All articles by Martin Steward – Page 18
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News
AIFM Directive may still be strengthened, warns Rasmussen
[17:30 CEST 11-09] EUROPE - Members of the fund management community have reacted angrily to suggestions that the scope of the European Union’s Draft Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) could be widened, and its provisions strengthened rather than weakened, before it becomes law.
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Interviews
From silos to solutions
The announcement in mid-June that Barclays had accepted BlackRock’s offer for its asset management arm, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) – to be recommended to shareholders in August 2009 – set the media and industry analysts off on the challenging task of trying to find the pitfalls. All mergers present difficulties, particularly when they are on this scale, but it is difficult to imagine a better fit.
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Special ReportSafe and secured?
Collateral management is integral to several activities of the modern pension fund, and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy re-wrote its paradigms, finds Martin Steward
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Interviews
Multiplying the multi-boutique
As a giant among asset managers describing itself as “multi-boutique”, one might expect BNY Mellon Asset Management (BNYMAM) to be scouring this consolidating industry, chequebook in hand. The recent announcement that it will buy Insight Investment Management from Lloyds Banking Group for £235m (€273m) shows that it is indeed in the market
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Features
Your money or your life
Life settlements are emerging as a viable form of exposure to the longevity asset class. Martin Steward asks if there is any place for them in a pension fund portfolio
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Special Report
Top gear?
Leveraged and inverse ETFs have been causing a regulatory fuss in the US. Martin Steward unpicks the issues, and asks if these products are of any relevance to pension fund investors
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Country Report
De-risking redefined
The new importance of bond yields for UK schemes’ solvency underlines the re-thinking of liability-driven investing, bond mandates and the need for tactical decision making, finds Martin Steward
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Features
Mending the buck
Martin Steward asks how investors might analyse money market funds after last year’s shock to the system
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Interviews
Bigger in Japan
On 30 July Sumitomo Trust and Banking Company, the second biggest money manager in Japan, with assets under management at ¥26trn (€192.3bn), bought Nikko Asset Management, Japan’s seventh largest, with just over ¥9trn. It was second only to BlackRock-BGI in terms of this year’s biggest asset management M&A deals and will create Japan’s new number one, and yet media coverage in Europe was curiously muted.
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News
Sovereign funds 'must dialogue' with pension funds
[16:30 CEST 19-08] GLOBAL - The financial crisis is likely to make sovereign wealth funds (SWF) more, not less, active in their pursuit of strategic objectives and engagements as shareholders, and they should therefore pursue fuller dialogue with pension funds and other active investors, according to State Street.
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News
Directive could increase systemic risk, warns ex-SEC chairman
[17:00 CEST 02-07] GLOBAL - Harvey Pitt, chairman of the SEC from 2001-2003 and during the 9/11 and Enron years, has warned that the European Commission’s draft directive on alternative investment fund managers could end up exacerbating the systemic risks it is supposed to regulate if it leads to hedge ...
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News
Private equity 'well ahead' of regulatory thinking - State Street
[16:55 CEST 02-07] GLOBAL - Investors remain committed to private equity and are already benefiting from a “fundamental shift” in power away from general partners (GPs), according to State Street.
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Asset Class Reports
Africa: the efficient frontier
“Africa is where Asia was 20 years ago,” says Richard Segal, a strategist with African financial services firm UBA Capital. “The question is, will Africa be where Asia is now in 20 years’ time?” It certainly struggles against many questionable assumptions. First, that it simply isn’t relevant as an investment ...
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Special ReportCommodities conundrum
Martin Steward tries to pin down the nature of the commodity risk premium
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Features
The real carry trade
If you buy into the emerging-market growth and commodities stories, maritime investments could offer another way to diversify your exposure, writes Martin Steward
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NewsHedge funds 'victims of crisis, not culprits', says Lhabitant
[13:30 CESt 18-06] EUROPE - Hedge funds were the victims of the financial crisis and not the perpetrators, and they remain an appropriate tool for institutional investors, argued Francois-Serge Lhabitant at the 12th Uhlenbruch Annual Portfolio Management Conference in Frankfurt.
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NewsHarvard expert urges 'back to beta basics'
[13:00 CEST 18-06] EUROPE - Institutional investors should rethink their obsession with chasing alpha and 'go back to basics' with asset allocation models based on beta or fundamental risk, claimed Luis Viceira at the 12th Annual Portfolio Management Conference in Frankfurt.
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NewsInvestors predict private equity to suffer
[16:30 CEST 15-06] GLOBAL - The latest Global Private Equity Barometer, a twice-yearly survey of institutional investors in the asset class published by secondaries specialist Coller Capital, paints its gloomiest picture of expectations yet.
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Special Report
Sound FX
It is not certain whether the currency risk of an equity portfolio can be hedged effectively. Martin Steward assesses this and pension funds’ changing approaches to currency risk
