All IPE articles in September 2012 (Magazine)
View all stories from this issue.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: MAP-21 skirts IASB
Under the seemingly innocuous Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (or MAP-21 for short), new accounting rules have been approved in the US that will affect their private pension funds. But will it be for better or for worse?
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Interviews
Holding hedge funds to account
Bond yields sit at historic lows, growth is sparse and equities aren’t cheap. The result: a search for yield in credit assets and for alpha in liquid alternative investments.
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Special Report
German Asset Management: In the market for advice
Nina Röhrbein reviews trends in German institutional asset management, noting increasing demand for advice
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Features
From our perspective: Armour-plating won’t do
Many criticisms of the quantitative impact study consultation of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) on its holistic balance sheet proposal focused on the exercise itself – that it is too complex and opaque, and only large pension funds have the resources to do it.
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Features
Taking the time to assess the risk
The latest consultation paper for the holistic balance sheet (HBS) within the revised IORP Directive has aroused great interest across Europe. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) gave the pensions industry until 1 August to submit its input on the controversial first quantitative impact study (QIS) for the implementation of the HBS.
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Opinion Pieces
Peter Kraneveld, Secretary of the Association for European Retirement Education
“Supervision should be made responsible for pension quality, not just for solvency”
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FeaturesCrucial assumptions
Norman Dreger and Andrew Arbour outline why companies with pension obligations in multiple countries should consider carefully which mortality tables to use for accounting valuation
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Features
Focus Group: Bad to the bone
Almost three-quarters of respondents to this month’s Off The Record survey felt recent events, such as LIBOR-manipulation and mis-selling, point to major problems with the culture of banking.
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Features
World Bank rates green bonds
Nina Röhrbein looks at instruments that aim to combine solid SRI credentials with precious yield and a high standard of transparency and stability
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Asset Class Reports
Emerging Market Debt: Beyond Brazil
Martin Steward talks with Jorge Unda of BBVA Asset Management, who warns that Latin America’s biggest economy is heading in the wrong direction if it wants to keep up with its more successful neighbours
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Special Report
OTC Swaps Regulation: A new wave of bond repo?
With the arrival of EMIR, users of derivatives suddenly need to get their hands on a lot of cash. Cécile Sourbes asks if the biggest collateral-transformation market, repo, is up to the task
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Features
Breaking up is hard to do
In July, Dutch transport pension fund Vervoer sued its former fiduciary manager Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) for a number of breaches of contract, filing a €250m lawsuit in the UK High Court.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Ins and outs of ‘flexileg’
In the old days, an international investment bank could study a Brussels Directive or Regulation and make plans.
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Features
Tomorrow’s long-term capitalists
The UK equity market, as Prof John Kay rightly points out in his review ‘UK Markets and Long-term Decision Making’, is no longer majority-owned by UK pension funds and insurers, and has not been for a long time.
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Interviews
On the Record: Cost concerns
What impact will the EMIR regulation have on your LDI strategy?
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Special Report
Extracting the true cost of gold
Institutional investors have been integral to the boom in gold prices over the past five years, but are they fully aware of the high-impact nature of their investments? Nina Röhrbein reports
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Features
Diary of an Investor: Dog days
It is the end of August. Holidays are a distant memory, the leaves are wilting on the trees and the children are going back to school. The euro crisis isn’t getting any worse and markets have even rallied. Welcome to the dog days of summer.
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Asset Class Reports
Emerging Market Debt: The real issue
Do negative real rates in inflating economies make a case for taking emerging currency exposure without the bond duration? Joseph Mariathasan finds a complex picture
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Asset Class Reports
Emerging Market Debt: Sorting though the ‘stuff’
In an asset class dominated by top-down commentary, Martin Steward finds bottom-up alpha defining performance
