Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 720
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Features
Alternatives join the mainstream
Institutional investors are increasingly turning to alternative investments in an attempt to boost returns, claims joint research undertaken by Goldman Sachs and Frank Russell. The report finds that since the last survey in 1999, the amount of funds committed by European investment houses to private equity has almost doubled from ...
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Features
Spain takes up the reins
It’s easier to sparkle in a new role if a predecessor is seen to have failed dismally, and this is the case with Spain taking over the presidency from the much-maligned Belgians. In the few months prior to the handover at the beginning of the year, the prevailing opinion in ...
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Features
Puzzling over the data
There’s still caution in the markets, despite positive economic data being circulated at the moment. “We’re basically waiting to see what direction this year is going to take,” says Catherine Reilly, an economist at Conventum Securities in Helsinki. She says that whilst she believes the markets have bottomed out, investors ...
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Features
Taking a long and hard look
Despite a tough year marked by investment underperformance, it wasn’t all bad news in the development of the Irish pensions industry during 2001. First there was the announcement of the tendering process for the C7bn National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) and, a few weeks later the publication of the Pensions ...
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Features
Opening up third pillar market
The long awaited Irish Pension Bill was finally published in July last year, providing for the introduction of Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs). This new step was welcome by the industry as a good means of promoting the further development of the Irish market for retirement. There had been criticism, ...
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Features
What next for investment?
Despite declines in the markets, equity investments were here to stay and investors should focus on the long term and stick to their strategic asset allocation. This was the message from panel members discussing their first topic of the session, namely, the future of the equity culture and focussing on ...
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Special Report
Dispelling the mysteries
‘For many beneficiaries and the public at large, pension funds are most mysterious organisations.” Whether or not you agree with this conclusion by an academic, it is certainly true that the structure and the running of pension plans has attracted low attention in the past, even by many insiders. However, ...
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Features
Styles debate is now over
Even as the academic debate mumbles forward and current research diligently examines how styles might best be theoretically defined and where, and how, they might be relevant, recent equity returns and vivid investor experiences have already spoken very clearly. From 1997 to 2000, value underperformed and growth companies soared. Also, ...
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Features
New market set for consolidation
Poland’s centre-left government was returned to power last autumn by a population disgruntled with rising unemployment, deteriorating public finances and a rapidly decelerating economy. The one undoubted success of the outgoing government was pension reform, which in 1999 replaced an unsustainable defined benefits system with a three-pillar system partly funded ...
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Features
DB to DC in record time
The Polish pension reforms of 1999 rank as one of the fastest implementations of a switch from defined benefit to defined contributions schemes. Marek Gora, professor at the Warsaw School of Economics and co-designer of the programme, started work on the scheme in late 1996, producing the blueprint in early ...
