Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 592
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Features
Pooling power and fears for the Swiss second pillar
A London conference on pension pooling learnt that not only could the market be worth up to a trillion euros over time – but that the technique might even be a way for corporate schemes to take trustees out of the loop. “We’re talking about very big asset pools,” Willie ...
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Features
Too long the unloved asset
Most individuals know how much cash they have and why they keep it. Curiously, institutional investors have a more difficult relationship with money. Cash is often neglected, or regarded as an inferior investment, if an “investment” at all. More recently, however, many pension funds have started to reconsider their position ...
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Features
Funds are waking up to MMFs
In 1997 the US money market fund (MMF) sector had assets under management of $1trn (e770bn), compared with $7bn in Europe. By 2004 the US sector exceeded $2trn, while European funds were valued at $205bn. “I think there is scope for the European industry to go to $2trn as well”, ...
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Features
In the shadow of cash
For institutional investors, seeing significant amounts of cash among their assets can be irritating even if their guidelines allow fund managers to have up to 5% in cash. In general, they would naturally prefer to be fully invested in the asset class that they have designated the investment to be ...
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Features
Tapping into currency alpha
In years gone by, whenever we raised the subject of currency management with a group of pension plan trustees, it often evoked a very emotional response. The general feeling was that active currency management is a form of speculation that should not be permitted by pension plan trustees that have ...
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Features
EMD grows to maturity
Emerging market debt (EMD) has certainly hit the headlines in recent years. Argentina defaulted in 2001; in January 1999 in Brazil the real was devalued by 40%; Russia restructured its debt in 1999, while in 1997 the Asian crisis saw a collapse in investor confidence spread among the region’s countries. ...
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Features
Playing safe in Europe
The strengthening euro and the poor prospects for Euro-zone growth have combined to create a condition among Euro-zone equity investors which Rick Lacaille, chief investment officer at State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), describes as “Eurogloom”. “At the start of the year, analysts had generally been too optimistic by an ...
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Features
Pick your stocks carefully
After many years at rock bottom, there finally seems to be some definite upward momentum in US interest rates. Tom Elliott is strategist at JP Morgan Fleming: “The fact that the Fed is continuing with its policy of raising rates has reassured the market that the economic recovery is on ...
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Asset Class Reports
Those twin deficits
So the US has the same president for the next four years, and it seems to be a case of ‘better the devil you know’, as far as bond and currency market participants are concerned. For Bruno Crastes, head of global fixed income at Credit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM), bond ...
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Features
EIB to issue 'longevity bond' to match UK liabilities
The European Investment Bank is to issue a 25-year £540m (E775m) bond as part of a product designed by BNP Paribas aimed at protecting UK pension schemes against longevity risk. “We welcome this opportunity to further enhance EIB’s appeal among pension funds, through a con-tribution that can add a new ...
