Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 727
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Features
Optimist at helm of EFRP
Alan Pickering, the new chairman of the European Federation of Retirement Provision (EFRP) and a former chair of the UK National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has been around long enough to know a pensions scare story when he hears it. His role at the EFRP confronts him directly with ...
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Features
Waiting for signals to change
UK equities have recovered some of the losses they suffered following 11 September and there are signs that the domestic economy is more robust than previously feared. But investors’ hopes for a more geographically widespread upturn in economic fortunes could paradoxically dent share index levels in the UK. This is ...
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Features
Heightened risk aversion
It is never straightforward predicting outcomes, but today’s investors face even more challenges as the war against terrorism continues. Capital markets seem to be entering new realms and for most investors, even quite seasoned ones, it is pretty much unchartered territory. The US yield curve was the steepest it had ...
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Features
Could be the start of something big
The first Eurozone inflation indexed bond (OATei) auctioned in October by the French Trésor has been very well received. Demand was seen not just from within the domestic market but also from the rest of Europe and as well as the UK and the US. As well as the Anglo ...
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Features
'Interest rates and hope'
The markets have at last begun to rally from the year’s lows recorded in September, but analysts already wonder if the recovery is sustainable. “The recovery since the September lows has been really quite rapid, especially in telecoms and technology, but the markets are still plagued by uncertainty, in respect ...
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Features
Return of the 'R' word
Equity and bond markets have exhibited heightened volatility in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the US. The slowdown in global economic activity since the beginning of this year and the associated deterioration in corporate profits growth has caused equity markets to fall sharply, leaving equity valuations at attractive ...
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Features
Travelling cautiously
Outside the window of Ton Groeneveld’s office in Utrecht, the trains run past constantly, a perpetual reminder if he ever needed it of what his job is all about. He is chief investment officer at SPF Beheer, the management company that was formed in 1994 to administer the e10bn Railways ...
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Features
Opting out: illusion or reality
April the first next year sees the Netherlands’ Z scores reach their fifth birthday and members of industry-wide funds have the option of dropping out and seeking investment management and pensions administration elsewhere if their scheme fails to meet the prescribed level. The number of funds that are likely to ...
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Features
Z score dissenters
Jan Baars and his employer, the PGGM pension fund, have been among the fiercest critics of the Z scores. In a series of articles in the Dutch press, PGGM has at times sounded almost apocalyptic, warning that the Industry-wide fund in the Netherlands is doomed. Complaints levelled against the Z ...
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Features
Collaborative effort
As many of the Netherlands’ Industry-wide pension funds split their administrative and investment management departments, there’s a hub in Rijswijk where exactly the opposite is underway. Five company schemes and one Industry-wide pension fund, who last year announced they were launching a cooperative, have taken delivery of the keys to ...
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Features
New channel in and out of equity markets
While past efforts to harmonise clearing and settlement and other related market practices across the rest of Continental Europe have been fitful at best, the four markets of the Nordic region – Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway – have on the whole tended to be far better disposed towards regional ...
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Features
Difficult times
Recently when any overview of the Nordic exchanges has been prepared, the logical starting place is usually Sweden. This is because the OM Group has been one of the most active and high profile organisations in the world of exchanges. Last year attention focused on the bid for the London ...
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Features
ETFs: whole new panorama
The success of exchange traded funds (ETFs) in the US has caused exchanges, asset managers, index providers and other market particpants to want to launch them in Europe. The first ETF was launched in the US in 1993. By 1997 there were 19 ETFs in the US with $6.7bn (e7.6bn) ...
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Features
Learning the lessons
The events of 11 September exposed weaknesses in the US securities trading, clearing and settlement infrastructure. Inadequate disaster recovery arrangements by key institutions, the over-concentration of processes in too few organisations, and the lack of redundancy in communication networks are among the issues local firms, industry bodies and regulators are ...
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Features
Pensions reform derailed
The 11 September terrorist attack has changed the scenario for US pension reform, but it is not yet clear in which direction. Critics of social security privatisation say the stock market downturn shows how risky the proposal is. Supporters of the Bush administration’s original plan (in which private personal accounts ...
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Features
Myners opens Pandora's box
When Paul Myners allocated just a couple of pages to the issue of brokerage commissions in his recent report into the UK institutional market, he cannot have anticipated the hornets’ nest he was to disturb. Although he focused on commissions, it has brought the issue of trading costs as a ...
