More comment – Page 49
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters: Value corrosion
Imagine ISIS had poisoned a US city, causing almost certain permanent damage to innocent infants and children. Can you imagine the likely domestic and international repercussions?
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Opinion Pieces
Guest Viewpoint: Chris Woods - FTSE Russell
“If China were to be classified as an emerging market today, the impact would be substantial”
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Race to upgrade EFSI
Legislative moves to support the EU’s European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) are being rushed through Brussels. But, so far, evidence of any torrent of fund movement by the institutional investment sector across EU frontiers has yet to emerge.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: In search of balance
A woman leads one of the US pension funds most committed to long-terminism. She is Theresa J Whitmarsh, executive director of the Washington State Investment Board (WSIB), managing over $100bn (€89bn) of state pension, insurance, and other assets. She is also an advocate for a better gender balance in the financial industry, especially in the private equity sector.
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Features
Is your roof fixed?
With market volatility, oil price falls, interest rate increases in the US and QE in Europe, the investment landscape has rarely looked so clouded
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A simmering conflict
Conflict continues to simmer over the issue of passport rights for non-EU-domiciled hedge funds across the EU
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Features
Keep politics out of pensions
Pension funds and asset managers should focus more on their role of providing retirement income and less on political questions. Indeed, it would be best if the pensions industry ditched entirely what has become known as ESG (environmental, social and governance).
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Bad deal from IRAs
Americans are saving more in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), but this vehicle has the highest fees and the lowest returns, according to a new study by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College. This means trouble for retirees.
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Features
New answers to old problems
With increasing frequency, leading financial sector professionals and academics are expressing doubts about our financial system
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters: COP21 - let’s change the questions
It is clear the COP21 climate change summit was a diplomatic success in the face of powerful vested interests lobbying hard to prevent progress
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Opinion Pieces
Guest viewpoint: Saker Nusseibeh - Hermes Investment Management
“Carbon risk is more of an issue for investors today than ever… But most fail to take it properly into account”
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Features
Outsourcing: Avoid the bear traps
In a BBC radio programme last year on business issues, the CEO of Serco, Rupert Soames, said that only “stupid people and lazy people” should not outsource
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Features
Stop seeking alpha
Alpha has become a virtual obsession for investors and the financial commentariat. They seek it, search for it, hunt it and go on a quest for it
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Features
Challenging CEE pensions
The breadth of countries, political systems and regulatory set-ups means Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has a complex patchwork of pension systems. And there has been little of cheer in many countries as pension funds in this diverse region face a wide range of challenges, including demographics, a poor savings culture, complex politics and, of course, an uncertain economic and financial environment.
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Opinion Pieces
Long-Term Matters: Followers will make the money flow
“Investment is the most often repeated word in IMF meetings, UN meetings, [the] G20 meeting, IIF meetings,” Angel Gurria, secretary general of the OECD said at the organisation’s recent long-term investing conference in Paris
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Features
Anders Fogh Rasmussen: Free speech and self-loathing
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former secretary general of NATO and prime minister of Denmark, gave the opening address at IPE’s 2015 Conference. Speaking in the shadow of the terrorist attacks in Paris, his topic was A World in Flames: New Geopolitical Balances
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Opinion Pieces
Guest Viewpoint: Debbie Harrison & Dr David Black - Cass Business School
We predict that a revolution will take place in the UK life company sector over the next five years in terms of its involvement in private-sector pension provision
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A lawyer’s feast
It is a case of tackling one challenge after another in the Capital Markets Union (CMU). According to the European Commission, the present morass of different national insolvency rules creates a barrier to the flow of capital across the EU.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: PE in the firing line
US public pension funds may play a role they would prefer to avoid in the 2016 presidential campaign as protagonists in the politically controversial private equity (PE) industry. Indeed, one of the reasons the Republican Mitt Romney lost the race to the White House was his connections to the sector.
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Features
What we loosely term ‘hedge funds’
In the early years of the past decade, hedge fund managers dazzled pension funds and their advisers with promises of uncorrelated absolute returns
