All IPE articles in March 2009 (Online) – Page 9
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NewsWednesday people roundup
[17:00 CET 04-03] GLOBAL - Wednesday people roundup: Watson Wyatt, PGGM Investments, Syntrus Achmea Vastgeod, Strategeon Investment Consulting, Finansinspektionen, Equitable Life, Redington Partners, UBS, Northern Trust, HSBC Actuaries & Consultants, Nordea, Jupiter, Hymans Robertson, OMAM, Swift, Gartmore, AMB, Cordea Savills.
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NewsGov't shareholders are 'the new normal' - Pimco
[16:40 CET 04-03] GLOBAL – Asset management house Pimco is advising investors will have to rethink what makes a good investment in the coming years as governments are changing the investment game by acting as shareholders.
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NewsDonner to allow 'multi-fund' for smaller schemes
[15:30 CET 04-03] NETHERLANDS - Social affairs minister Piet Hein Donner is planning to unveil legislation which will allow small company pension funds to work together as a multi-fund scheme but leave the individual scheme’s assets ring-fenced.
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NewsNorth Yorks to drop Hermes European focus
[17:05 CET 03-03] UK –North Yorkshire County Council has decided to divest its £878.8m (€979.4m) pension fund from a holding in the Hermes Focus Asset Management’s European Focus Fund, following a combination of poor performance and staff departures.
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NewsPublica returns -6.86%
[17:05 CET 03-03] SWITZERLAND – The CHF30bn (€20.3bn) public service pension fund Publica saw its funding level drop by over 10 percentage points to 95.8% over the last year.
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NewsNorthern Rock records £31m accounting surplus
[16:55 CET 03-03] UK – Northern Rock has reported an accounting surplus in its defined benefit (DB) scheme of £31.7m (€35.4m), despite previous estimates by trustees of a £100m deficit.
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NewsVER drops €1.93bn as equity losses exceed 42%
[16:55 CET 03-03] FINLAND - Valtion Eläkerahasto (VER), the State Pension Fund, has reported an overall investment return of -15.8% in 2008, driven primarily by the results from its equity portfolio which lost 42.7% over the year.
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NewsAllianz GI sees lower income but eyes consolidation
[16:50 CET 03-03] EUROPE – Allianz Global Investors saw its net income fall by over 21.5% in 2008 on the back of lower investment returns and subsequently reduced performance fees, but officials are still looking for buying opportunities within the asset management sector.
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NewsPME mulls pensions cut in 2010
[16:00 CET 03-03] NETHERLANDS - PME, the €18.7bn industry-wide pension fund for the metal engineering industry, could be forced to reduce pension benefits next year if the extended five-year recovery period is not given further flexibility.
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NewsSP access opened to stimulate Danish economy
[15:30 CET 03-03] DENMARK - All Danish employees will from 1 June until the end of the year be allowed to access their special pension (SP) savings, even though they may not be retiring any time soon.
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NewsBos attacks shareholder role in financial crisis
[15:00 CET 03-03] NETHERLANDS - “Shareholders did virtually nothing to prevent and manage the financial crisis”, Dutch finance minister Wouter Bos said this morning at a conference in Amsterdam.
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NewsGlobal equity declines hit AP7 hard
[17:00 CET 02-03] SWEDEN – Sjunde AP-fonden (AP7) has reported a fall of -42.8% in its Premium Choice Fund, while the Premium Savings Fund, the default for savers in the Swedish pension system (PPM) dropped 36.2%.
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NewsUK council pensions cost €5bn in 2007-08
[17:00 CET 02-03] UK – Local authorities in the UK spent a total of £4.5bn (€5bn) in employer contributions to council staff pensions in 2007-08, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has claimed.
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NewsMerseyside opposed management at 15% of UK AGMs
[16:55 CET 02-03] UK – The £3.7bn (€4.1bn) Merseyside Pension Scheme has revealed it voted against company management in 15% of UK company meetings last year, as corporate behaviour was "judged to be below best practice guidelines".
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NewsDNB to review contracting-out risks
[16:45 CET 02-03] NETHERLANDS - Pensions regulator De Nederlandsche Bank will focus its supervision this year on the way pension funds’ boards handle the responsibility of risk management when it comes to dealing with contracted-out tasks.
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NewsGwynedd tenders active bonds portfolio
[16:15 CET 02-03] UK – Gwynedd Council is seeking an active bond manager for a £100m (€113m) active bond mandate for its local authority pension fund following a recent review of its investment structure.
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NewsPensionskassen important for recovery, claims Böhm
[16:10 CET 02-03] AUSTRIA/GLOBAL - The head of Austrian Pensionskasse APK has hit back at recent criticism of pensions investors and claimed pension funds will be important investors once markets normalise again.
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NewsFinnish retirement age slipped in 2008
[15:45 CET 03-02] FINLAND – The average effective retirement age for Finnish workers decreased slightly to 59.4 years in 2008 as the first baby boomer age group reached the lower-age limit for the old age pension last year, according to Eläketurvakeskus, the Finnish Centre for Pensions.
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NewsSMEs claim staff not interested in pension plans
[15:40 CET 02-03] GERMANY – Three-quarters of HR managers at small- to medium-sized German enterprises say they are not planning to increase the pensions offer to employees or even set one up but do so by blaming it on their staff.
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NewsPhilips hits a flat note on pensions
[15:00 CET 02-03] NETHERLANDS - The €13bn pension fund of electronics giant saw its investments yielding nothing in 2008 while other schemes struggled with losses of at least a fifth, but it did so largely thanks to a 17% return on fixed income holdings.
