Latest on Regulation & Reform – Page 496
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News
Ireland: Pepsi prosecuted over pensions info
IRELAND - The Pensions Board said it had successfully prosecuted Pepsi Cola Trading Ireland and two other companies for failing to comply with requests for information on their pension obligations.
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UK regulator provides detail on notifiable events
UK – The new Pensions Regulator has explained the new responsibilities of trustees and employers under the Pensions Act.
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Petercam enters Dutch institutional market
NETHERLANDS – Belgium’s Petercam Bank has hired two staff from the Ahold pension scheme to help it enter the Dutch institutional asset management market.
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Italian cabinet approves 2nd-pillar draft
ITALY – The Italian cabinet has approved the final draft for the law that will change the Italian pension system, shifting some of the pension burden from the state to employers and employees.
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Hewitt says 39 clients go ‘unconstrained’
UK – Hewitt Associates says 39 of its UK pension fund clients have gone to so-called unconstrained mandates, up from 20 six months ago.
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Akzo Nobel shifts to DC to ease balance sheet
NETHERLANDS - Dutch industrial group Akzo Nobel says it will make a €300m shift to defined contribution pensions to align it with the new Financial Assessment Framework, or FTK.
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Dutch schemes’ boards ‘need more control’
NETHERLANDS - The boards of pension schemes still aren’t sufficiently aware that they need to be in control and that just implementing internal management is not enough, claim two Dutch experts on corporate governance.
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Italy’s Maroni slams banks over 2nd-pillar plan
ITALY – Welfare minister Roberto Maroni has vowed to beat the resistance from the banking sector in his bid to boost the second pillar pension system with the severance payout known as the Tfr.
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BT scheme eyes commodities by end-2005
UK – The £50bn (€74.2bn) pension scheme of phone firm British Telecom may allocate a “single figure” percentage of its assets to commodities from its equity portfolio by the end of the year.
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Portability proposal “could be adopted” this year
EUROPE – The European Commission says a proposed directive on pension portability could be adopted this year as part of plans to make 2006 the year of ‘European worker mobility’.
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Features
Still scratching heads
Currently, there is some concern that member states will not meet the September deadline for implementing the IORP directives. However Ivo van Es, the European Commission official in charge of the implementation of the directive, has said that the EC expects all 26 member states to fulfil their obligations. So ...
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Dutch may issue index-linked to aid schemes
NETHERLANDS - The Dutch Treasury is looking at the possibility of issuing index-linked bonds to help with the financing of pension funds, says finance minister Gerrit Zalm.
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CEIOPS highlights interest-rate volatility
EUROPE – CEIOPS, the European pensions supervisory committee, has highlighted that marking liabilities to market values means that interest rates will become a “real element” in pension fund risk management.
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Report warns pension funds about climate risk
GLOBAL – A new report has warned pension fund trustees that they need to consider climate change if they want to do the best for their beneficiaries.
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Fortis opens sales office in Frankfurt
GERMANY - Fortis has opened a sales office in Frankfurt to offer a range of fund services to asset managers specialising in both traditional and asset classes.
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Central banks query hedge fund diversification
GLOBAL – The Bank for International Settlements, the central banks’ central bank, says fund managers’ claims about the diversification benefits of hedge funds may be overstated.
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JP Morgan sees virtual pension pooling by Q4
UK – JP Morgan says it could have a UK pension fund client in a virtual pooling arrangement by the fourth quarter of this year.
