All articles by Liam Kennedy – Page 4
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Opinion PiecesThe Ukraine war and what it means for pension funds
A health check for pension funds as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises questions about diversification and energy
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Germany & Austria (April 2022)
It took just over 100 days in office before Germany’s new coalition government announced a €500bn budget to first pillar pension financing, setting in motion an agreed reform process that would create a partially funded state pension system.
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Special ReportSpecial Report - Regulation
Europe’s flagship SFDR regime for ESG was never intended to become a fund-labelling framework. So as Susanna Rust also writes in this issue, it is a relief that the EU is now consulting on minimum requirements for Article 8 funds. In this Special Report, we look in some depth at how asset managers have embraced SFDR, taking in the broad reclassification exercise that has taken place to relabel existing funds, and the short-term risks of greenwashing. In the longer term, the hope is for much more standardisation and there are signs that this is already happening.
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FeaturesStrategically speaking – WTW: Democratising private markets
WTW’s ill-fated merger with Aon, announced at the outset of the pandemic in early March 2020, would have shaken up the corporate insurance brokerage market. It would also have created an outsourced CIO (OCIO) giant to compete with Mercer in terms of delegated assets under management (AUM).
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Opinion PiecesEditor's letter: Could CDC provide a solution to the pension income problem?
This month sees the close of a consultation in the UK on a new code of practice for authorisation and supervision of collective defined contribution (CDC) pensions schemes. Trustees will be able to apply to set one up from August this year.
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Book ReviewBooks – Demographics Unravelled: A broad and granular understanding of demographics
Amlan Roy’s contention in his new book Demographics Unravelled is that a wider and more holistic approach to demographics is necessary. An academic by background and a long-standing former head of global demographics and pensions research at Credit Suisse, Roy’s choice of focus in his book underlines his views.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in The Netherlands (March 2022)
The nominal treatment of liabilities in the Netherlands’ FTK pension regulatory framework means schemes don’t need to explicitly hedge inflation. But Dutch inflation came in at one of the highest rates in the euro-zone in January, and there has been strong criticism in the last decade about pension indexation cuts.
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Special ReportSpecial Report – Pan-European Personal Pensions
From March, the European Commission’s vision of a simple, cross-border savings product becomes a reality with the launch of the Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP). EU citizens will for the first time be able to channel savings into a long-term third-pillar product that is cost effective, simple and portable across borders.
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Opinion PiecesPEPP could be a slow-burn success if big asset managers help
When early pan-European pension concepts took shape, spearheaded by the late Koen de Ryck of Pragma Consulting and his groundbreaking 1996 report, there was a vision that cross-border pension provision by the likes of Unilever and Shell would provide a European model for DB pensions that would boost labour mobility, take workplace retirement provision to under-served markets and set standards for the future.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Ireland (February 2022)
Ireland’s new trustee code is bedding in following its publication last autumn. The code aligns Ireland with IORP II, with rules on governance, administration, controls, DB management and ‘fit and proper’ requirements.
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Special ReportSpecial Report – Sustainability & reporting
Increasing levels of ESG investing require greater transparency across the value chain, not least from companies. Enter the International Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, which will take shape this year and which is currently recruiting 11 inaugural board members.
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Asset Class ReportsPortfolio Strategy – Fixed income report
As the earnings season gets under way in early January, we look at 2021’s bumper level of bank debt issuance, in particular from Bank of America, JP Morgan and Citigroup, which have all recorded big increases in deposits. Banks look set to benefit from rising rates this year, but also from their historically large capital buffers, diverse funding levels and central bank liquidity backstops and offer attractive valuations.
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Opinion PiecesLacklustre pensions in an innovative CEE region
Capital funded pension systems across the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries have suffered from poor policy decisions over the years. These have included suspensions or reductions to contributions and even transfers of assets from individual accounts to the state.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Central & Eastern Europe (January 2022)
A combination of poor policy decisions and conservative asset allocations have conspired to stifle the development of supplementary pensions in the CEE region since the widespread adoption of the World Bank’s three-pillar model in the 1990s, as IPE Editor Liam Kennedy writes in this issue.
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FeaturesStrategically speaking: IFM Investors
When IFM Investors and its fellow consortium members cracked open the bubbly last month on their successful bid for Sydney Airport following a third revised offer, it marked a bet on a vigorous and sustained recovery in passenger aviation. After all, airports globally, including Sydney, had come to resemble “parking lots for planes”, in the words of IFM Investors CEO David Neal.
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Opinion PiecesGetting ahead of the skill curve
Twenty years ago, in December 2001, Denmark’s giant labour market pension fund ATP implemented an interest-rate swap. That doesn’t seem too shocking now as liability-driven investment (LDI) is a mature and well-understood concept that is embedded in pension risk-management and regulatory practice.
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Special ReportSpecial Report – Prospects 2022 for European Institutional Investors
It’s all about inflation, stupid! Well, yes and no. While inflation is one of the top concerns raised by contributors to our vox-pop section on the economic outlook, growth and interest rates feature highly too. On the topic of inflation, EFG Bank’s Stefan Gerlach outlines why inventors should look at the underlying components of headline inflation numbers. We also look at the NextGenerationEU bond issuance programme, and the implications on the bond market. And energy specialist Cyril Widdershoven outlines the case for oil and gas as a transition play.
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NewsBiodiversity on the agenda: thoughts from COP26
‘If we don’t solve the problems of tropical rainforests we lose the fight against climate change’
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InterviewsStrategically speaking: Finreon
Established 12 years ago as a spin-off from Switzerland’s renowned University of St Gallen, Finreon is a quant asset management specialist that styles itself as an investment adviser and a think tank. It has recently weighed into the debate on portfolio decarbonisation with a novel solution for listed equities.
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Special ReportMoney and commitment needed
The term ‘net zero’ is becoming entrenched in political and business life as governments, banks, insurers, asset owners and, not least, corporates sign up to demanding pledges to reduce carbon emissions in the service of limiting global temperature rises to within 1.5°C.
