All articles by Liam Kennedy – Page 4
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in the Nordic Region (December 2022)
Nordic pension funds are getting to grips with biodiversity and natural capital in their investment portfolios, seeking to measure both the impact of companies they invest in and ways they can limit adverse effects on nature. Like other investors globally, many are just at the early stages of thinking about this - how they measure biodiversity, which metrics and approaches are gaining acceptance, and how best to report to stakeholders.
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Special ReportSpecial Report – ESG
Our report looks at the ESG through the prism of private markets, with coverage of SFDR and an interview with Anner Follèr, head of sustainability at Sweden’s national private equity investor AP6
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Opinion PiecesLessons on LDI: learn from the Dutch cultural revolution
Around 20 years ago, UK occupational pension liabilities underwent a structural change. With assets weighted towards UK equities, still cashflow positive and open to new members and future accrual, liabilities were not too greatly discussed.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Switzerland (November 2022)
Our report on Swiss pensions also looks at the growing demand for so-called 1e plans, additional pension vehicles for higher earners. The 1e sector is ripe for consolidation, like the market for multi-employer pensions (Anlagestiftungen), where the federal regulator is concerned about a build-up of complexity and supervisory risks. We also cover the annual survey of the consultancy Complemeta and assess Swiss pension funds’ asset allocation plans.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Spain & Portugal (November 2022)
In Spain, the pension sector is giving a cautious thumbs up to workplace pension reform plans, even if they fall short of the industry’s wish list. Top of that list was mandatory auto-enrolment, which won’t now happen. But the planned national so-called Macro-fondo ‘super fund’ has met with general approval. It will be managed by the private sector but supervised by a control committee comprising government, employer and union representatives.
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Features17Capital’s Pierre-Antoine de Selancy: Navigating NAV lending
Pierre-Antoine de Selancy has just left a meeting with his company’s new majority shareholder, Oaktree, and is running a little late. His days are busy. De Selancy is founder and managing partner of 17Capital, a London-based boutique specialised in providing NAV finance to private equity managers.
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Opinion PiecesSolvency II: Rule changes can’t force risk taking
Changing the rules can often seem like a very sensible policy choice – whether a sweeping deregulatory reform or more of a technocratic adjustment to regulations.
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FeaturesLGIM’s Michelle Scrimgeour: ambitions for growth
Michelle Scrimgeour and her executive team set out their strategic growth priorities in November 2020, a little more than a year after she had taken over as CEO of Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM). They agreed to grow the business by focusing on existing strengths: to modernise, diversify and to internationalise.
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NewsBank of England intervention eases pressure on DB schemes facing margin calls
Pension funds should proactively look for ways to shore up liquidity, says consultancy
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Opinion PiecesInstitutional capital for energy resilience
Ukraine’s independence day on 24 August also marked six months since the start of Russia’s invasion and with it a profound shift in the global geopolitical and economic balance.
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FeaturesCEE private equity: in search of capital
War in Ukraine is just one factor deterring investment in private equity and growth capital in Central and Eastern Europe
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Special Report
Belgium: Limited agreement on pension changes reached
A minimum monthly first-pillar pension will apply from 2024 but there has been little effort to boost supplementary schemes
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Special ReportTop 1000 Pension Funds 2022: Pension assets increase reflects 2021’s markets
The assets of the leading 1000 European pension funds increased by well over €600bn in our latest survey – a large portion of which can be attributed to strong investment returns on the back of a sustained post-COVID rebound over the course of 2021.
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InterviewsStrategically speaking interview: Jose Minaya, Nuveen
Asset managers with a yield-hungry pension investor as a parent nowadays usually have to diversify their footprint into private markets, often by acquisitions in one form or another.
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Opinion PiecesHow to bridge a most obvious pension investment gap?
Investment luminaries were recently invited by the CFA Institute to give their opinion on the financial system in a publication to mark the quarter century of the institute’s research award to commemorate Jim Vertin.
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Country ReportCountry Report – Pensions in Italy (July/August 2022)
Italy’s pension industry continues to develop, albeit at a slow pace. Italian pension funds are adapting their strategies to the volatile and uncertain market regime, by purchasing inflation-linked assets and by taking advantage of potentially higher yields on domestic government bonds. However, as our lead article highlights, they are generally staying true to their long-term diversification strategies, which consist of gradually allocating to alternatives including private equity, private debt and infrastructure. Some have bought shares in the Bank of Italy, a private equity-like investment.
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Special ReportSpecial Report – Outlook
It’s hardly news that inflation is high on asset owners’ minds right now. We asked eight seasoned asset allocators, CIOs and strategists the same question: how do you rate the chances of stagflation? And what to do about it?
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Asset Class Reports
Quant managers: Quoniam’s Nigel Cresswell
Liam Kennedy spoke to Quoniam Asset Management’s CEO about the challenges and opportunities faced by a quant boutique
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Opinion PiecesPension funds and asset managers: Are you a Yamaha or a Steinway?
In the 1970s, Genichi Kawakami, president of Yamaha Corporation from 1950-77, wanted his pianos to rival those of Steinway.
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InterviewsStrategically speaking interview: Edwin Conway, BlackRock Alternative Investors
Many asset owners focus on the return streams available from private markets investments and the diversification effect of private equity, debt or any of the other flavours available in this sector of the market.
