All articles by Liam Kennedy – Page 16
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News
PFZW demands ‘change in mentality’ over carbon emissions approach
Pension fund says its 2020 target to halve carbon emmisions should help create a more sustainable world
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Features
QE: Uncertainty is Queen
It is unsurprising that Dutch pension funds sought to voice their concerns about the effect of QE on their sector before that decision was ratified
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Special Report
What is risk parity?
All theory is grey, dear friend /And green the golden tree of life. The words of Mephistopheles in the first volume of Goethe’s Faust distinguish academia from the attractions and contradictions of the real world
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FeaturesHow we run our money: PFZW
PFZW’s decision to divest from hedge funds was just one element of a comprehensive investment overhaul. Peter Borgdorff and Jan Willem van Oostveen talk about their fund’s renewed strategy
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Special ReportTop 400 Asset Managers 2015: Global assets top €50trn
Once again, IPE surveyed over 400 managers for this year’s study, canvassing end-2014 data in most cases. The results give a broad overview of the global asset management sector, with granular depth on European managers and institutional business
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News
Fixed income holdings at Dutch pension fund PFZW return 43%
Healthcare scheme reports annual result of 15.5%
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Special ReportThe Technology Sector: Potential in the exponential
The cost of computer processing power has decreased exponentially over recent decades, a trend we are all familiar with when we compare the clunky IBM PCs of the 1980s or 90s with today’s smartphones
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Features
Hard to explain
The European Central Bank’s QE programme is taking its toll on pension funds as healthy returns are unable to keep pace with liabilities
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Special Report
Credit: A change in dynamics
Remember covenant-lite loans? By 2009, risk-averse investors exercised huge influence over issuers and were able to obtain high levels of protection in the high-yield market
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Features
Success (and failure) factors
Most of the success or failure of a pension system can be attributed to design and input factors
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Features
Asset allocation: Where next?
Against the current economic backdrop, trustees and investment committees are unsure which sources of return they should allocate capital to, Liam Kennedy writes
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Features
Juncker needs you!
Pension funds, take note. Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, wants your money to invest in a laundry list of up to 2,000 projects.
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Special Report
Special Report ESG: Carbon Risk, A low-risk path to carbon reduction
The low-carbon index approach adopted by AP4, FRR and ERAFP aims to mitigate climate change (and career) risk, writes Liam Kennedy
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Special Report
Special Report ESG: Carbon Risk, How the low-tracking-error green index strategy works
As pioneered by the Swedish pension buffer fund AP4, low-tracking-error green indices work on a remarkably simple principle: weighting the stocks in each sector by carbon intensity (CO2 per unit of sales) and removing the most carbon-intense companies and exposure to stranded asset risk in intensity based on market cap.
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Country Report
When the trend is not your friend
The convergence between asset management and consultancy was a topic for discussion at a conference on fiduciary management organised by the German Federation of Financial Analysts and Asset Management (DVFA) in Frankfurt last November.
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Features
Frozen conflict
Since a 1964 report on road pricing in the UK, authored by one RJ Smeed, the idea of charging citizens for use of public highways has been repeatedly raised in Britain.
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Features
Vive la répartition
While she might have abolished peculiarities such as yellow car headlights and the old-style caps of the gendarmerie, France’s pension system, based on répartition (redistribution), remains as distinct as ever.
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Features
A-shares on the rise
There are signs that European institutional investors find Chinese equities interesting. Finland’s Ilmarinen now separates China equity holdings (A and H-shares), in its reports, and Denmark’s AP Pension has boosted its China equity exposure to 5%, although it has excluded domestic property and banks.
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Features
The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of costs
Controversies around pension funds’ asset management costs in various countries tell us something about the mood of the times, but they also suggest that changes are needed in the way pension boards select and justify their strategy choices to members and the wider world.
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Interviews
Three years of the 300
Liam Kennedy spoke to Alan Brown and Saker Nusseibeh, two architects of the 300 Club of investment professionals who seek to challenge mainstream investment practice
