All articles by Robert Fuller – Page 13
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News
Metzler receives 'aa' rating from Fitch AMR
FRANCE – Fitch AMR, the Paris based ratings company, has awarded a ‘aa’ rating to Frankfurt based Metzler Asset Management, which has some €9.5bn in assets under management....
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News
ABN AMRO launches model fund range
NETHERLANDS – ABN AMRO Asset Management has launched six new Model funds to be listed on the Luxembourg and Amsterdam stock exchanges....
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Features
Custodians join the rating game
The ratings game has finally caught up with the custodian sector of the investment community, with Paris- based Fitch-AMR ready to publish the results of its first contract. “The development of the methodology to rate custodians and trustees is one of the major areas we’ve progressed in during the last ...
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Features
Consultants on the block
Consultants are getting a taste of their own medicine, in the form of a manager selection performance measurement scheme launched by the WM Company, the UK-based performance measurement and investment administration firm. But some consultants have chosen to put themselves in the spotlight, says Peter Warrington, executive director at WM, ...
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Features
Euro assets under cloud
Inflationary pressures, stagnant interest rates and an ever weakening euro are keeping investors out of Europe, leading to a lack of consumer confidence and keeping the markets across Euroland on an ever downward spiral. “Inflation in particular is becoming more of a serious issue,” says Harald Sporleder, a European fund ...
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Features
On the road to respectability
Although the hedge fund industry has grown enormously over the past five years or so, pension funds and their institutional investors have been somewhat slow in warming to it. “The interest shown by the Swedish pension fund industry is a relatively new development,” says Eddie Dahlberg, managing director of the ...
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Features
Stakeholder on menu
The introduction of stakeholder pension schemes in the UK form the basis of a major overhaul of the UK’s pension fund industry, Dick Stratton of William Mercer told the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual conference in Birmingham. “Stakeholder pensions signal a major change to the pensions landscape,” he ...
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Features
Harmonising property taxes
Tax harmonisation across the European Union (EU) would be an effective tool to stimulating further growth in the property investment market there, Nick Jacobson, managing director of Real Estate Investment Banking at JP Morgan Chase & Co in London, told the IPD/GPR European Property Strategies conference in Wiesbaden. “Tax laws ...
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Features
Attitudes are changing
Pension funds are beginning to use derivatives more and more, particularly for asset allocation purposes, hedging their positions and portfolio transitions. Though the use of derivatives is now more common in the UK and the Netherlands, their use across Europe appears to be gaining acceptance. Trevor Robinson of Trevor Robinson ...
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Features
Industrialists call for action
The pensions debate in Europe has been given a boost by the substantial might of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), whose members have a combined turnover of e950bn and employ over 4m people. The ERT turned to the state of Europe’s fragmented pensions industry last year and subsequently ...
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Features
GPR's neat fit into Kempen
Amsterdam-based merchant bank, Kempen & Co, which has just over e600m in property assets under management, has acquired Global Property Research (GPR), the property research and index specialist in Amsterdam. Kempen is determined to develop its new protégée. “Joining Kempen gives us room to grow,” says GPR analyst, Jeroen Beimer. ...
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Features
Slowdown fears unnerve Europeans
It’s nervy times as markets get through the first quater of 2001. “People are unsure about earnings and are therefore holding on to stocks with proven profitability and defensive characteristics,” says Neill Brennan, head of quantitative research at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney in London. “Market nervousness has seen defensives bounce ...
