All articles by David White – Page 23
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Features
As rare as black tulips
Pure-bred defined contribution (DC) corporate pension schemes managed by pension funds remain as rare as black tulips in the Netherlands. Most DC schemes have been grafted on to defined benefit (DB) schemes to create a Dutch speciality – DC hybrids. For cultural and historical reasons DB schemes have flourished as ...
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Features
Getronics aims for DB style outcome
Getronics, an international IT company with its headquarters in Amsterdam, is one of a only a handful of companies in the Netherlands that has moved wholly from a defined benefit (DB) to a defined contribution (DC) system for its corporate pension plan. A new economy business with a young, well ...
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Features
Time to share risks
One factor which could slow the flow from DB to traditional DC schemes is the growing interest in hybrid pension plans in the UK. Actuaries Lane Clark Peacock point out in their annual survey, ‘Accounting for Pensions’, that traditional final salary DB schemes and occupational DC schemes represent extremes of ...
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Features
Independence day for managers?
In this month’s Off The Record we look at the issue of investment and independence. How much value do European pension fund managers and administrators place on the independence of their investment managers – and how much are they are prepared to pay for this? The question arises because many ...
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Features
Costs driving flight from DB
Historically, defined benefit (DB) rather than defined contribution (DC) has been the commonest type of occupational pension in the UK. It is still the dominant plan type. The latest benefit design survey by consultant Watson Wyatt found that 58% of the occupational schemes surveyed were DB while only 23% were ...
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Features
Effects of convergence
One of the effects of EU convergence has been a convergence of the stock markets of eastern and western Europe. CEE stock markets are approaching their western peers in terms of correlation, according to Helmut Pfeffer, stocks analyst at Raiffeissen Zentralbank (RZB) in Vienna. Three CEE stock markets – the ...
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Features
Why a wake-up call is needed
The perception in the UK that a defined contribution pension (DC) plan is a ‘second best’ occupational pension has grown chiefly because of the low level of employer contributions. Employers contribute significantly less to DC schemes than to defined benefit (DB) schemes. The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual ...
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Features
Alecta's never-ending story
Alecta is the largest manager of occupational pension assets in the Nordic region, with more than SEK 300bn (E33.3bn) under management. Formerly known as SPP (Sveriges Privatanställdas Pensionskassa) Alecta re-branded itself following a decision in 2000 to sell off all business activities that were open to competition in the market ...
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News
Swedish R&D hit by e1.1bn foundation losses
SWEDEN - Swedish foundations’ losses on the equity markets have contributed to a drop in the funding of research and development in Sweden.
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News
Guru tells pension funds: bear market to persist
UK - The current bear market is likely to last until 2005 at least, one of the US’s most prominent investment strategists told pension fund managers and their advisers today.
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Features
Norway's place for money
The institutional market in Norway is a notoriously difficult market for asset managers to enter. There are three broad reasons for this. The first is that the is market controlled by a handful of large players. The second is that the pension fund business is too fragmented to be lucrative ...
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Features
Hands-off ownership
This month’s Off The Record takes a look at the subject of shareholder activism and the extent to which pension funds should get involved in the affairs of the companies in which they invest. European pension funds hold a significant share of corporate assets. Yet in general they take little ...
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Features
Investing in a cold climate
Three years of falling equity markets in Sweden have acted like a cold shower for the institutional asset management in Sweden and their pension fund clients: initially acting as a shock to the system, but ultimately invigorating. Fund managers have shivered but emerged fitter from the experience. Many of the ...
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Features
Getting the money away
Italy’s part-privatised state electricity utility, the Ente Nazionale Per l’Energia Elettrica (Enel), operates two pension schemes – one for managers and the other for its employees. The arrangement has its advantages. The smaller white collar scheme has provided a ‘test bed’ for key changes to the larger blue collar scheme ...
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Features
Slow take-up for new approach
Two years after Norway introduced its long-awaited legislation to encourage the take up of defined contribution (DC) occupational pension plans, pension providers, asset managers and consultants are still waiting for the market to take off. The enabling legislation was supposed to light the fuse of DC plans by making them ...
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Features
Storebrand goes ahead of the curve
In an absence of any interest from existing corporate pension plans or pension trusts, Norway’s life insurers have become the main protagonists of the new tax favoured DC schemes. The insurers already dominate the management of occupational DB plans in Norway. Some NOK 300bn (E41bn) of pension fund assets are ...
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News
Janus targets European pension funds
EUROPE - Janus International, the US asset manager known for its growth style of investment, is launching four mathematically-based investment strategies aimed at Europe’s largest pension funds.
