All articles by Martin Hurst – Page 5
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Special Report
It's a matter of principles
An obvious contributor to the debate on how environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues should be incorporated into investment policy is the United Nations (UN), or more precisely the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The global factor - reach, consistency and influence - is what makes it so obvious. UNEPFI ...
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Features
Huge leap of faith needed
France’s new retirement savings scheme came under scrutiny at a conference organised by AFPEN, the French Pension Funds Association, in Paris recently. The Forum de l’Épargne Retraite saw concern that France’s two new retirement savings vehicles - one for the individual, the PERE, and one for collective company arrangements, the ...
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Features
Chemistry of mix and match
ICI’s business philosophy is decentralisation. The company’s worldwide operations, which span some 50 countries, are divided into four business units, each of which is granted a significant degree of autonomy. But there is one important exception. The one area in which the company is pursuing an active policy of centralisation ...
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Features
Involuntary acts of generosity
“We are the best value MPs in Europe,” says Gerhard Hess of the Swiss Democrats. Swiss parliamentarians – MPs and senators, are unique in Europe, if not the world, in that they do not receive a salary. This means that while Swiss workers as a whole are among the most ...
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News
Mercer sees no chance for pan-European DB
EUROPE - Defined benefit pension schemes may never be achieved at a pan-European level, according to consulting firm Mercer (corrects spelling of Stainier).
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News
EU meeting set as fears grow for IORP directive
EUROPE – There is to be a meeting at the European Parliament next week amid a fear that some EU member states will not be ready for the directive on occupational pensions.
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Special Report
Getting to the point
Pictet has been developing tools to assess companies’ SRI credentials since 1997. The problem, it seems, is that much of the information provided by companies under examination is incomplete. “Very often a company will put together a sustainability report but it will only show what it wants to show,” says ...
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Features
Oil for extra virgin wheels
Italy’s new defined contribution (DC) schemes have got off to a slow start. Having become operational only a few years ago, assets under management of the industry-specific contrattuali - literally contractual, or closed - schemes were just short of E6bn at the end of September, with just over a million ...
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Features
How BASF has it taped
Let us rewind to the year 1888. In that year BASF was one of the first companies in Germany to set up a Pensionskasse. Fast-forward to the present: Today it caters for BASF’s German employees with a funding of around E4.5bn, and forms part of a network of schemes with ...
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Special Report
Hungary comes of age
As market forces took hold across the former eastern bloc following the collapse of communism, the emergence of a thin layer of very wealthy individuals was one of the most visible, and disturbing developments. How can a system of supposed equality give way to such apparent inequality? Is it the ...
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Special Report
Uphill in Netherlands
According to the the Dutch Association of Sustainable Investors (VBDO): “Dutch pension funds hardly give any information on how they include social and environmental aspects in their asset management.” The VBDO reported that the total volume of socially responsible investments (SRI) of Dutch pension funds had increased to about 3.3% ...
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Features
Marketplace of discontents
As wary German investors emerge from the double-trauma of mistimed investments and stockmarket turmoil and decide how to move forward when their traditional haven of fixed income lies barren with yields at record lows, a well-meaning regulator is doing more harm than good. As in other walks of life, being ...
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Features
Austrian players look east
The Austrian market is both crowded and highly regulated – not encouraging signs for current or potential participants. Things are changing for the better, but is the market ready? One of the most important developments in the Austrian institutional market has been the implementation of UCITS 3 for investment funds. ...
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Features
Lego: piecing it together
When the founder of the Lego company, Ole Kirk Christiansen, came up with the brand name, he was apparently unaware that it means ‘I put together’ in Latin. It is appropriate in this context as that is exactly what the company, based in Billund, Denmark, has been doing recently with ...
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Features
Still waiting for the future
By far the most important development in the Belgian pensions market has been the provisions for industry-wide pension schemes set out in the Vandenbroucke Law which came into effect at the beginning of last year. The main aim of the law – to boost second-pillar pension provision by creating industry-wide ...
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Special Report
Mark of excellence
In January Brussels-based Independent SRI and CSR advisory and research organisation Ethibel launched its new ‘excellence’ certification in an attempt to appeal directly to institutional investors. This, coming hot on the heels of the new disclosure law on SRI for pension funds, will give a boost to Belgium’s SRI market, ...
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Special Report
Directors behaving badly
PIRC, a UK-based provider of corporate governance, proxy voting and corporate social responsibility investment research has accused the UK government of complacency on the issue of directors’ pay and consultants Deloitte & Touche of being too soft in its report on the subject. PIRC published its latest set of shareholder ...
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Features
Tobback: making his mark
Belgium’s new pensions and environment minister Bruno Tobback has his work cut out. The ever more important and contentious portfolio of pensions offers challenges galore. But to make his mark Tobback must, at the tender age of 35, prove himself against the backdrop of his influential predecessor Frank Vandenbroucke, architect ...
