All articles by Liam Kennedy – Page 16
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Features
Growing pensions China style
China launched a massive stimulus pro- gramme in 2008 in its bid to fend off the ravages of the global downturn. While that largely succeeded, there are now long-standing fears of an asset bubble, particularly in property. Growth is predicted to slow this year to its lowest rate since 1990. The country is in the midst of an anti-corruption drive, which is hitting sales of luxury goods, and air quality is still awful.
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Interviews
Cautious, Swiss and international
As an institutional manager and provider of institutional-type investment management services to private banks, including within its own group, Pictet Asset Management (PAM) clearly stands apart from the private banking fraternity.
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Features
Beyond the glib view
Credit rating agencies did not cover them- selves in glory in the financial crisis, particularly when it came to the rating of sub-prime credit instruments. While the main ones have taken steps to put their house in order, the EU has targeted the perceived mechanistic over-reliance of institutions on external ratings.
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Country Report
The Netherlands: ‘Our first duty is pensions’
Peter Borgdorff tells Liam Kennedy about PFZW’s new contract with PGGM and its unstinting focus on costs
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Special Report
Europe’s Pension Consultants: Shifting plates
Liam Kennedy questions Chris Ford about ideas, advice and implementation in a changing consulting industry
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Features
Be honest about the cost
Flood protection is generally reckoned to be a sound investment, given the relatively small outlay compared with the high cost to life and property when water inundates homes, shops and factories. When the British Isles were pounded by the severest storms in living memory in February, attention naturally focused on whether budget constraints had jeopardised flood protection, and whether greater expenditure would be needed to secure communities and prevent future floods.
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NewsDual investment objective a 'big challenge' for Ireland's reformed NPRF
CIO says successfor fund will have ‘no hope’ of attracting co-investment without independent governance
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Features
The Canada factor
If only our pension funds could be more Canadian – which is to say, large, well-governed institutions that are prominent and successful investors. Canada has these in spades, counting among its ranks four of the top 20 biggest global real estate investors and also four of the top 20 infrastructure investors respectively.
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Features
Double bottom line
Eugene O’Callaghan, investment director of the National Pensions Reserve Fund, tells Liam Kennedy about the business plan for the new Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and progress so far in transitioning the portfolio into one with a dual mandate for returns and economic impact
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Features
Trust me, I manage money
No-one doubts that trust, ethics and integrity are central to pension and investment management.
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InterviewsDrawing a virtuous circle
A number of prominent bank-owned asset managers have been put up for sale at various times since 2009 – a process that has not always been straightforward for the banks or the asset managers. Pioneer Investments’ proposed sale by its parent Unicredit was finally called off in April 2011, which allowed it to focus on a new set of strategic priorities.
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Features
Variable solutions
Europe is moving slowly and deliberately away from defined benefit pensions to approaches that, if well considered, might prove a sustainable model for workplace retirement provision.
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Interviews
Low fashion, high durability
As Thornburg Investment Management’s fourth employee, Brian McMahon arrived in Santa Fe in 1984 around the same time as the firm acquired a second-hand fax machine from the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Walter Mondale.
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Features
Time to get together?
In an ideal world, pension fund mergers create advantageous economies of investment and administration scale that benefit members, pensioners and sponsors long term. In the real world, pension funds are complicated to merge, not least because social partners often demand that everyone has a seat around the board table.
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Features
Politics and sovereign wealth
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global is now the third-largest institutional investor in the world, after Japan’s Government Pension Fund and China’s SAFE
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Interviews
M&G Fixed Income: Shining a light in the cracks
IPE editor Liam Kennedy sits down with M&G chief executive Simon Pilcher
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Features
Actuaries in business
Liam Kennedy asked Jonathan Punter and Stuart Southall about their careers as actuaries, entrepreneurs and dealmakers in the world of UK pensions
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IP Asia
Risk management challenges for pension funds
Complexity in regulation, heightened demand for efficient liability management and market volatility have created demand for a different type of relationship between asset managers and pension funds, writes Liam Kennedy.
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Features
Buyout now while stocks last
Pension longevity transfer, whether through full insurance buyouts, bulk annuities or longevity swaps, is still largely a UK business.
