Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 561
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Special Report
Hope for German SRI?
The rather lacklustre progress of SRI in Germany’s institutional investment market was given a boost in July when the Bundesrat, the country’s upper house, passed legislation extending the SRI reporting obligation for Pensionfonds to the much more numerous and asset-rich Pensionskassen. The reporting obligation that requires funds to disclose whether ...
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Features
Right time, right place
Raiffeisen Capital Management (RCM), the asset manager of the Raiffeisen banking group, is an Austrian firm with European ambitions and e30bn in assets under management. It has a dominant position in Austria, where it has 22% share of the overall market and 26% of institutional business, and a growing share ...
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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 ...
