Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 562
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Features
Huge leap of faith needed
France’s new retirement savings scheme came under scrutiny at a conference organised by AFPEN, the French Pension Funds Association, in Paris recently. The Forum de l’Épargne Retraite saw concern that France’s two new retirement savings vehicles - one for the individual, the PERE, and one for collective company arrangements, the ...
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Features
Totting up the fees
Is a multi-manager arrangement good value when compared with more traditional forms of institutional management?
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Features
Still scratching heads
Currently, there is some concern that member states will not meet the September deadline for implementing the IORP directives. However Ivo van Es, the European Commission official in charge of the implementation of the directive, has said that the EC expects all 26 member states to fulfil their obligations. So ...
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Features
PBGC reaches defining moment
More urgent than fixing social security, is preventing the bankruptcy of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC). The US Congress thinks so and is willing to discuss new legislation - the pension protection act (PPA) - to avoid a public bailout of private pension funds that could dwarf the $200bn ...
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Features
Guarantees - whose business?
IPE asked three pension funds in three countries – in Denmark, Belgium and Germany – the same question: ‘Should pension funds offer a minimum guarantee?’ Here are their answers: Hervé Noël, director of the pension funds of Suez-Tractebel in Belgium which has AUM of e1.33bn “We have had a ...
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Features
Fighting the good fight
“Whatever happens we must not lose,” this may seem a battle cry from a general rallying his men in an historical battle. Instead it was uttered in the less eventful occasion of an interview, and it applies to the Italian pension scenario – perhaps not a far cry from a ...
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Features
Rising to the challenge
With a relatively young population, higher retirement age and regulations that offer little incentive for early retirement, Iceland faces fewer problems due to ageing than most European countries. However, local pension funds still face many challenges. There is a rising number of disability claims, fund managers must meet targets in ...
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Features
Managing your custodian
IPE has teamed up with Amaces, a UK-based provider of analytical and benchmarking services to pension funds and fund managers, to give readers an insight to performance standards within the securities services industry On a quarterly basis, Amaces will provide IPE with a table of live data drawn from its ...
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Features
Shape of things to come
There is no smoke without fire, runs the old saw, and sure enough the long predicted – if oft denied – merger between the Royal Bank of Canada’s Global Services securities services operation and Luxembourg-based Dexia BIL has finally come to pass. First rumoured back in early 2003, the deal ...
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Features
Too much information
There is no doubt that running a global equity portfolio is a macho activity that any red-blooded CIO would like to put their name to. It is also a good fallback in the event that a merger takes place and the loser in the battle for CIO has to be ...
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Features
Going for the middle ground
For years, a typical allocation of 70% equities and 30% fixed income delivered double-digit equity returns. However, the fall in equity returns seen over the last five years has pushed many pension funds into deficit. Pension funds can continue allocating 70% to equities and hope that they recover sufficiently to ...
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Features
Tougher times in giving market
UK charities have enjoyed bumper returns on their investments over the past year. The average charity fund achieved a total return of 13%, according to preliminary results for the latest Charity Fund survey from WM Performance Services. However, the gains are largely caused by the strong market rally in the ...
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Features
Belgians seek level playing field
The body advising Belgian minister Bruno Tobback on pensions issues is to consider a legal formula to create a level playing field between new sector-wide pension funds being established under the socalled Vandenbroucke Law (VDB) and pension insurance companies. In the formative period the new pension funds are not legal ...
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Features
On the right track
The pension fund of the Dutch rail system, Spoorwegpensioenfonds (SPF) is the oldest and now one of the largest pension funds in the Netherlands, with some 77,000 members and assets of €10bn. The non-compulsory, industry-wide fund, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this year, was one of the first funds in ...
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Features
Challenging the grey cells
The Pensions Management Institute (PMI) was established almost 30 years ago in the UK with the specific aim of raising standards. Since then the institute has built a strong reputation for providing industry standard qualifications, and its members are recognised throughout the pensions industry as having wide-ranging and practical knowledge ...
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Features
Case for active style allocation
Al though the existing literature seems to concur on the interest of hedge funds as valuable investment alternatives, there seem to be several shortcomings in current industry practice when it comes to fully capitalising on the advantages of including hedge funds in an investor’s asset allocation. So far, the only ...
