Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 593
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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. ...
