All articles by Liam Kennedy – Page 16
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Features
Time to focus
Few would see an immediate parallel between the pension fund world and that of commercial aviation. Yet the story of the Douglas Corporation is interesting
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Special Report
Tracking Railpen’s switch
Liam Kennedy asks Paul Trickett about the progress the Railpen Investments board is making in changing the way it invests
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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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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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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 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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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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News
Fixed income holdings at Dutch pension fund PFZW return 43%
Healthcare scheme reports annual result of 15.5%
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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
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 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
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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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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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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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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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
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.
