All IPE articles in May 2011 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
Dutch and Australians bemoan 2/20 fees
Australian and Dutch pension funds believe many alternative asset managers’ fee structures are “grossly” excessive, says Australia’s Centre for Investor Education (CIE). Jamie Nemtsas, director, said the 2/20-style fee structure was a “common stress point” for attendees at the recent Superannuation and Pension Funds Summit on Dutch and Australian Cooperation and Alliance.
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Features
Celine Piquemal-Prade, Comgest: ‘We haven’t changed for 25 years’
There are two big growth managers based in Paris that begin with the letter ‘C’. One has quadrupled its staff since 2003 and quadrupled its assets under management since 2008, lavishly entertains an army of IFAs at its annual investor conference, and enjoys high-profile advertising and commenting in the press across Europe. The other is Comgest.
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Interviews
Accent on EM capability
Rudolf Apenbrink, HSBC Global Asset Management’s new EMEA CEO, outlined his firm’s strategy to Liam Kennedy following the integration of its Halbis and Sinopia brands
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Opinion Pieces
Martijn Tans, Director, Aegon Global Pensions
“Most plans have actively addressed the issue of equity and interest rate risk. Those plans should now include longevity risk in their deliberations”
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Features
What next after fixed income?
Frank Schnattinger outlines the results of IPE Institutional Investment’s 2011 survey of the German institutional market
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Features
Arab Spring premium
Matthew Craig finds political upheaval in the MENA region generating volatility, opportunity and a new appreciation of risk
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Features
Going back to basics
Angelien Kemna, CIO of €277bn Dutch pension fund manager APG, is going back to basics. “Pension fund management is not about chasing mandates. We need to ask ourselves: why exactly did we have these investments again? What is their purpose?”
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Opinion Pieces
Battle to stave off crisis
Andrew Cuomo is one of the most admired recently-elected state governors – primarily for his efforts to get the budget under control and bring taxes down.
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Features
Define risk, please
Off to talk to the chairman of the pension fund board. ‘Well Pieter, many members are still phoning the administration helpline to ask about investment policy. The recent television programme that criticised the industry for not paying more in premiums means we are still in the firing line.’
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Opinion Pieces
Defusing Short-Termism
The European Commission’s (EC) new green paper, ‘The EU Corporate Governance Framework’, clearly aims to encourage company owners to take a more active role in influencing management.
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Features
Dial-a-psychic
International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) workplans have tended to be less reliable sources of information than a dial-a-psychic.
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Asset Class Reports
Private Equity: What are funds of funds for?
Our main article identifies mid-market strategies and emerging markets as the key areas of future earnings growth in private equity. It has to be said that funds of funds providers tend to prefer this space in the US and Europe, arguing that returns are likely to be better and that they themselves cannot add much value by investing in the handful of mega funds that large institutions can invest in directly.
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Interviews
‘Risk is everything to us’
Asset managers’ products rarely surprise anyone. You’re an equities specialist? You’ll have US, European, UK, emerging markets funds, maybe Japan. Fixed income? I’ll choose from your treasuries, gilts and Eurozone products, investment grade and high yield, maybe local currency emerging markets. There might even be some convertibles tucked away somewhere.
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Features
MPs grill experts in pensions row
“I am sure Mr Bosch would have liked it very much if we’d have endorsed this, but we did not. We never endorse these types of reports.” With these words, Joanne Kellermann, director at Dutch pension supervisor and central bank DNB, distanced herself from a controversial report by consultant Frits Bosch that was commissioned by Dutch news show Zembla. Based on Bosch’s analysis, the show, which aired in February, contended that hundreds of billions of Dutch pension savings had “vanished”. K
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Special Report
France: Same game, new playing field
Legislation passed late in 2010 completely changed the FRR’s purpose and liability stream. Martin Steward spoke with its CIO about the consequent re-tooling of its investment strategy
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Features
Gateways to growing markets
Iain Morse surveys securities services markets in Portugal, Gibraltar and Cyprus
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Features
From our perspective: Meet the governance police
Staffing a company board is many times more an art than it is a science. Appointments largely seek to balance sector specialisation with wider business experience, length and breadth of experience, and softer skills such as communication and advocacy. Other aspects, such as gender diversity, are of growing importance, as seen in the UK’s 30% Club and in Scandinavian countries that have minimum appointment figures for women.
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Features
Meet the new investment office
Saker Nusseibeh, head of investment at Hermes Fund Managers, sees something wrong in the current system of pension fund management, which he believes prioritises product proliferation and a mentality of ‘buyer beware’ over trusted advice.
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Special Report
Learning from Vedanta
Nina Röhrbein examines the rights of indigenous people, an important issue as natural resources become scarcer, forcing exploration of the world’s remoter regions
