Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 640
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Features
Making the most of risk
Strategic asset allocation is the key decision for pension funds. How much to allocate to equities and to bonds is and always has been the most important driver of returns for funds. The long term nature of pension investing has dictated that funds typically review their strategic allocation every three ...
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Special Report
An SRI beast
Always a watcher of the latest trends, this Dark Beast is now considering establishing the Bête Noire SRI Fund, to fill a unique market niche. Being a heavy smoker, excluding tobacco companies doesn’t seem that attractive to this Beast. In fact smokers save money for the health service by shortening ...
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Features
Balancing benefits and contributions
Since 2002, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was replaced by the union of Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics are replacing federal law such as pensions with republican legislation. With the two republics using different currencies – Serbia retains the dinar while Montenegro adopted the euro – a unified ...
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Features
Confidence index rises
Institutional investors’ confidence rose in October, according to a new State Street index. “The October index shows investor confidence rose 1.7 points to 104.2 from a revised September level of 102.5,” says State Street. It added that the increase continues the trend seen throughout much of 2003. Confidence was at ...
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Features
Consolidating platforms
Industry utilities have a reputation for procrastination and entropy, but over the past five years Euroclear, the Brussels-based international depository, has displayed an admirable determination to seize the initiative and, even more unusually, to bite the bullet when it comes to making tough choices. The merger between fellow ICSD Cedel ...
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Features
Take a common sense approach to cash
Let’s be honest, in a world of competing priorities cash management never seems to quite make it onto the hot ‘must do’ list but seems to hover, ghost like, just outside the activity zone. There is rarely an urgent imperative promoting it up the scale. This is a pity as ...
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Features
Putting currency in the blend
We believe a sound investment approach for enhanced cash and short duration portfolios is through diversifying portfolios across global fixed income and currency asset classes. We view cash management in terms of actively managing along a risk spectrum, defined by the duration of the portfolio and the allocation to various ...
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Features
Value-added with minimum risk
Relatively low global short-term interest rates continue to challenge investors. Rates declined precipitously in the US and throughout Europe and the UK in response to geo-political fears, tepid economic growth and concerns regarding the deteriorating credit market over the last 19 to 24 months. While rates have rebounded somewhat this ...
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Features
Time to latch on to tri-party report
A repo is an agreement between a buyer and seller of securities, whereby the seller agrees to repurchase them at an agreed price and, usually, at a pre-agreed future date. They are widely used as a money market investment vehicle and as an instrument of central bank monetary policy. Repo ...
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Features
Money market funds come in from the cold
The only sure-fire success for a fund promoter in recent times has been to offer investors some form of safe haven. Anything that has provided the promise of low volatility and a return of the invested principal has found a willing buyer. Money market funds have been one such success. ...
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Features
What happens when the money runs out?
This month’s Off the Record looks at the ticklish issue of solvency insurance for company pension plans in Europe – how to protect members of corporate pension plans when companies go bust. A number of European countries already operate solvency insurance schemes for corporate pensions. In Germany, and now in ...
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Features
Swift-footed giant takes the crown
The 2003 IPE Awards European Gold Winner for best European Pension Fund, ABP, is that rarest of beasts – a giant pension fund that is quick on its feet. As the judges for the IPE Awards commented: “Still and despite being the largest and opinion leading European/Dutch pension fund, it ...
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Features
Reforming zeal of a big-picture man
If there is such a thing as a European pensions ‘time bomb’, then Frits Bolkestein, member of the European Commission responsible for Internal Market, Taxation and Customs Union, is one of the individuals most likely to help defuse it. This year’s IPE Award for Outstanding Industry Contribution goes not just ...
