Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 635
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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 ...
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Features
Sectors have arrived
European institutions have little choice but to invest in European equities, be it via a domestic or foreign equity allocation, structured as a euro or pan-European mandate, or the European element of a global mandate. Four years after the birth of the euro, the means by which institutions achieve European ...
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Features
Continuous cycle of advice
The whole point of the pensions consultancy business is to help pension schemes do what they have to do in the best possible way. They are there to provide backing at all levels, from expert advice on arcane investment instruments to performing some of the day-to-day administrative chores a company’s ...
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Features
Where do consultancies see their business growing?
In Portugal, Thomas says quite a sizeable pensions consultancy market is likely to grow in the next few years, as the state’s role in pension provision is reduced and wealth moves from state control to the private sector. The details, however, are still unclear. “There is a lot of uncertainty,” ...
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Features
Self assessment rules OK?
The pensions industry relies heavily on consultants, but increasingly, there are calls for them to quantify what exactly it is that they do, and how they do it. In the UK, some of the major consultancies have responded by publishing analysis of their own results – putting into basis points ...
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Features
Biting the hand that feeds
IPE’s look at investment managers’ attitudes to consultants makes sobering reading for some consulting giants. When asset managers were asked to name the five firms that impressed them most in order of preference some of the biggest firms barely got a mention, while others failed to be number one with ...
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Features
Funds' qualified support
European pension funds are strong supporters of pensions consultants. According to the responses to a survey undertaken by IPE, the overwhelming majority of (91%) – use external pensions consultants. Of those which do not, just 6% say they have in-house expertise. One respondent however went further: “Our pension fund has ...
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Features
Value for money?
The cost of something depends on people’s willingness to pay the price. In pension consulting it requires them to place a value on advice where local knowledge is vital and limits cross-border competition and so the UK leads the way in charging clients the most. In part this is because ...
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Features
Ironing out the creases
In their eagerness to court increasingly powerful consultants, investment management firms throughout Europe have created consultant relations positions. But the consultants themselves are still not convinced that they are getting what they need. Like client relationship managers, consultant relations executives are the first point of contact for consultants looking for ...
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Features
Torn by conflicts of interest
It is estimated that up to 90% of a quoted service company’s market capitalisation is due to its reputation. But this reputation can take a knock from clients and investors if people think there are conflicts of interest in the service provided and firms are no longer perceived as independent. ...
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Features
Next on the US chopping block?
The investment consulting business in the US is very concentrated, with the leading firms controlling 70% of the market. But this situation is slowly changing, because of the increasing competition coming from new entrants and because of the recent mutual fund scandal’s ripple effects. “The top 20 leading consulting firms ...
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Features
Lure of sound regulation
Rightly or wrongly, offshore jurisdictions are associated with light regulation, and the main job of offshore regulators is perceived to be placing as few obstacles as possible in the way of multinational companies wishing to set up pension schemes for their employees. Guernsey, for example, has specifically exempted international pensions ...
