All IPE articles in November 2007 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Features
Reshaped returns help to unscramble risk puzzle
The Best Finnish Pension Fund in this year’s IPE Awards is VR Pension Fund (Division B), one of a range of pension plans for employees of Finnish Railways. VRPF has won the accolade for its achievements in efficiently reshaping the return distribution of its portfolio, as well as minimising asset/liability ...
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Features
Fund looks into the future and sees Asia
Few pension schemes can afford to sell off their equity holdings and pursue a strategy that excludes this major asset class. The UK’s pharmacist and drugstore group, Boots, famously did it a few years back, but the sensationalist media failed to mention that theirs was a very mature scheme that ...
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Features
Beta management keeps market risk in check
Market risk management is one of the most important issues facing European pension funds today. APK, the Austrian multi-employer pension fund, has strong convictions about the importance of market risk management.
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Features
Let the investments do the driving...
Some take a much more fundamental approach than others. Certainly, Denmark’s huge €49.9bn public sector fund, ATP, took the bull by the horns some years back and implemented far-reaching changes to its constitution that have given it an award-winning structure.
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Features
Smooth sailing on the voyage from DB to DC
The world-renowned financial information and reporting company Reuters has been steadily shifting its pensions arrangements globally to a clear defined contribution structure.
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Features
Systematic evaluation finds right formula for commodities
Bayerische Versorgungskammer, the Bavarian pension fund for professional groups, has shown that a structured approach towards setting up a commodities portfolio can result in setting mandates and appointing managers that offer the best possible prospects of return and diversification, and for this achievement has been named Best Commodities Investor.
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Features
Modest launch breaks the mould and changes the law
Changing investment attitudes and habits is not an easy task, especially within a short time frame of six months. But with innovation, courage and a bit of risk-taking, the Premium Mandatory Pension Fund of Hungary has achieved the near-impossible.
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Features
Innovative solution provides independence and efficiency
You may well be forgiven for thinking that schemes with sponsors operating in the same sector offer a level of protection and understanding that others may not enjoy. This could be said of Pensioenfonds KBC, whose sponsor is the Belgian banking and financial services group, KBC.
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Features
Pioneering risk model helps pass solvency test
For many years, Dutch pension fund ABP has been ahead of its peers in terms of innovation. Now, it is once again taking the lead in a new era of pension fund risk management.
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Features
When passive becomes active
As with many schemes in recent years, the €81bn Dutch giant PGGM, which serves some two million active and deferred members and pensioners, has staged a major overhaul of its investment process. The
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Features
The best of both worlds
Belgium’s KBC pension scheme, small but innovative, understands the changes recently introduced pension laws have on how a company values its pension scheme. It knows this places demands on the scheme to find a solution that will ensure the sponsor can control the risks the scheme poses to its finances ...
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Features
Matching liabilities in unique circumstances
With assets of €887m and some 16,000 members, Pensioenfonds KBC is the pension fund for employees of KBC Group, a leading quoted banking and insurance group in Belgium.
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Features
A complete 'breakdown' ensures a good 'bonus'
No pension scheme can afford to invest blindly without considering what would happen if something went wrong. But something could throw a spanner in the works at any given stage of a scheme’s administration and investment processes. This is what risk management and budgeting is all about. But, as with ...
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Features
How Vervoer handed over the fiduciary reins
Pensioenfonds Vervoer made headlines last year when it awarded a fiduciary management mandate to Goldman Sachs. Walter Brand, Vervoer CEO, tells David White what happened next
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Features
Microfinance joins pensions portfolio
Dutch institutional investors are showing increasing interest in microfinance as a diversifer and the market appears to be largely untapped. Leen Preesman reports
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Special Report
How to raise pensions awareness
Alfred Kool suggests a way in which pension funds can organise the communication of information to their members in an efficient and professional way
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Features
Diverse or direct investment?
An investor’s route into private equity will depend mainly on their level of experience, according to Ed Francis
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Features
Looking to a far horizon
Lynn Strongin Dodds finds that emerging markets still offer private equity and infrastructure opportunities
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Features
Making diamonds an investor's best friend
Lynn Strongin Dodds reviews attempts to create investible indices
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Features
Portability reforms resurface
Jeremy Woolfe reports on the adoption of European Parliament recommendations in the EU’s reborn portability directive
