More comment – Page 9
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Let us redefine industrial policy
Peter Kraneveld proposes to think in terms of ‘economic change policy’ instead
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Opinion PiecesEurope escaped the Great Retirement Boom but watch out for the crunch
Continental Europe appears to have largely escaped the trend known in the US as the ‘Great Retirement Boom’, where an economically comfortable cohort of 50 to 64-year-olds has retreated from work in the post-COVID period.
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Opinion PiecesHow to improve investment committees
Most asset management firms, private and public institutional investors and family offices have investment committees. Poorly designed boards can potentially destroy substantial value in the investment management industry, yet little research is available. I would like to propose a new way to think about the governance of investment committees.
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Opinion PiecesCambridge and Westminster: a tale of two pension schemes
The Houses of Parliament and Cambridge University are two venerable British institutions. But the differences in how they run their pension arrangements illustrate the contrast between the UK-style pooled liability-driven investment (LDI) and a more traditional form of pension investing, no longer as popular in the UK but still common elsewhere.
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: How to prepare your scheme for the buyout backlog
Schemes must proactively prepare for major delays in risk transfers
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Is long-term benchmarking realistic?
Instead of asking ‘what is a long-term model for investment benchmarks,’ we can ask ‘how many institutions view long-term benchmarking as practical?’
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: It’s the government’s move now
Pension funds should urge governments to support new products and habits to reduce CO2 emissions
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Climate change action is failing
Recent research showed that around two in three respondents in financial organisations did not believe their own climate promises could be kept in time
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Breaking the banks
Pension funds should ally themselves with activist investors to break up the hegemony of large banks
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Opinion PiecesCapital competition: where does it leave sustainability goals?
For pension funds and other similar large institutional pools of capital, there is significant pressure from politicians to invest in politically favoured domestic sectors – like renewables or high-growth sectors like venture capital.
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Opinion PiecesLessons learned from Berlusconi’s pension reforms
To some, the death of Silvio Berlusconi on 12 June this year, is the end of an era for Italian politics. Berlusconi was the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the republic and a highly controversial figure, at home and abroad. He can be described as the first modern European populist leader.
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Opinion PiecesHarnessing the power of corporate governance
Pension funds and other institutional asset owners have significant influence when it comes to voting in companies’ annual general meetings (AGMs). The consequences of their voting decisions can have a profound impact on company share prices and long-term objectives, especially in the context of climate change.
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Opinion PiecesUK venture capital: spinning out for success
Academic research produces excellent technology and medical firms, but the funding is not always available to take things further
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FeaturesDigital health revolution ramps up
The world is at the beginning of a digital health revolution. This has been accelerated by the COVID pandemic that forced radical shifts in doctor/patient interactions, and supercharged by the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT that brought generative artificial intelligence (AI) to the forefront and pulled the potential of AI in healthcare into the limelight.
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Opinion PiecesGuest viewpoint: Green bonds require better coordination for real impact
Worth approximately $128.3trn (€117trn), the global bond market could add billions to the global effort to reach the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs). Yet only a fraction of the market currently consists of green, social and sustainability (GSS) bonds, and of that very little is being issued in developing countries. In 2022, annual GSS bond issuances stood at under 10% of overall bonds and only 13% of them came from entities in developing countries, a number that dwindles to around 5% when excluding issuers from China.
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: UK defined contribution market
Many investors nearing retirement are unable or unwilling to take on the volatility associated with a more aggressive portfolio
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: The carbon credit conundrum – a new approach
The goal of linking verifiable carbon mitigation and nature restoration with a financial return has long been the holy grail for climate-aware investors
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Fee transparency – it’s good for managers too, but they probably won’t believe it
Asset managers are still not properly able to represent the true and comparative value-for-money they provide
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Opinion PiecesBetter the equity market devil you know?
Being a large equity investor in a relatively small domestic market can have advantages as well as drawbacks. Proximity to the market and its infrastructure, good knowledge of corporates and corporate leaders, and the ability to exercise strong influence as an owner, potentially a stable long-term one, all count among the advantages. The need to avoid concentration – in terms of position, sizing and overall allocations – and idiosyncratic sector exposure are among the challenges.
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Opinion PiecesGerman pensions sector backs cost rethink
Applause, which started mildly but ended robustly, suddenly reverberated in a packed Berlin conference room a few weeks ago. An audience of industry experts, pension managers, associations and trade unions clapped at the suggestion that Germany’s BaFin regulator should avoid repeating its exercise on cost reporting for IORPs, initiated by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), and implemented in turn by BaFin. The exercise was a disappointment, and an excessive, unnecessary effort for the German pension industry.
