Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 562
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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 ...
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Features
The Dutch revolution
“The Dutch pensions industry had come from being a virtually unknown pension power 10 years ago, to being the global pension revolution leader today,” said Keith Ambachtsheer, academic and strategic adviser to pension plans. Ambachtsheer, who runs KPA Advisory Services in Toronto, was one of the high profile speakers to ...
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Features
Involuntary acts of generosity
“We are the best value MPs in Europe,” says Gerhard Hess of the Swiss Democrats. Swiss parliamentarians – MPs and senators, are unique in Europe, if not the world, in that they do not receive a salary. This means that while Swiss workers as a whole are among the most ...
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Features
Story of pensions success
Croatia’s second pillar pension funds have proved to be a spectacular success since their foundation in 2002, despite being launched against an unstable political background as the country grappled with recovery from the 1991-95 Yugoslav war and political parties pursued confrontation rather than consensus. The reform also paved the way ...
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Features
Bridging the gap
Before they were united in the 19th century both Germany and Italy were described as geographic expressions rather than countries. There are those who suggest that the same thing might be said now of Belgium. Throughout the second half of the 20th century the central government responded to friction between ...
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Special Report
It's a matter of principles
An obvious contributor to the debate on how environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues should be incorporated into investment policy is the United Nations (UN), or more precisely the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The global factor - reach, consistency and influence - is what makes it so obvious. UNEPFI ...
