All IPE articles in May 1997 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
Robeco plans for robust US recovery
With a robust recovery in the US, signs of a recovery in continental economies and ongoing growth in Japan, one might expect synchronised global growth in the second half of 1997, a shift to more neutral monetary policies worldwide and rising bond yields. Robeco’s Investment Policy Committee (IPC) still believes, ...
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Features
Sweden: Record performance
Equities look set to bring a positive return for the fourth year running on the Swedish market. Currently hovering at around the 12% mark, analysts are hopeful that performance will be maintained, though are divided as to the extent.Bjorn Olsen, chief investment officer of Skandia, is cautiously optimistic on the ...
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Features
Hong Kong: Strength from within
The Hong Kong market has been affected by sentiment indicators but is fundamentally strong, according to Chung Man Wing, director of HSBC Asset Management Hong Kong, which manages part of the pension investments for HSBC’s em-ployees in Hong Kong and elsewhere.In the very near term, worries about the local property ...
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Features
Legal snag hits Italian plans
Legal difficulties surrounding the participation of trade unions on the boards of planned Italian company pension plans mean the first contributions will not be paid until 1998.The Corte dei Couti, a body which oversees the content of legislation, last month struck down a decree put forward by labour minister Tiziano ...
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Features
Winning hearts and minds for property indexes
Swedish insurance group SPP recently called a meeting of property analysts from domestic brokerage firms. The idea was to sound out interest in the development in Sweden of commercial real estate indexes, which has been under discussion with the UK’s Investment Property Databank (IPD) for some time. IPD pioneered the ...
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Features
Funds head for their glorious future
Pooled funds are no longer seen as the poor relation, says Fennell Betson
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Features
Germany looks at new funding schemes
Occupational pension plans in Germany are mainly financed by building up pensions liabilities in the company through the book reserve system. The external financing vehicles are insurance policies and two types of pensions funds: the Pensionskasse and the Unterstützungskasse (support fund).Currently, three new approaches for external pensions funding are being ...
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Features
Performance fees are the norm
In the Netherlands, the continent’s most heavily targeted market place by international money managers, performance related fees have be-come the norm in charging institutional clients for services rendered. This is unlike some five years ago, when investment managers mainly charged flat fees. In the not so distant past, the Dutch ...
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Features
Europe: Eyes on pensions market
Though still in the early days of development, the proposed European Pension Fund (EPF) is at the core of detailed discussions and strategic planning in Luxembourg’s banking community, to meet a launch deadline which could be as early as the beginning of next year. And Lucien Thiel, general manager of ...
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Features
Sweden: Equity oriented
At the end of 1996, of the 686 funds run by members of the Swedish Mutual Funds Association, almost 500 were equity funds accounting for around 63% of the total $46.4bn under management. Making up the number, were 148 bond vehicles and 53 mixed funds.Sweden has had a bias to-wards ...
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Features
EMU threat
The head of a US employee benefits company has warned European countries of the threat of pensions liabilities to EMU.Pointing to the EMU timetable, Michael Gulotta, chief executive of ASA, which anchors the Asinta gobal benefits network, raised the issue of pension liabilities: The national debt criterion becomes particularly interesting ...
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Features
Fees: Funds not necessarily the easy option
“Investors who use pooled fund structures as a partial or complete substitute for direct investment in underlying securities can get low-cost access to a wide variety of asset classes from the world’s best money managers.” Right? Right!“Investors who use pooled funds face being charged excessive fees for unsuitable products by ...
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Features
Europe eyes the Dutch market model
The successful restructuring of the Dutch economy is attracting the attention of other European countries seeking to strengthen their international competitiveness, reports John LappinThe Dutch economy is the subject of media scrutiny in continental Europe as countries look for a blueprint for increased competitiveness. Economic success, reflected in recent stock ...
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Features
Domicile: Home is where the fund is
The choice of fund domicile is becoming an increasingly live issue for both investors and managers. Rachel Oliver checks out four of the leading centres
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Features
Dipping into Europe's pools
The treatment meted out to Europe’s pensions investors wanting to go the pooled fund route varies considerably from country to country. Some provide substantial tax reliefs, while others offer no such in-ducements. European employers operating cross border can take advantage of these for their local subsidiaries, but generally no advantage ...
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Features
DB or DC: the debate
Supporters of defined benefit put up a spirited defence of their system against the advocates of defined contribution during a debate at the Asinta network’s annual conference in Rome last month.Roy Cecil, director of human resources Europe, Beckman Instruments, accused proponents of DC of cowardice and gross violations of human ...
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Features
Danish funds outgrow home market
Denmark’s pensions funds are growing so fast that they are keener than ever to look outside their own stock market for investment opportunities. But strict investment regulations keep them largely hemmed inside national borders.In 1995, Danish pension assets were estimated at around Dkr750bn ($115bn). By now, that is thought to ...
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Features
No free lunch from credit spread
In recent months it has become popular to equate monetary union and the introduction of a credit term in government bond yields with a bottom-up” approach to fixed income fund management. This is, at best, rather naive.It is true that the independence of the European Central Bank and the mutual ...
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Features
The costs of regulation
Danish pensions funds are overburdened with regulations, and could perform better if they had more freedom to make their own investment decisions, says Peter Dencik, managing director of Singer & Friedlander International Asset Management.Dencik, who used to be deputy executive director of the pension fund administration company PKA in Denmark, ...
