Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 566
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Features
Risk exposure stalls growth
As can be seen from table 1, the main hedge fund strategies all fell short of their long-term average performance in March. Three of the five strategies, namely convertible arbitrage, long/short equity and event driven, even posted negative returns. These disappointing returns might be explained by the exposure of hedge ...
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Features
Belgium starts to warm up
As a nation, Belgium comes way down the list of private equity investors in Europe. In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, private equity investments equalled only 0.1% of gross domestic product, according to the European Venture Capital Association. That was less than half the European average ...
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Features
Pensions reforms back on track
Few countries need pension reforms as badly as Russia. The majority of the country’s 40m pensioners live in dire poverty, and this population is increasing as a result of increasing longevity. Pensions reforms, however, have had a mixed response, from both the public and providers. Their complexity has raised questions ...
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Features
Mushrooming demand
Demand for currency management and overlay has ballooned in the last two years as investors embrace it as an alterative source of return. As currency managers tune their services to the needs of pension funds and other institutions, the future of the sector is beginning to take shape. Currency overlay ...
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Features
Securing the family fortune
Barbara von Gartzen of Family Estate Services (FES) in Luxembourg says: “Attitudes towards wealth management have changed significantly. Until a few years ago, most high net worth individuals have been looking after their wealth mainly by themselves.” Nowadays, managing the wealth of a family has become a highly complex and ...
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Features
The turning of the screw
Would you be willing to lock up investments for your grandchildren to use in 50 years time if the return was going to be fixed at 4.21% annually for the total period? The answer for most people would be obviously no. Yet the French treasury issued e6bn of 50 year ...
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Features
Learn to manage demand side
Since the beginning of the last decade, the difference in macro-economic performance between Europe and the US has been striking. With the exception of the very end of the 1990s, the Euro-zone countries have had sub-par growth, while in the US growth has remained solid, except between 2000-2001. If one ...
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Special Report
Investors take LTRI initiative
The last five years have seen a sea change in investment beliefs and practices. Previously those who might have raised concerns about market short-termism would have been dismissed as ideologically motivated critics, and those who favoured SRI, as having other agendas. While passionate defenders of the status quo have not ...
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Features
Sharing and caring
Currently, employers bear the investment risk in defined benefit (DB) pension plans while employees bear the risk in defined contribution (DC) type plans. Recent equity market performance, longevity risk and the impact of international accounting rules have persuaded many employers to introduce a DC alternative to their DB plans. This ...
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Features
Ensuring good performance
Performance and risk analysis have gone a long way since the dark ages of investment, when returns were measured in rather raw form, while risk was hardly measured at all. These days, pension plan trustees are enlightened by slick performance reports, including hundreds of statistics, thoroughly calculated and well-presented with ...
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Features
The eternal triangle
The pension problem is simple: a question of assets, liabilities and the difference between them - an asset or liability. Risk is mostly simply and generally defined as the rate of change of an object. The rate of change of an asset’s value, its risk, we know by the term ...
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Features
Politicians play hardball
According to the government official statistics, the ratio of people 65 years old and over in Japan would double from 17.3% in 2000 to 35.7% in 2050. Without substantial reforms, social security pensions would be unsustainable in this century, so the pension reform is currently the biggest political and economical ...
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Features
Lattelekom: one of a kind
First Closed Pension Fund, the pension fund for telecoms and electricity supply workers in Latvia, is the only registered pension fund in the country where the employers are also the pension fund’s shareholders. One of the legal requirements of the Latvia’s reformed pension system is that companies that wish to ...
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Features
Fear of a bubble unfounded
The global hedge fund market has grown at a rate of circa 20% over the last four years, total assets under management reaching an estimated $1trn (e793bn) by year-end 2004. Inflows did slow, however, during the second half of 2004, not least because of the comparatively modest performance experienced in ...
