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Opinion Pieces
A mid-year stock take on ESG: talk is no longer cheap
It’s halftime for 2024, which offers a convenient reason to reflect on where we are with respect to ESG investing. I’d say the outlook is pretty good. That’s because, as global equity impact investor WHEB Asset Management says, the “ESG tourists – asset managers that stampeded into the sustainability market just a few years ago – are now packing their bags” as the depth and breadth of anti-greenwashing regulation bite.
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Opinion Pieces
The US perspective on a mixed proxy season
Opinion is divided on whether opposition to environmental and social considerations are increasing following the 2024 annual general meeting season in the US.
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Opinion Pieces
The buyout pendulum starts to swing back to the DB norm
Vogue fashion magazine reports that flared trousers and mullets are back after a 50-year absence. They were not a good look even then, but fashion has its own drivers which do not necessarily involve good taste or even practicalities.
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Opinion Pieces
Australia's regulator cracks down on greenwashing
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has won its first greenwashing case in a civil action against Vanguard Investments.
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Opinion Pieces
Why the green transition throws up workforce and pension challenges
Pensions are a hot topic in corporate Germany, where skills shortages and an ageing workforce have led to a war for talent, as well as a renaissance in occupational retirement provision in the fight for workforce skills.
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Opinion Pieces
Switzerland’s refreshing bottom-up approach to regulation contrasts favourably with the EU
Switzerland’s bottom-up approach to sustainable investing and ESG reporting rules seems to be travelling in the opposite direction to the path chosen by the EU.
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Opinion Pieces
Italy needs a serious debate about pensions
Italian policymakers are bent on indulging the relatively small but influential minority of Italians that is nearing retirement, but lament that the statutory retirement age of 67 is too high. The reform efforts of past years have been towards reducing the retirement age or increasing flexibility in retirement. The resources employed towards supporting second-pillar pensions have been next to none.
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Opinion Pieces
Despite their differences, pension funds should continue to act as bold corporate stewards
This year’s voting season leaves questions about the benefits of engaging with companies in the sectors that are slowest to embrace the climate transition.
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Opinion Pieces
Disagreements between Germany's coalition partners cloud occupational pensions reform
Pension reforms have taken centre stage in the latest row among the coalition partners in the German government.
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Opinion Pieces
Why Norway's rebuff to oil fund over private equity is all about pay and equality
It would be hard to argue that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is not diversified, but its range of permitted asset classes is narrower than that of peers.
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Opinion Pieces
How AI is making inroads in America's retirement industry
Artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to gain traction in the retirement industry, even if it is still early days.
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Opinion Pieces
Australian super funds push back on lacklustre energy transition proposals by corporates
Australian and global pension funds orchestrated an unusually vocal tactical campaign against the climate-transition action plan of Woodside Energy, a global oil and gas producer, in the lead-up to its 70th annual general meeting in late April.
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Opinion Pieces
The art and science of investor collaboration in the quest for effective stewardship
In the evolving landscape of sustainable investment strategies, the significance of engagement has become more pronounced in recent years. Traditionally seen as supplementary to investment processes, stewardship has transformed into an indispensable tool for achieving meaningful environmental and social change.
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Opinion Pieces
European elections: the necessary policy leaps to secure citizens' pensions
This month sees European parliamentary elections and by autumn a new Commission will be in place. The political outcome and the composition of the new EC will influence the future shape of what still looks like quite an aspirational capital markets union (CMU) project.
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Opinion Pieces
Enrico Letta’s European 401(k) policy is ambitious but necessary
Enrico Letta’s long-awaited review of the EU single market (Much More than a Market), reached inboxes last month. Among a sweeping range of measures, Letta advocates an ambitious system, akin to the 401(k) in the US, with an EU-wide auto-enrolment long-term savings policy as part of a proposed Savings and Investment Union.
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Opinion Pieces
Bond markets look set to become the new stewardship powerbroking arena
Investors in bond markets are starting to assume a more powerful position than equity investors to influence companies and countries. Innovation is sweeping through bond markets with the introduction of specific ‘use of proceeds’ bonds and sustainability-linked bonds.
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Opinion Pieces
Defence is the new ESG question
Earlier this year, the European Commission launched its ambitious European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS). The main goals of the strategy are reducing fragmentation within the €70bn European defence industry and lowering weapons imports, thus increasing the EU’s military readiness. The success of the strategy would also contribute to economic growth.
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Opinion Pieces
Time is running out for Germany's planned pension reforms
The German government is in the final stretches of an ambitious but tortuous journey to reform the three pillars of the pension system.
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Opinion Pieces
US public pension funds focus on labour practices in private equity
Private equity has become dependent on public pension funds, which represent almost one-third of all investors in the asset class. These schemes invested 13% of their assets – over $620bn (€580bn) in 2022 – up from 3.5% in 2001 and 8.3% in 2011, according to data from public pension research non-profit Equable Institute.
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Opinion Pieces
Australia faces up to the cost of pandemic pension early release
Four years after Australians were allowed to withdraw superannuation savings to deal with the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, they now know emergency measures will cost the nation A$85bn (€51bn) in future pension payments.