All IPE articles in October 2019 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Opinion Pieces
Time to talk pensions
At a press briefing last month, Bill Galvin, chief executive of the UK’s £68bn (€77bn) Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), emphasised the importance of improving its communication policy.
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Special Report
Management & outsourcing: The rush is on
Competition is intensifying among providers of data analysis and benchmarking solutions
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Interviews
On the Record: Lower yields
After the ECB’s announcement of more QE, we asked two pension funds how they plan to manage the prospect of lower yields
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Interviews
How we run our money: ZVK
Gregor Asshoff (pictured), board member of ZVK, the pension fund for Germany’s construction workers, talks to Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about upcoming asset allocation shifts
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Country Report
System reform: A hot political plot
Pension reforms have reached a second stage as President Macron seeks to push through radical changes
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Opinion Pieces
Storing up future pain
Anyone who back in 2008 had accurately predicted what monetary policy would look like today would certainly have been regarded as unhinged.
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Features
Government Pension Investment Fund: Widening the reach
The president of Japan’s €1.3trn Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) reflects on the challenges of century-long stewardship
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Country Report
Pension regimes: The second pillar evolves
The second-pillar pension regime for private sector employees, AGIRC-ARRCO, is entering a new phase of its development
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Features
Everything is still possible
Markets are on edge as a result of difficult economic and geopolitical forces. Risks are still skewed to the downside. Trade tensions have not abated, rather there is a possibility of further escalation in the future, which looks like reducing investment, and damaging already apprehensive outlooks.
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Asset Class Reports
Small & mid-cap equities: Public or private markets?
Public markets are shrinking while private markets are attracting huge amounts of capital. But it is still not clear which is the better bet
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Asset Class Reports
The small-cap conundrum
Academic studies have cast doubt on the existence of a premium for investing in small-cap stocks
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Opinion Pieces
Pensions in a hostile climate
Outside the realm of US public pension plans, where generous return assumptions and inflated discount rates are common, the medium and long-term outlook for asset classes is of serious importance to most pension funds.
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Country Report
France: PACTE changes the landscape
The new PACTE law will transform pension saving in France
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Features
Briefing: Draghi’s parting gift on ECB stance
If anyone in Europe was left in any doubt on 11 September about the dovishness of the European Central Bank (ECB) under Mario Draghi’s leadership, by close of business on the next day their doubts were surely dispelled. On that day the outgoing president of the ECB unleashed a bout of monetary easing, in an attempt to boost euro-zone inflation from 1% to its target of “below, but close to, 2% over the medium term”.
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Features
Briefing: US makes rapid turnaround
Father Christmas delivered a sack of coal to equity markets last Christmas Eve, with the S&P 500 index losing 1.8%, following a three-day slide. Forecasters had previously been expecting two or three rate hikes in December, as Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell steered that discussion. He had mistakenly assumed that the economy had not yet reached a normal, neutral level but it already had, forcing him to backtrack.
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Features
Briefing: Deep tensions threaten EU vision
This is not a commentary on the UK within or without Europe. Brexit has been a compelling distraction but it is one macroeconomic strand in a complex world. The overwhelming coverage has also moved attention away from key internal tensions within the European project.
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Features
Briefing: Coping with lower for much longer
German institutional investors have shifted their asset allocation due to low bond yields
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Opinion Pieces
Guest viewpoint: Jennifer Choi & Brian Hoehn
“Principles 3.0 is intended to offer a road map to optimal partnerships in the private equity industry”
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from The US: How boards can hurt pension plans
US state and local pension funds manage over $4trn (€3.6trn) in retirement assets for 20m active and retired plan members. But most of the funds are in bad financial shape.
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Opinion Pieces
Do not let costs become an obsession
Our report this month on management and outsourcing discusses how pension funds must increasingly rely on external organisations to analyse their portfolios, particularly from a cost perspective.