More comment – Page 49
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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
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Cross-border challenge for IORP II
IORP II may have cleared the European Parliament’s committee stage but amendments tabled to the second directive covering occupational pensions since 2003 are so radical that it would be unwise to forecast its future.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Central States snag
A pensions bust-up is looming on the fringes of the 2016 Presidential campaign, involving the 115,500 retirees of the Central States Pension Fund (CSPF) who face a 28% average cut of their monthly pension. But the stakes are much larger. Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the Democratic presidential contenders, is championing the rights of those retirees. His attempt to stop the cuts with a new law could affect the whole pension industry.
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Features
Systemic challenges
Several asset managers and investors are raising concerns about liquidity in the public markets in 2016
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Opinion Pieces
Guest Viewpoint: Peter de Proft & Alexander Schindler - EFAMA
The Action Plan for a Capital Markets Union, recently published by the European Commission, is both ambitious and sensible
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Features
Pensions and shareholders
It is remarkable but perhaps unsurprising how little attention institutional investors pay to the governance of the pension funds of investee companies.
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Features
Resist the bubble temptation
It is a safe bet that another financial crisis will be along soon. No doubt that is not something that investment and pensions professionals want to dwell on but it needs to be faced.
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Features
Asset owners in Paris
Next month world leaders will gather in Paris to discuss the future of the planet. It might be a sweeping generalisation to view the UN Climate Change Conference as such a crucial event, but the summit marks the first time since 2009 that governments stand a chance of concluding a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
