All articles by David White – Page 22
-
News
Mellon plans Luxembourg fund administration arm
EUROPE - US custody giant Mellon is planning to set up a fund administration operation in Luxembourg.
-
News
Poland's PZU puts PKO in sights
POLAND - Plans by Poland’s state-owned insurer PZU to acquire a Polish bank could lead to further consolidation in the pensions fund market .
-
News
Switzerland: the long view needed as returns fall
SWITZERLAND – With new data showing that Swiss pension funds’ returns fell by more than 10% last year, the Association of Swiss Pension Funds is calling for a return to long-term investment thinking.
-
Features
Every little helps
In a period of low or no returns, ideas for cost-cutting can look as attractive as any investment strategy to hard-pressed pension fund managers. So in this month’s Off the Record we ask managers how they think companies and other organisations can control the costs of their pension plans. The ...
-
Features
Europe trails in US footsteps
We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will all hang separately. This is the current message from the Euro-zone equity markets, rattled by fears of a war in Iraq and its consequences for the US economy. The high degree of correlation between the European and US markets means ...
-
Features
Closing the pensions gap
Defined contribution plans have historically played a small part in the Germany’s occupational pension system. So the reform of the system engineered by former labour minister Walter Riester raised hopes among some companies that Germany might see the introduction of a DC plan design along Anglo-Saxon lines – the German ...
-
News
MP calls for UK to remake stakeholder as 401k
UK - The UK should redesign its stakeholder pension to make it more like the US 401k plan, an influential MP for the ruling Labour Party has demanded.
-
News
UK’s Field to table pension protection bill
UK – Former UK social security minister Frank Field is to table a bill in parliament that would offer better protection for pensioners when schemes are wound up.
-
News
Sweden’s white collar DC plan hits the buffers
SWEDEN - The Federation of Salaried Employees, the PTK, in Stockholm has thrown out an employers’ plan to introduce a defined contribution (DC) pension plan for the country’s white collar workers. This would have replaced the current final salary defined benefit (DB) scheme.
-
News
Pensions and savings ‘not in crisis’ says UK Govt
UK - The UK government has denied suggestions that Britain is facing a pensions and savings crisis, responding to questions in the House of Lords.
-
News
Adverse reaction by UK to pension directive change
UK - Insurers and employees organisations have attacked proposed amendments to the current text of the draft directive of Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP), voted through by MEPs at a meeting of the European Parliament’s Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee earlier this week.
-
News
Invesco wins Leica DC pension business
GERMANY – Optics firm Leica Microsystems in Frankfurt has chosen Invesco Retirement to provide a defined contribution pension plan for its 1,300 employees in Germany.
-
News
UBS ties up with VIFA for Pensionsfonds drive
GERMANY - The German arm of Swiss-based UBS Global Asset Management is teaming up with VIFA Pensionsfonds to provide pension plans to German companies.
-
Features
Risk management providers
o Algorithmics Algorithmics was set up in 1989 to develop risk management software. It is based in Toronto, and has more than 140 clients in 26 countries. Products: The company focuses on implementing risk management software for enterprises. Its enterprise risk management software Algo Suite, provides a platform for a ...
-
Special Report
Up to trustees to make system work
Pension funds, as quintessential long term investors, can be a world force for corporate governance reform. This is the long-held creed of Robert Monks, one of the founding fathers of corporate activism in the US and the UK. For two decades, Monks has argued that investors should take a more ...
-
Features
It's good to talk
The value of an encyclopaedia, someone once observed, is that it knows, so you needn’t. Until recently, the same was true of company pension funds. They tended to be administered in a paternal fashion. The message from management was: “You need not concern yourself about how your pension works – ...
