Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 678
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Features
Europe is going specialist
With global financial markets continuing their struggle, many European pension funds are taking a closer look at their portfolios, and an increasing number are switching their assets into specialist mandates. A recent study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting revealed a 64% increase in specialist mandates in Europe over the last ...
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Features
Bear limps along
Economic data is once again the driving force behind the performance of Europe’s equity markets, with analysts playing down the significance and impact of the Iraqi parliament’s unanimous decision not to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. “It’s not something that we can afford to ignore, but oil prices ...
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Features
Investing in a cold climate
Three years of falling equity markets in Sweden have acted like a cold shower for the institutional asset management in Sweden and their pension fund clients: initially acting as a shock to the system, but ultimately invigorating. Fund managers have shivered but emerged fitter from the experience. Many of the ...
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Features
Denmark switches lanes
It’s hard to avoid the traffic lights in Denmark these days. When the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (DFSA) introduced its two new colour-coded stress tests to assess the financial strength of life insurers and pensions institutions, Danish pension funds suddenly found themselves slamming the brakes on a steadily rising exposure ...
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Features
Finns cross boundaries
This has been the year when asset liability management reasserted itself in Finland in the light of difficult markets and the need to meet tight solvency regulations. While the investment trends that became apparent at the time of the euro introduction are still evident, the focus has clearly shifted to ...
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Features
Norway's place for money
The institutional market in Norway is a notoriously difficult market for asset managers to enter. There are three broad reasons for this. The first is that the is market controlled by a handful of large players. The second is that the pension fund business is too fragmented to be lucrative ...
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Features
Global players making inroads
When the Second Swedish National Pension Fund (AP2) appointed State Street to provide global investment services for its $14bn of assets under management in June this year, the move highlighted a disturbing trend for the Nordic region’s domestic global custodians. Are the region’s larger pension funds players and insurance companies ...
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Features
Variety of strategies
The HSBC Asian Equity Fund under HSBC’s SICAV Global Investment Fund series currently has $140m under management, with its Asia Equity OEIC counterpart running £40m. The month of October saw the fund return positive results of 5.47% after a fairly negative year, with the fund’s year-to-date returns currently sitting at ...
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Features
New government faces reform challenge
After its predecessor’s failure to push through a package of pensions reforms, the new government that took power in June will be trying again. The June elections once again returned a centre-left Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD)-dominated government. Unlike its predecessor, a minority administration that relied on the tacit support ...
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Features
Getting the money away
Italy’s part-privatised state electricity utility, the Ente Nazionale Per l’Energia Elettrica (Enel), operates two pension schemes – one for managers and the other for its employees. The arrangement has its advantages. The smaller white collar scheme has provided a ‘test bed’ for key changes to the larger blue collar scheme ...
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Features
Managing the investment portfolio
Senior managers at some of Europe’s top pension funds agree on one thing: that they are investing for the long term, though they differ on how to achieve their aims in terms of how they manage their funds, allocate assets and monitor their absolute returns. The executives were speaking at ...
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Features
Controlling your investment and other costs
Low management fees are not necessarily the best management fees, believe senior managers at some of Europe’s top pension funds. Addressing pension market professionals at the second seminar at the IPE Awards, the panel of five gave their opinions on how to control investment and other costs. The panel comprised ...
