Asset Allocation – Page 148
-
Features
Holland vies with Ireland and Luxembourg
The Netherlands has taken a leaf out of Ireland and Luxembourg’s book in its plans to be regarded as the destination of choice for tax transparent pooled funds, Kerry Ann White argues
-
Features
Knowing what lies behind hedge funds
Dutch pension funds’ growing interest in alternatives like hedge funds is having an impact on the middle and back offices of securities services providers, says Heather Mackenzie
-
Features
What is driving the marketplace?
The asset backed market is set to grow and overtake corporate bonds in Europe. Joseph Mariathasan reckons this is just one of the changes facing active bond managers
-
Features
How DB schemes lost their sheen
Unless DB schemes become more affordable, they may be completely absent from the market in a few years time, writes Paul McGlone
-
Features
Boutique staying true to its roots
Peter Wilby chose Stone Harbor, a beach town on the east coast of the US, as a location to negotiate a deal to spin off a team of some 65 professionals including 27 investment specialists from the entity created by Legg Mason’s acquisition of Citigroup Asset Management last year. The ...
-
Features
Who'd buy a bond from a pension fund?
Shayla Walmsley assesses the worthiness of pension fund bond issues on the back of the recent Wellcome launch
-
Features
In a world of their own
Size matters when it comes to pension funds. The bigger the fund, the better value it can give scheme members, through economies of scale on the investment side. On the other hand, when a single pension fund has to cover an exceptionally broad geographical area, the costs can mount up. ...
-
Features
Persuading the silent majority
The slow development of Italian pension funds is mainly due to the lack of resources to finance them. Neither the companies nor the employees have ‘serious money’ to put into the funds. Contributions made to the pension funds by companies and employees so far have been almost nominal (ie, a ...
-
Features
Global liquidity under threat?
Yield curve/duration An uncomfortable unease is permeating all asset classes across all markets. What will the Fed chairman Bernanke do next? Go for more tightening to show the markets that he too is as tough on inflation as his hugely respected predecessor? Or will he wait, giving the US economy ...
-
Features
Russia gets taste of market
Non-state (private) pension funds (NSPFs) consider September 1992 the birth date of the pension industry in Russia. At that time President Yeltsin signed a decree making it possible to set up the first funds. In legal terms they had to be socially oriented not-for-profit organisations. Then such a status was ...
-
Features
Regional funds reach the parts
The recent pension reform, approved by the former Berlusconi government with law decree 252/05, permits Italian regions to set up ‘regional’ pension funds. This development seems quite unique in Europe: why should regions be empowered to set up their own pension funds? Under Italian law (law decree 124/93 reformed with ...
-
Features
Fiduciary move for the long haul
The Dutch pension industry has seen two ground breaking initiatives in the past 12 months, both involving US based asset managers. The first was the decision by the electronics firm Philips to hand the management of its pension fund to Merrill Lynch Investment Managers The second was the decision of ...
-
Features
Fascinated by formulas
What was your first full-time job – and do you remember what you were paid at the time? In 1961 I took what I intended to be a job during a school holiday at what turned out to be an actuarial bureau. I was paid 375 gilders (€170) per month. ...
-
Features
Waiting to be discovered
When pension funds invest in traditional assets like equities and bonds they expose themselves to unintended sources of risk. The main sources unintentional risk are volatility and dividend yield for equities and credit spreads and liquidity for bonds. Once they detect these sources of risk most funds will either carry ...
-
Features
Reducing the deficit top priority
With the third largest budget deficit in the world, Italy needs its bond market to be more attractive than ever to investors. Now that Romano Prodi is officially in charge, the realities of sorting out the burgeoning deficit hit home hard. He has acknowledged that the public accounts are in ...
