Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 729
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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 ...
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Features
Measuring implementation shortfall
An unmanaged or poorly managed portfolio transition can at its worst combine opportunity costs, market impact and commissions to produce breathtaking costs. You needn’t look far for horror stories. A recent article in the US quoted the transaction cost company Plexus as saying one of the transitions it monitored has ...
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Features
Pleas for help
As many as eight European member states may be blocking the proposed European Directive on occupational pension funds due to opposition to the prudent person investment rule, Othmar Karas, European Parliament rapporteur for the directive, has told the EFRP/NAPF International Conference in Brussels. In a speech urging the European pensions ...
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Features
EIORP fails to progress
The EFRP proposal for a pan-European pension vehicle – the European Institute for Occupational Retirement Provision (EIORP), did not get through last week’s ECOFIN council meeting, tax expert Peter Schonewille said at the conference. “This was despite the active support for the proposal by the Commission by putting them in ...
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Features
Progress slow on Directive
The proposed pensions directive is the most important part of the EC plan for a single market for financial services by 2005, said Jean-Claude Thébault of the EC at the EFRP/NAPF conference inBrussels. Thébault noted that the signs of success were not very encouraging, pointing out that the mid-term point ...
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Features
Grappling with liability overhang
The current reform of Germany’s pension system has signalled a change in attitude to liabilities. The belief that assets can always match liabilities was summed up in the complacent government catchphrase “your pension is safe”. This certainty has been replaced by a growing sense that liabilities have grown too large ...
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Features
Soft commission under attack
In his review of UK institutional investment, published in March, Paul Myners drew attention to the lack of scrutiny of transaction fees, particularly broking commissions, incurred on clients’ behalf by their fund managers. Myners was concerned that trustees receive little information and have little control over these costs; the lack ...
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Features
Poor understanding of risk
It has been a busy autumn for UK pension funds. There has been so much going on, so many important issues to consider. The problem is where to start commentating. One of the more fascinating subjects is the current court action between The Unilever Superannuation Fund and Merrill Lynch Investment ...
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Features
Clydesdale: in from the cold
Ask clients to name potential custody providers, and until very recently the odds would have been heavily stacked against the name Clydesdale Bank figuring very high on any list of candidates, if indeed it was to be found at all. Despite having offered domestic trustee and custody services for some ...
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Features
AD's local view of global pensions
At Allied Domecq (AD), globally the second largest spirits and wine company, headquartered in Bristol, the worldwide network of pension funds and international benefits arrangements comes in all shapes and sizes. “Basically, the principle according to our corporate pensions policy is that it should be a good local scheme,” says ...
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Features
Equal treatment threat to DB
A new proposed directive from the EU is, in my view, potentially much more important for pension schemes than the pensions directive itself. The directive on establishing a General Framework for Equal Treatment in Employment and Occupation could have far reaching implications for pension scheme design across the EU. This ...
