All IPE articles in March 2009 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
Governance: more questions than answers
At IPE’s Pension Fund Governance Forum last month, Karel Stroobants, independent trustee and former director of the Belgian Amonis fund, wanted to know why there was so little debate on how the guardians of $20-plus trillion in retirement wealth actually govern themselves.
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Features
Crisis blame game at NAPF conference
It was no surprise that the main focus of the UK National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual investment conference was less on what strategies schemes can or should adopt and more on whether trustees were to blame for the current economic crisis.
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Features
Most returns firmly in the red
The continuing downward trend of pension fund solvency levels means even those funds which came even close to zero return could see their asset allocation scrutinised by colleagues.
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Country ReportIt’s all a matter of timing
Market downturns and French pension reforms appear to co-incide. George Coats assesses the issues
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Country Report
Missed opportunity
Employee savings plans could have been the next big thing in French financial services but they have failed to take off. Alain Lemoine examines why
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Country Report
RAPF: allocating for the long term
The past year has been a busy one for RAFP, the €6.3bn French civil service supplementary pension scheme that was established in 2005
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Country Report
Flying a flag for the Perco
In 2004 Christel Bapt and Benoît Magnier saw an opening in the market. At the time they were both working for bfinance, but they decided to branch out on their own and formed Altedia Investment Consulting.
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Country Report
Forced to settle for a draw
The FRR has looked vulnerable for some time and the market downturn has not helped its cause. But it has fought off the immediate threats to its future, finds George Coats
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Country ReportA Napoleonic view of sovereign wealth
Last October president Nicolas Sarkozy surprised a European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg by announcing that France was to have a sovereign wealth fund. Subsequently, government officials spoke of a €100bn fund.
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Country ReportStart of consolidation wave?
The SGAM/CAAM merger is expected to trigger a shakeout among French asset managers. George Coats examines why it is happening and what the new landscape might look like
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Country Report
Coping with stress
Life insurers are France’s largest institutional investors. Alain Lemoine assesses how they are responding to the current crisis
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Special Report
Microfinance reaches crossroads
Not yet significantly hit by the global financial crisis, there are signs that the microfinance sector may be about to enter a period of slower growth, finds Nina Röhrbein
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FeaturesA horror year for the German fund market
The year 2008 will go down in history as the worst ever for the German fund business. The financial crisis created not only created a catastrophic climate on the financial markets but with it a poor environment for inflows to retail mutual funds and institutional Spezialfonds.
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Features
Bearish sentiments dominate
Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the Act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God ...
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Opinion Pieces
Physician, heal thyself
Are pension funds victims of the current financial meltdown or are they part of the problem?
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Opinion Pieces“A long-term average interest rate will improve the solvency position of Dutch funds”
The pension sector is in dire straits. In the Netherlands, a majority of funds show a funding ratio lower than ever, indicating that they cannot fulfil their liabilities in the long term (their funding ratio is below 100%).
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InterviewsBig in Japan – ready for Europe?
Having been through its own painful credit crunch during the ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s, Japan entered the current global version with government, corporate and household debt at relatively healthy levels.
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Country ReportWeathering the storm
Although Dutch pension funds have all seen their funding ratios decline in the wake of the credit crisis, some have managed to limit the damage. Three funds share their strategies with Mariska van der Westen and Leen Preesman
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FeaturesStrategy refuses to be written off
Unexpected market events may have once more severely affected convertible arbitrage but the strategy continues to hold attractions for institutional investors, finds David White
