All articles by Fennell Betson – Page 9
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Features
Setting the standard
ATP stands for supplementary labour market pension scheme in Danish and that’s exactly what it set out to provide 40 years ago this year. It started out firmly in the second pillar by providing benefits for those in employment, with others, such as the unemployed, excluded, explains Bjarne Graven Larsen, ...
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Features
'All-weather' manager
Dexia Asset Management believes it is well down the road of being a major player on the European market. In just a few years and during one of the most cathartic periods ever in asset management, a group with formidable European credentials has been created, it claims. Following the acquisition ...
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News
Germany’s Spezialfonds resumed upward trend in 2003
Germany – The assets in Spezialfonds, used for institutional mandates, grew by 8 per cent in 2003 to 508 billion euros in 5,104 securities based funds...
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News
New portfolio monitoring service launched
UK – Independent Risk Monitoring is a new service for Europe’s asset managers designed to provide monitoring services for both segregated and investment fund portfolios.
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Features
Slow task of rebuilding
Like the adverts for Carlsberg beer, the Danes believe that they probably have the best system in Europe when it comes to pensions coverage. Granted the Dutch will have more in terms of funded assets per head, but Denmark’s second pillar occupational membership at an estimated 95% of the workforce ...
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Features
Tapiola spreads its wings
The investment environment has been very challenging, says Hanna Hiidenpalo, who is investment director for Tapiola Mutual Pensions Insurance, based in Espoo. The guaranteed rate of return Finnish investors need to receive is currently at 4.5%. “The decision about the guarantee rate is not very closely related to the realities ...
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Features
Philips focuses on the possible
Though the Philips Group as a worldwide electronics company operating in over 60 countries worldwide has a total workforce of 166,500 employees, it currently does not have any multinational pension plans. The pension plans the group has across the globe were established as the company grew its activities over the ...
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Features
New CFE to launch volatility index future
The Chicago Board Options Exchange has had to open a futures trading market in order to launch the VIX Futures based on its VIX Volatility Index product. It is due be launched in March as the first product listed on the new Chicago Future Exchange electronic market. Up to now ...
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Features
S&P broadens out
Eudald Canadell, who runs the European index operation for Standard & Poor’s has decided views on many things, including the recent purchase after protracted negotiations of the equity indices business of Citigroup, the former Salomon Smith Barney products. In one swoop, S&P broadened its offering from a being a major ...
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Features
JOP goes back to the drawing board
At the Juristernes & Okonomernes Pension Fund (JØP) the search for alpha is on. The DKr21bn professional fund for lawyers and economists is undergoing an extensive restructuring. A full review is in hand, says Henrik Franck, investment director, who joined the fund from BankInvest last year. “Not only is the ...
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Features
Industriens is poised to take advantage of the upturn
The Copenhagen-based Industriens Pensions has an impeccable background as a labour-market fund. Formed just over a decade ago, in a pioneering joint venture move by DI, the Confederation of Danish Industry on the employer side and by CO, the central grouping of trade unions, it covers employees in 8,500 businesses ...
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Features
State Street unveils 'virtual pooling'
Global custody group State Street is introducing a ‘virtual’ product for multinational pension fund asset pooling. “This enables pension fund assets to be legally, beneficially and directly owned by the funds participating in the pool,” William Slattery, head of State Street’s business in Ireland, said at the IPE Multi-pensions conference ...
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Features
Germany goes for TAA
German institutional investors are increasingly focusing on the possibilities for tactical asset allocation (TAA) within their portfolios. “What we are seeing in the market is that there is a very large interest in TAA,” says Klaus Esswein, State Street Global Advisors’ managing director, based in Munich. “You find immediate interest ...
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Features
EMTX 'poised for growth boost'
This month Lyxor AM, part of Societe Generale, is due to launch an exchange traded fund that indexed to the new EuroMTS index covering Euro-zone government debt, subject to regulatory approval. This should provide a boost for the index among investors, says Scott Stark, chief executive officer of EuroMTS Index ...
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Features
Scherkamp puts the clock back
Europe’s large corporates face some searching questions on their approach to pension provision, in the view of Peter Scherkamp, who recently left Siemens in Munich head of finance strategies and Vorstand of the Siemens Pension Trust to set up his own pensions consulting firm. “Chief financial officers realise that they ...
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Features
Bringing the bounce back
Back in the glory days of UK balanced management, Gartmore ranked in the top five managers who contended for practically every piece of pension fund business, while many other asset managers were left out in the cold or having to feed off the crumbs that fell from the golden circle’s ...
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Features
Separating out the alpha
Carnegie Asset Management in Copenhagen is focused on one thing and that is global stockpicking. “This probably accounts for 85% of the $4bn (E3.3bn) in assets we have under management,” says Morten Therkildsen, head of sales. About two thirds of assets come from institutional investors. The group, which has operations ...
