All articles by David White – Page 7
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Features
Holding to your course
Anyone searching for evidence that the dash from equities into fixed income by pension funds was not a universal phenomenon in the UK need look no further than the West Midlands Pension Fund. The Wolverhampton-based fund, with assets of around £7bn (e9.5bn 8.6bn) administers the Local Government Pensions Scheme (LGPS), ...
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News
Crédit Agricole AM mulls US acquisition - CIO
FRANCE - Crédit Agricole Asset Management is considering an acquisition in the US, according to chief investment officer Pascal Blanqué.
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News
Dutch funds wary on collective DC
NETHERLANDS – Only one in three managers of Dutch pension funds, polled at a pensions conference in the Netherlands, believe that the new collective defined contribution (CDC) pension plan is the only way for corporate pension funds to stay in business.
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News
Italy’s Previcooper seeking asset managers
ITALY – Previcooper, the €73m supplementary second pillar pension for employees of Italy’s co-operative distribution industry, is looking for asset managers for the ‘Safe’ portfolio of its ‘multicomparto’ structure.
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Features
Long and short of duration
The need for pension funds to match their assets more closely to their liabilities has put the topic of duration at the top of the agenda. Pension funds are faced with the problem of finding fixed income instruments with the right durations. The problem is greatest at the long ...
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Features
Who's afraid of the D-word?
Derivatives - the portmanteau word for futures, options and swaps - send shivers down the spines of the boards of many pension funds, who see them as too complicated, too expensive and too risky. Yet derivatives offer a way out of the difficulties that pension funds face in the current ...
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News
Italy’s Foncer seeks three managers
ITALY - Foncer, the second pillar supplementary pension fund for workers in Italy’s ceramic tile industry, is looking for three managers for its €70m portfolio.
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News
Ex-DeAM duo to run Oxford University assets
UK - Two former senior executives of Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) have set up a company to manage £100m (€145m) assets of three Oxford University colleges.
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News
Ex-Robeco CIO Vriezen to run C&A assets
NETHERLANDS - The former chief investment officer of Robeco, Marnix Vriezen, has taken over the management of the €1bn assets of the pension fund of C&A Nederland, the Dutch arm of the international clothes retailer.
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Features
Finding the right fit
When the French financier Arpad Busson set up EIM as a fund of hedge funds manager in 1992, his only database of managers was his address book. Today, things are done rather differently. EIM operates an intranet ‘window’ with software which enables its 41 analysts and portfolio managers to gain ...
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Features
Applying an objective view
One of the reasons that portable alpha has yet to be adopted by pension funds may be that it does not appear to meet their needs. Although it is conceptually attractive, its seems to have no practical application. Ronald Ryan, founder and CEO of US-based Ryan Asset Liability Management believes ...
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Features
Alchemy to the rescue?
Portable alpha offers pension funds the investment equivalent of alchemy – transmuting non-performing into performing assets. Using swaps or futures contracts - a process known as equitisation - funds can transfer or ‘port’ the alpha generated by one asset class to other asset classes in their portfolio. In this way, ...
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Features
Active route away from the crowd
The London Pensions Fund Authority, (LPFA), is one of the UK’s leading public sector pension schemes, with 73,000 members and £3.2bn (€4.7bn) in pension fund assets. It was set up in 1989 as a stand-alone public body to take over the running of the pension fund of the Greater London ...
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News
Swedish savers put €2.5bn into Kapitalpension
SWEDEN – Swedish savers placed almost SEK23bn (€2.5bn) in the new savings product – the Kapitalpension - during 2005, according to figures from the Swedish Insurance Federation, Försäkringsförbundet.
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News
FTK to tie up 10% of Dutch GDP - study
NETHERLANDS - Dutch pension funds will need to tie up €50bn - 10% of their country’s GDP - to meet the requirements of the FTK, the new Dutch legislation for pension funds, according to research by asset managers SEI Investments Europe.
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Features
New portfolio dividing lines
Storebrand Investments, the asset management arm of the giant Norwegian insurer Storebrand, is one of the first major financial institutions in Norway to reorganise the management of its assets along lines of alpha and beta strategies rather than equities and fixed income. The asset management splits its asset management into ...
