Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 633
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Features
France and Spain get on side
The announcement by France and Spain can be considered as a major breakthrough in the battle to achieve an internal market for occupational pensions. It also increases the pressure on member states whose tax legislation still discriminates against foreign pension funds (Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, the UK and ...
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Features
'Could do better'
For a grouping founded on the principles of peace and harmony, it’s surprising just how much conflict there is between the various constituent parts of the EU. Of course, some conflicts are higher profile than others – witness the fracas over the Stability Pact. But there is other evidence of ...
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Features
Spectre of 1994 rides again
Is the ghost of 1994 set to spook the markets 10 years further on? Interest rates are very low, for some bond markets they’ve never been lower, and the last time the Central Banks were in anything like tightening mode is but a distant memory. But 2004 feels different in ...
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Features
Dutch pension reforms
As well as trying to mind-read Central Bankers, poring over economic statistics and keeping a keen watch on world events, investors also need to be more than up-to-date with all sorts of rules and regulations, dull though they may be. In a recent piece of careful and thorough research from ...
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Features
Consumers hold the key
After three years of significant underperformance, Euro-zone equity markets outperformed the US, UK and Japan markets in 2003 as investors switched out of bonds and back into equities. The question is whether this is likely to continue in 2004. Some analysts suspect that the economic and financial recovery expected this ...
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Features
More optimistic than cautious
The outlook for US equities for the coming year is positive. According to Darrell Riley, vice president of T Rowe Price in Baltimore, “the consensus is that S&P index will increase by between 5 and 10% by the end of the year.” He adds: “what is priced into the market ...
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Features
Income generators in vogue
The traditional equity-versus-bond decision in asset allocation is becoming too simplistic. The clear trend is towards greater diversification, particularly into non-traditional asset classes, together with a shift from relative return to total return investment. In 2003, there were many opportunities for asset managers to generate positive investment returns. Given the ...
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Features
Unweighting fixed income logical
The scenario of a pick-up in growth, contained inflation and ample market liquidity suggest a continuation of the trends seen in recent months for financial markets and a preference for equities, particularly high risk markets, over bonds. We can also expect to see greater risks in the second half of ...
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Features
Investing in tax-sheltered hedge funds
Supplemental executive pensions and deferred bonus programmes of US corporations, although recognised on corporate balance sheets, have typically not been funded in advance of their distribution dates. CFOs have been convinced corporate assets would earn a higher after-tax rate of return if invested within the company than in a diversified ...
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Features
Currency - the performance conundrum
It is regularly stated that very few people can forecast currency movements, yet currency as an asset class is one that seems more capable than most of delivering reliable and attractive returns. Why this should be would seem a mystery until one is told by people like Neil Record, one ...
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Features
Time to be more creative
The defining moment of 2003 for the Irish fund management industry was the decision by UK insurance giant Aviva to reprieve its Dublin based asset management arm, Hibernian Investment Managers, Ireland’s fourth largest asset manager Aviva had initially considered closing down Hibernian and merging its operations with its London-based asset ...
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Features
British miss gravy train
The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) was first introduced to provide pension benefits for Members of Parliament (MPs) in 1965. The PCPF is a funded scheme which invests contributions from the exchequer and members. The Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) has come in for considerable criticism, largely on account of ...
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FeaturesHow the parliamentary pension scheme works
The pension scheme for Westminster MPs, the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) operates like most funded final salary arrangements by investing its members’ contributions and those from the Exchequer, which takes the place of an employer in an occupational scheme, in the financial markets.
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Features
Tapiola spreads its wings
The investment environment has been very challenging, says Hanna Hiidenpalo, who is investment director for Tapiola Mutual Pensions Insurance, based in Espoo. The guaranteed rate of return Finnish investors need to receive is currently at 4.5%. “The decision about the guarantee rate is not very closely related to the realities ...
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Features
Slow task of rebuilding
Like the adverts for Carlsberg beer, the Danes believe that they probably have the best system in Europe when it comes to pensions coverage. Granted the Dutch will have more in terms of funded assets per head, but Denmark’s second pillar occupational membership at an estimated 95% of the workforce ...
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Features
Industriens is poised to take advantage of the upturn
The Copenhagen-based Industriens Pensions has an impeccable background as a labour-market fund. Formed just over a decade ago, in a pioneering joint venture move by DI, the Confederation of Danish Industry on the employer side and by CO, the central grouping of trade unions, it covers employees in 8,500 businesses ...
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Features
JOP goes back to the drawing board
At the Juristernes & Okonomernes Pension Fund (JØP) the search for alpha is on. The DKr21bn professional fund for lawyers and economists is undergoing an extensive restructuring. A full review is in hand, says Henrik Franck, investment director, who joined the fund from BankInvest last year. “Not only is the ...
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Features
An uncomfortably hot seat
As Malcolm Wicks, UK Minister of State for Pensions, acknowledges, the world of pensions has changed from a “rather dusty but worthy corner of business and public policy” to a “big issue” that regularly makes front-page headlines in UK tabloid newspapers. “That can be uncomfortable for Pensions Ministers from time ...
