Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 629
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Features
Securitisation powers on
Securitisation may be one of the newer forms of debt financing in the capital markets across the world but it is certainly one of the fastest growing across the world. The most mature and developed of the markets, in the US is only a couple of decades old but it ...
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Features
Moving in tandem
Over the last business cycle, the Euro-zone performed better than the US in those areas that drive the return on capital, notably productivity. Although Euro-zone GDP growth is likely to remain far lower than US growth, Euro-zone asset returns are likely to be as high, if not higher, than in ...
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Features
How much further to go?
The UK equity market is likely to underperform its main rivals in 2004. The UK economy has weathered the storm relatively well and as such scope for large gains is limited. The UK equity market one of the most expensive equity markets in the world having participated in the rally ...
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Features
Time to be more discriminating
After having seen a resurgence of many negative shocks in the last three years, investors have rediscovered since mid-2003 two more positive factors. First, the strength of a global upturn driven by buoyant foreign trade, and second, the effectiveness of very accommodative economic policy (although this is at the cost ...
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Features
Where the action is
Economic growth is accelerating globally, led by the excellent performance of the US economy. Conditions for sustainable growth in the US are falling into place, rising profits are positively contributing to economic growth and monetary policy is easy and fiscal policy will remain supportive ahead of the presidential election. Outside ...
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Features
Simplification, protection and uncertainty
Last year was a year of consultation in the UK. As part of the government’s strategy to encourage retirement savings and restore confidence in pensions in the UK, both the Inland Revenue and the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) are undertaking simplification reviews. The Revenue published in the autumn ...
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Features
Law of unintended consequences
It is one of those unwritten rules that whenever governments try to introduce more protection for one group of people someone somewhere suffers and sometimes it turns out to be the very group you tried to protect in the first place. The ‘law of unintended consequence’ has been well illustrated ...
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Features
Widening perspectives
French asset managers are in no doubt about what will be the most important event in institutional asset management in France this year – the eagerly-awaited award of mandates by the Fonds de Reserve Pour Les Retraites (FRR), the country’s new pension reserve fund. The final selection of managers for ...
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Features
Why CTAs can unlock solutions
In Germany at present the dominant way of financing occupational pensions is still represented by so called Pensionsrückstellung (pension provision), through on-balance sheet book reserves. Annual additions to pension provisions are tax deductible, and need not to be asset backed. Both advantages explain why this way of financing has been ...
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Features
Too complicated for its own good
The German pension system is widely regarded as being one of Europe’s most complex. If that wasn’t bad enough, leading observers believe aspects of the reforms currently being discussed in Parliament simply don’t make sense. “The devil is in the detail,” says Peter Scherkamp, managing director of German pension consultants ...
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Features
Setting the standard
ATP stands for supplementary labour market pension scheme in Danish and that’s exactly what it set out to provide 40 years ago this year. It started out firmly in the second pillar by providing benefits for those in employment, with others, such as the unemployed, excluded, explains Bjarne Graven Larsen, ...
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Features
The price of integrity
Levels of pay and benefits for members of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) have increased dramatically over the last few years as it became clear that low salaries had their own cost, other than low morale: corruption. As of June last year the basic salary for TDs (members of the Irish ...
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Features
What the new laws allow
The Investmentmodernisierungsgesetz (InvModG – Act modernising investmentfund regulation) was set on its way in order to mirror the changes in the UCITS III Directive within the German investment law. This presented an opportunity that was taken, to replace the KAGG law in place since 1957 and the AIG law since ...
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Features
Common sense the touchstone
Hedge funds are on their way to become the next big thing in investment management. New funds start up every day, hedge funds are marketed aggressively to institutions and, under pressure to make up for recent losses, many institutional investors are showing serious interest. Many investors do not seem to ...
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Features
Warming up the punters
People climb mountains because they are there, but will German retirement savings funds use hedge funds just because a law makes it easier? For most institutional investors the idea of hedge funds is more interesting than actually using them at the moment. This is partly because the ability to invest ...
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Features
Clearing the hurdles
One hundred per cent allocation to hedge funds? This is not as silly as some may think. If an institutional investor were to simply put hedge fund return data into their asset liability model, 100% may well be the answer. The risk return characteristics of hedge funds are so attractive, ...
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Features
Still getting over the surprise
“Everyone was taken by surprise,” is the view from the German asset management association on the decision to reduce restrictions on hedge fund investment that came into force in January. This surprise was because on 6 February, 2002, Hans Eichel, German finance minister, had written in the Financial Times that ...
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Features
Turning on the taps
‘How to tackle Germany’ occupied much conversational space at recent conferences. The Investment Act and the Investment Tax Act, which came into force on 1 January this year, brought hedge funds onshore for the first time, enabling an investor base already familiar with hedge fund index certificates to have direct ...
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Features
Waiting for flight to quality
With a rise of 32% in the S&P500 from market lows it is fair to say that investor appetite for US equities has gone up since IPE’s last report on this market. But the overall market return figure disguises wide disparity in performance between sector, style and capitalisation bands. Whereas ...
