All articles by Martin Steward – Page 4
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Asset Class Reports
Investment Grade Credit: Worth the weight
Smart beta has taken the equities world by storm in the past three years, and practitioners are now turning their attention to bond markets – including credit. Joseph Mariathasan and Martin Steward look at some of the strategies becoming available
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Asset Class Reports
Investment Grade Credit: Electronic liquidity taps open up
A recent paper from Pictet Asset Management paints a picture of fast-diminishing liquidity, but also some innovative responses. Martin Steward reports
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Features
Bond managers are worryingly sanguine
ECB president Mario Draghi unveiled his latest measures to arrest disinflation and rouse dormant corporate lending markets in June. Soon afterwards, big records started tumbling.
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Asset Class Reports
Investment Grade Credit: The last bastion of value
Sluggish growth and subdued corporate confidence persuade sterling and euro credit managers that their asset class remains ‘the best house in a bad neighbourhood’, finds Martin Steward
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Interviews
Success assured
When Russell Büsst was coaxed from Amundi in 2011 to head Conning’s expansion into Europe, he had three objectives: break even and hit $10bn (€7.38bn) under management within three years; use the firm’s insurance-industry relationships as a platform to build the pan-European business; and balance property-and-casualty (P&C) with life-and-pensions (L&P) assets.
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NewsHedge funds should be partners, say AIMA and Barclays
Leading investors focusing on knowledge-sharing, co-investment and customisation, says report
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NewsMulti-asset a 'clear growth opportunity', State Street survey shows
Asset managers focusing on developing existing markets while recognising need to invest in talent, risk management
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NewsLPs turn backs on core private equity managers, finds Coller Barometer
Survey suggests many still expect terms to improve, and fear North American funds run with too much debt
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Special Report
Liability-Driven Investment: Let's get physical
Are low risk-free rates, a greater willingness to take credit and illiquidity risk in matching portfolios and regulatory changes encouraging investors to turn their backs on derivatives and embrace cash-market assets?
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Special Report
Risk and Portfolio Construction: Rates of change
To a large extent today the question of what to do in portfolio construction is really a question of what to do about interest rates.
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Features
Liability-Driven Investment: This sprint finish could get brutal
Things seem to have gone pretty well for UK pension schemes during 2013. A combination of rising bond yields and an equity market rally meant that, at the least, funding levels didn’t get any worse, and at best got schemes two or three percentage points closer to the finishing line.
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Interviews
An artisan with solutions
Where one still finds asset managers attached to banks, the former tend to be junior partners. Not so at William Blair, whose founder always had an ambition both to finance and invest in small growth companies from day one in 1935.
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Features
Another eventful summer
The Spanish Treasury joined the UK, Germany, France and Italy as the fifth European sovereign to issue inflation-linked bonds on 13 May, raising €5bn for 10-year paper that was four times oversubscribed.
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Special Report
Liability-Driven Investments: The other 30%
Martin Steward looks at swaptions strategies to cover contingencies around the rump of LDI users’ un-hedged liabilities
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NewsPension funds recommend diversification in ILS as rates fall
Industry sees no prospect of rates rising from a catastrophic event, but urge investors to look beyond catastrophe risk
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NewsTOBAM joins smart beta bonds fray
French manager launches new strategy with €30m in seed capital from existing investor
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NewsImpact of UK annuities reform on long-dated credit 'warrants attention'
Fixed income specialists warn long-term impact of Budget announcement unclear but probably inevitable
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NewsEast Riding scheme sees advantages in dislocation of credit markets
Local authority pension fund’s head of investment sees window of opportunity extending beyond initial five-year period
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Special Report
Credit: Preparing the ground
A latecomer to credit asset classes, the UK’s East Riding Pension Fund has nonetheless built a rich and varied foundation for its longer-term portfolio strategy, finds Martin Steward
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Interviews
Performance built on research
Unigestion’s investment principles tell us that it is “not swayed by short-term trends or techniques which are in vogue”. At first glance that might seem a bit rich, considering its reputation for minimum-variance equities – about as “in vogue” as it gets.
