More comment – Page 57
-
Opinion Pieces
Brussels to develop rules for social funds
Brussels looks set to flesh out the existing EU regulation for European Social Entrepreneurship Funds (EuSEFs), which lays down broad principles as to how funds should be governed.
-
Opinion Pieces
Intriguing opportunities
De-risking strategies are likely to become more popular with US corporate pension funds now they have reached their healthiest state since the crisis. This trend has been ongoing for the last couple of years but may substantially accelerate in 2014, says consultancy Towers Watson.
-
Opinion Pieces
Jerry Moriaty, CEO and Director of Policy at the Irish Association of Pension Funds
“While Ireland begins to show signs of economic improvement, it is clear there are still a lot of unresolved issues in the pensions sector”
-
Opinion Pieces
Are they taking my job?
Had anyone told me that McKinsey and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) would challenge the institutional investment system as I’ve been doing, I’d have laughed. But when tipping points are reached, paradigm change can happen fast. Coming hard on the heels of the Kay review and the UK fiduciary duty review, two insiders have acknowledged that institutional investor behaviour is harming business performance and society.
-
Opinion Pieces
Long-term critics
The European Commission’s report on responses to its consultation paper on long-term investing looks to be at least six months late. But don’t imagine the debate has gone away. The issue is likely to re-ignite in Brussels in the coming months after the Commission produces its assessment this quarter.
-
Opinion Pieces
Time to face facts
The Detroit bankruptcy ruling and the new bookkeeping rules from the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) could trigger a wave of changes for the US state and local pension funds this year. Government leaders struggling with budget problems, bondholders that lend money to municipalities and states, and unions that negotiate pension benefits all have to deal with the impact.
-
Features
Trust me, I manage money
No-one doubts that trust, ethics and integrity are central to pension and investment management.
-
Features
When China sneezes… 2014
The spectre of the volatility that struck emerging markets in 2013 hangs over many of the investment pages of this month’s IPE. And no wonder – it feels like last year provided confirmation, at last, that these markets are entering a new paradigm.
-
Features
On the quiet
Activist investors are sometimes a colourful breed. One of them was the now infamous Florian Homm, who fell from grace in September 2007 in spectacular style.
-
Features
Large schemes warming to local investment
Dutch pension funds’ assets of €1trn were the Holy Grail for politicians and companies to plug banks’ funding gap of €478bn last year. By taking over a substantial amount of mortgage loans, pension funds could free up banks’ lending capacity and kick-start the ailing housing market and local economy.
-
Opinion Pieces
Opposing oil divestment
Divestment from oil companies to stop climate change will not work. But by being largely disinterested, the investment industry has given clients and NGOs nowhere else to go. So how should investors push back against divestment?
-
Opinion Pieces
Nitin Mehta, CFA Managing director, EMEA, CFA Institute
“Over recent decades, secular shifts in values have resulted in too much emphasis on profits and not enough on professionalism”
-
Opinion Pieces
Not ready yet
‘Retirement readiness’ is the catch phrase of 2014 in the US pension industry.
-
News
IPE Views: Liboring under false pretences
The Libor and Euribor fines expose not only the importance of engagement, but also the cost of inaction for pension funds
-
Features
The fiduciary fight
Should trustees feel constrained by the existing interpretation of their fiduciary duties?
-
Opinion Pieces
Matthew Kiernan, Inflection Point Capital Man. & Paul Clements-Hunt, The Blended Capital Group:“Investors who fail to develop systematically aware investment processes risk commercial extinction”
There is no shortage of high-wattage brainpower directed to the promotion of longer-term finance and investing.
-
Opinion Pieces
A phoney war for KID
A phoney war is in operation. No guns are being fired. No bombs falling. But there a number of indications of an arms race over the matter of a simple two page information document known as KID – and its possible extension to cover the occupational pension sector.
-
Opinion Pieces
Too big to fail?
Are US asset management firms ‘too big to fail’? In other words, do they represent systemic risks similar to those posed by the largest banks, so much that they must be subject to ‘enhanced’ supervision?
-
Features
Funds to increase infrastructure investment
Nearly two-thirds of pension funds and other institutional investors expect their allocations to infrastructure to increase over the next 18 months, according to a survey by IPE and Stirling Capital Partners.
