Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 730
-
Features
Up and running - against the odds
Hong Kong’s retirement schemes industry has achieved considerable success in a short time-span. Compliance rates for employers and employees within the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) system, which became operative in December 2000, have exceeded expectations of even the most optimistic of industry observers. The system now covers around 2 million ...
-
Features
What we have we hold
One of the side effects of the events of 11 September has been a flight from equities to cash by European institutional investors. Cash still represents the safest haven for funds in times of market uncertainty and, if managed actively, can produce modest but useful returns. Investors have moved assets ...
-
Features
Custodians' pivotal role
Cash is trash, the investment gurus have always told us, a maxim that reflects the widely-held view that cash should have a very limited part to play in any serious asset allocation strategy. Until recently, cash was seen as a relatively unimportant asset class, ranking well behind equities and bonds ...
-
Features
Wake-up call for cash holdings
We live in risk-averse times. Consumer confidence in the major economies is either weak or falling, risk premiums have risen following the terrorist attacks of 11 September and the IMF has warned of a global recession. In such a difficult economic environment the management of low-risk asset classes, such as ...
-
Features
Tightening the contributions belt
In this month’s Off the Record we get down to the nitty-gritty of pensions – who pays what in contributions and how long it is likely to stay that way? How are contribution levels set, when do they change, and are the current market conditions forcing a reappraisal of the ...
-
Features
State-of-the-art ALM given high priority
The Third Swedish National Pensions Fund was voted Swedish market leader in investment strategy for the asset/liability modelling (ALM) study that the fund carried out as a part of the preparations ahead of the new asset management mandate that came into effect at the beginning of this year. The aim ...
-
Features
Opportunity for private equity industry
In the 1990s indexing in the quoted equity markets came of age in two senses. First, many institutional investors chose to move from active to passive management of their portfolios (ie from individual stock picking to pro-rata investment in a basket of stocks forming an index), and second, the performance ...
-
Features
Brightening up the dull world of fixed income
Investors in European bonds now have a new tool at their disposal. With the iBoxx family of bond indices, the bond market finally has access to a reliable and transparent benchmark, claims the newly formed company behind the index. “It’s something that’s completely different in the grey world of fixed ...
-
Features
Growing market for commodity indices
As equity returns have slumped, so the appeal of alternative investments has risen. Commodities in particular are seen by many as having advantages not just in terms of diversification, but also as assets which can produce solid growth. In this environment, Standard & Poor’s has lauched its new commodities index. ...
-
Features
Why indices are becoming similar
In the 1990s, index providers started to notice a chasm between the story their benchmarks were telling and the environment investors were dealing with. Not all of the market capitalisation the indices represented was actually available to buy. Because of this, in the past three years every one of the ...
-
Features
Where hedge fund market falls down
Knowing and understanding the likely performance of an asset is a critical step in determining whether it has a place in the pension fund’s investment portfolio. Having effective benchmarks against which to measure manager performance is a prerequisite to proper monitoring of any investment. On both these counts, the hedge ...
-
Features
Style begins to take root in Europe
Style indices are relatively prevalent in the US, with Dow Jones, Russell, S&P/Barra and MSCI all offering style indices based on their standard index products. The European markets have been less well served in this respect. Until recently, MSCI was the only major provider to offer a pan-European product within ...
