Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 675
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Features
Get ready for replays
The European Central Bank may have cut interest rates five times in 2002, but the market opinion is that “it’s not over till Wim Duisenberg sings”. Over the 12 month period, the ECB slashed the interest rate by 2% – the last cut arriving in December – but market participants ...
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Features
Off the floor
With the FTSE 100 index poised to push up through key resistance levels, sentiment in the London equities market has brightened. But strategists are not holding their breath. Share prices in the UK are unlikely to make any lasting upside progress just yet. The fact that prices have come off ...
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Features
Towards point of convergence
Asset management in the central and east European (CEE) states has been booming as solid growth leads to more disposable income. The eight CEE states set for EU membership in May 2004 – Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – are all recording growth higher than ...
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Features
Gearing up for pensions
Asset management in the Baltic states is a mixed scene, ranging from investment funds and private pensions in Estonia and Latvia to negligible retail activity in Lithuania. In Lithuania, tax complications have so far prevented the establishment of local investment funds. Meanwhile the private pensions market will only start operating ...
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Features
Capital markets
While developed economy stock markets suffered losses, the exchanges in central and eastern Europe have put in an impressive performance. As of late November stock prices in dollar terms had risen by 32% year to date in Hungary and 24% in the Czech Republic. Even Poland, which had seen poor ...
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Features
Effects of convergence
One of the effects of EU convergence has been a convergence of the stock markets of eastern and western Europe. CEE stock markets are approaching their western peers in terms of correlation, according to Helmut Pfeffer, stocks analyst at Raiffeissen Zentralbank (RZB) in Vienna. Three CEE stock markets – the ...
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Features
Candidates line up for inspection
In May 2004, eight countries are scheduled to join the enlarged European Union, representing the largest expansion of the union, in terms of scope and diversity, in its history. The countries include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia. All of the countries have been preparing for ...
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Features
Alecta's never-ending story
Alecta is the largest manager of occupational pension assets in the Nordic region, with more than SEK 300bn (E33.3bn) under management. Formerly known as SPP (Sveriges Privatanställdas Pensionskassa) Alecta re-branded itself following a decision in 2000 to sell off all business activities that were open to competition in the market ...
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Features
Costs driving flight from DB
Historically, defined benefit (DB) rather than defined contribution (DC) has been the commonest type of occupational pension in the UK. It is still the dominant plan type. The latest benefit design survey by consultant Watson Wyatt found that 58% of the occupational schemes surveyed were DB while only 23% were ...
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Features
Time to share risks
One factor which could slow the flow from DB to traditional DC schemes is the growing interest in hybrid pension plans in the UK. Actuaries Lane Clark Peacock point out in their annual survey, ‘Accounting for Pensions’, that traditional final salary DB schemes and occupational DC schemes represent extremes of ...
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Features
Why a wake-up call is needed
The perception in the UK that a defined contribution pension (DC) plan is a ‘second best’ occupational pension has grown chiefly because of the low level of employer contributions. Employers contribute significantly less to DC schemes than to defined benefit (DB) schemes. The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual ...
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Features
Good for the long term
Investors, disenchanted with equities and suffering low yields on government bonds, are turning to corporate bonds in droves to access the historically high yield premium on which they are currently trading. European investors, deprived of the returns they traditionally made from trading between the legacy currencies, have taken advantage of ...
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Features
Looking for yield pick-up
o Anna Lees-Jones, manager of the M&G Corporate Bond Fund, puts the fund’s success down to its research resources. She has access to the group’s 28 different credit analysts, all of whom are career analysts, having worked in the industry for at least 10 years. “That’s a huge advantage to ...
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Features
Corporate pension risk in Europe
As we all know, pensions are receiving substantial attention in the wider press, both in financial and non-financial publications. This has been triggered by a combination of factors: equity underperformance has eroded asset values, falling bond yields have driven up liability values and increased accounting transparency has made the resulting ...
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Features
Directive keeps them guessing
When it comes down to multinational pension arrangements in Europe, and, more particularly, the endeavours of European legislators to find a solution to the issue of pan-European pensions, the strangest scenarios can often seem quite commonplace. And so it was at the 2002 IPE Multi Pensions conference in Amsterdam at ...
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Features
Cool face of benefits
Education. Education. Education. Well, pensions education to be precise. For New Labour’s renowned election promise is just as applicable in the UK to pensions when it comes to the populous at large. This is the strategy overarching the newly created Pension Service which, as part of the Department of Work ...
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Features
French savings plans' rapid progress
For the last two years, the concept of employee savings, such as saving plans or schemes for profit sharing, has received much publicity from the media. The potentially large volumes of assets available has attracted a number of new providers. For a company, the choice of a fund manager is ...
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Features
Slaughtering herds
It’s that time of year again when we ask ourselves – just what investment policies and strategic asset allocation decisions make sense in today’s market? The problem is that we are asking ourselves that question rather too often lately. Unfortunately, we don’t appear to have much in the way of ...
