Asset Allocation – Page 164
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Features
Fishing in a lively pond
For Freud it was ‘id’. For investors, should it be ‘mid’? Yes. Mid caps are under-researched and under-owned, which makes them fertile ground for stockpickers. The availability of information in this area of the market is poor. So there is good potential to benefit from identifying positive change in companies ...
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Special Report
Missing the ESG sea-change
Fiduciary responsibility has been reinvented to include environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations – this was the clear message to pension funds and their trustees, as well as the consultants and asset managers who work with them that emerged from the 2005 United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) ...
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Features
Young scheme sets out to engage with membership
Communication for pension funds is never easy, especially when it comes to making them easy to understand and interesting for members who often have a preconceived idea that the subject is boring and complex. This was the challenge facing the winner of IPE’s Country Award 2005 for Switzerland, the Media ...
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Features
How efficiency leads to management excellence
Inarcassa firmly believes that strong governance and efficient investment processes are essential to excel in the management of pension fund assets. The scheme relies on effective decision-making, regular performance measurement for the fund, money managers and consultants, as well as transparency and communication to its members and the different governing ...
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Features
Early retirement trend slows
Europe seems to be slowly inching away from its early retirement tendencies, according to the latest data on pensions expenditure issued by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical bureau. The release of this data coincides with the publication of a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which calls ...
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Features
Dynamic strategy seeks out the risks that are worth it
Dutch pension fund PGGM has won the best industry-wide pension fund award for its creation of an innovative portfolio of strategies used in absolute return investing. Over the years, PGGM’s own asset- liability modelling (ALM) studies have led the fund to allocate its assets increasingly to alternative investments. However, during ...
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Features
A minefield of diplomacy
Most industries are based upon relationships and the investment industry is no exception. But, unlike other industries, the investment community comes under close regulatory and media scrutiny for what are perceived as the inevitable conflicts of interest associated with a handful of investment banks dominating the industry. A number of ...
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Features
A developing relationship
The degree of success of investment banks in the worlds of pension funds and insurance companies is difficult to ascertain. In part this is because investment bankers are happy to use the kind of spin that would make a politician blush. In part it is because trading is so sensitive ...
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Features
Digging deeper in the members' interests
The key to Denmark’s €41.3bn pension fund winning IPE’s Silver Award for Best European Public Pension Fund in 2005 is undoubtedly its ability to dig deeper to achieve the best possible solutions for its members. This is evident in its four-pronged approach to mastering pension fund management. Firstly, it considers ...
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Features
Quantitative route to effective decision-making
The BPI Valorizacão Pension Fund’s investment strategy has been heavily influenced by the new company chief investment officer’s hedge fund background. He wanted to implement a model that would allow the pension scheme to have more consistent numbers and minimise negative performance periods. He concluded that traditional emotion-driven quantitative decisions ...
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Features
Date with destiny
It’s the time of reckoning once again for the pensions community as the IPE European Pensions Awards winners are announced. And as we always make a point of noting, it is also a time to celebrate the achievements not just of our winners, but of those involved in pensions the ...
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Features
Web-based data service gives members the full picture
In 2004 and 2005, PKA members’ services were developed further by the introduction of a number of extra facilities on the website. The strategy for this development has been based on providing the right information at the relevant times, through the channel preferred by the individual member. Almost 20,000 members ...
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Features
Hidden costs of trading revealed
Most trustees have no problem in seeing why investment performance must be monitored. The success or failure of the entire fund is at stake. But when it comes to putting transaction costs under the microscope, the exercise can sometimes seem too arcane to bother with. Still, many pension funds are ...
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Features
Continuing reform focuses on governance and inclusion
The UK pensions industry needs Barclays. It is a market that is full of doom and gloom. It is only fitting then that Barclays should win the IPE European Country Silver Award 2005. For this is a sterling example of how to move forward. The dynamism, enthusiasm and sheer determination ...
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Features
Coming to terms with derivatives
Remember 1995? Only 10 years ago or so, most investment managers still felt pretty uncomfortable with derivatives. Derivative traders were an exotic species using Greek symbols and a jargon nobody could understand. No surprise, pension funds hardly used these instruments, or even avoided them in principle. What is a derivative? ...
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Features
Streamlined collection system leads where others wait
A reform of the way in which tax and insurance is deducted from employees’ salaries in the Netherlands has prompted the Dutch pension fund Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering (PH&C) to introduce procedural and technological changes for calculating and collecting employer contributions. This project has earned the fund this year’s themed ...
