Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 728
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Features
More ‘humility’ please
Alistair Ross Goobey, the chief executive of Hermes Pensions Management has warned the private equity industry that it needs to cultivate a little more “humility” in its claims of outperformance, arguing that managers have confused a prolonged bull market with genius. Speaking at the Superinvestor 2001 conference in Paris last ...
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Features
Finnish unions reach last-ditch deal
Finnish labour organisations have reached a last-ditch agreement on reform of the country’s first-pillar TEL pensions system, although some confusion remains as to the nature and timing of some of the reforms. The Finnish government had threatened Finnish social partners that if they could not agree on the changes to ...
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Features
UK sees rapid pace of change
The pace of change in the UK pensions market over the last 30 years has been more dramatic than in any other major institutional market, claims Greenwich Associates, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based research and consulting firm. Of particular note in the UK, says Greenwich, is the shift by schemes in their ...
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Features
Boots kicks shares into touch
The £2.3bn (e3.7bn) pension fund of the Boots group has sold its entire equity and short-term bond investments and switched its allocation to sterling long-dated fixed rate bonds in a shift that the fund says will save it around £10m a year in management fees. In a letter to pension ...
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Features
Making EIORPs a practical issue
When the ECOFIN council of European finance ministers rejected the European Federation of Retirement Provision’s (EFRP’s) ’EIORP’ (European Institution for Occupational Retirement Provision) pan-European pensions vehicle in October, the sighs from the EFRP’s Brussels headquarters were audible around Europe. Here was a vehicle that appeared to fit all the necessary ...
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Features
Optimism on tax progress
The European Parliament committee on economic and monetary affairs (EMAC), has unanimously voted in favour of the adoption of the draft report on taxation of occupational pensions by Dutch socialist MEP, Ieke van den Burg – throwing its weight behind the EC’s proposal for a communication on the fiscal treatment ...
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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 ...
