hedging is a sensitive decision. Attractive local-currency returns on foreign asset market can be swamped by a depreciation of the foreign currency. Conversely, the return on ...
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Features
Chemistry of mix and match
ICI’s business philosophy is decentralisation. The company’s worldwide operations, which span some 50 countries, are divided into four business units, each of which is granted a significant degree of autonomy. But there is one important exception. The one area in which the company is pursuing an active policy of centralisation ...
