All articles by Barbara Ottawa – Page 87
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News
Eureko and Polish treasury agree to talk over PZU
[14:40 CET 18-01] POLAND – Dutch insurer Eureko and the Polish treasury will form a working group to solve the long-running and often bitter dispute dispute over the privatisation of PZU.
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News
Austrian funds at 2% 'do better than many funds elsewhere'
[15:00 CET 17-01] AUSTRIA – Pensionskassen achieved an average return of 2% over the last year which helped increase assets to €13.1bn from €12.5bn at end-2006.
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Features
Rights and wrongs of default funds
Customised default funds or blanket solutions, choice or guided decisions. The issue of creating the right default funds for defined contribution systems was the subject of discussion among Nobel Laureates, academics and investment specialists at Pioneer Investments’ second European Colloquia in Vienna.
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News
CEE markets hit by inflation – conference
[16:58 CET 15-01] CEE – Inflation caused by rising food and energy prices in the aftermath of the credit crunch is the main worry of Eastern European economies but for some also a major opportunity, delegates at a conference in Vienna heard today.
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News
Polish funds grow 20%, without manager help
[16:15 CET 14-01] POLAND – Polish pension funds grew 20% over the last year - surpassing the PLN140bn (€39bn) mark - thanks to more money flowing in from the state social security fund ZUS as well as higher fees.
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News
Pioneer Austria loses €600m in institutional assets
[15:45 CET 11-01] AUSTRIA – Over the last year 2007 Pioneer Investments Austria (PIA) saw outflows of €600m in its institutional business.
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News
Movement in PZU dispute
[15:30 CET 10-01] POLAND – The new Polish treasury minister Aleksander Grad will be meeting with representatives of Dutch insurer Eureko to discuss the future of insurance giant PZU.
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News
Pensions regulation endangers stock exchange - IMF
[14:45 CET 09-01] BULGARIA – Strict pension fund regulations are hampering the development of the Bulgarian stock exchange (BSE) the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
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NewsAbolishing mandatory system creates new mountain – ASIP
[16:00 CET 07-01] SWITZERLAND – Abolishing the mandatory section of the Swiss second pillar pension provision would worsen rather than ease the financial crisis in the first pillar, according to Hanspeter Konrad, president of the federation of Swiss Pensionskassen ASIP.
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News
Aargau to pay CHF1.7bn into pension
[14:00 CET 21-12] SWITZERLAND – Standard & Poor’s has awarded the Swiss canton of Aargau the top credit rating ‘AAA’ partly because of the region’s commitment to fully fund its Pensionskasse from next year.
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News
UBS under pressure over subprime losses
[16:30 CET 20-12] SWITZERLAND – Asset manager Ethos has demanded clarification from Swiss bank UBS about its losses incurred as a result of the credit crunch this year.
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News
Hungarian funds increase equity exposure
[13:00 CET 19-12] HUNGARY – Pension funds will start to double equity exposure in some portfolios from January in anticipation of new regulation.
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News
Chemie Pensionsfonds gets new owner
[13:00 CET 18-12] GERMANY – Munich-based banking group HypoVereinsbank (HVB) has sold its pension fund companies Chemie Pensionsfonds and HVB Pensionsfonds to insurer R+V, for an undisclosed sum.
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News
Swiss funds to get governance index
[13:30 CET 17-12] SWITZERLAND – Swiss Pensionskassen are not as bad as their reputation, according to Andreas Zingg, a researcher at the university of St. Gallen who is looking into pension fund governance.
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News
Swiss mandatory funds need CHF16bn
[16:30 CET 14-12] SWITZERLAND – The number of underfunded mandatory pension funds has dropped from 97 to 67 in the course of 2006 reducing the gap in the system from CHF19bn (€11.4bn) to CHF16.7bn.
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News
Polish gov’t asks EBRD for help over PZU
[15:00 CET 12-12] POLAND – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is looking at how it might help resolve the conflict over the privatisation of Polish insurance giant PZU.
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News
Mercer Austria names new head
[11:00 CET 11-12] AUSTRIA – Josef Papousek was named chief executive officer of consultancy Mercer’s Austrian operations.
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News
VBV poaches manager from IPE winner
[12:45 CET 10-12] AUSTRIA – Günther Schiendl, head of investments at the APK Pensionskasse, will join the board at rival pension fund VBV from January.
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News
Commodities taking Swiss funds’ fancy – Lusenti
[14:00 CET 07-12] SWITZERLAND – Swiss pension funds voted commodities the winner among alternative assets when it comes to transparency, liquidity and costs, consultancy Lusenti finds in this year’s institutional survey.
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News
25% of CEE wealth to grow from pension funds – UniCredit
[16:10 CET 06-12] EUROPE – Over the next two years pension fund assets will increase household wealth in Central and Eastern Europe by €83bn which is one fourth of the total growth, banking group UniCredit finds.
