All articles by Gail Moss – Page 50
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Features
Investment boost to innovation
APK Pensionskasse is a multi-employer pension fund with around 65,000 members. It manages 20 plans, the plan sponsors typically being industrial corporations. APK runs e1.8bn of plan assets, with about 1% of the portfolio invested in private equity. The pension fund has been investing in the asset class since 2001. ...
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Features
Law change backs pension funds
Austrian pension funds and private equity are not an obvious fit. For a start - in terms of private equity investing as a whole - Austria comes near the bottom of the European league. Just 0.051% of Austrian gross domestic product was invested in private equity in 2003, the latest ...
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Features
Belgium starts to warm up
As a nation, Belgium comes way down the list of private equity investors in Europe. In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, private equity investments equalled only 0.1% of gross domestic product, according to the European Venture Capital Association. That was less than half the European average ...
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Features
French take notice at last
Private equity is relatively undeveloped as an investment by French pension funds. Until now, the pressures against private equity have worked both against the sector itself and the investor. Jane Welsh, senior investment consultant at Watson Wyatt says: “Opportunities to invest in private equity in France have been limited. The ...
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Features
Sophisticated Finns reap returns
In investment terms, Finland forms part of the Nordic region. As such, therefore, it is one of the most sophisticated European countries in relation to the private equity market.Finland invested 0.307% of its GDP in private equity in 2003, the last year for which figures are available from the European ...
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Features
Irish funds venture shy
Since the go-go eighties, Ireland has been punching above its weight in cultivating a profile as a home of technological innovation. In 2003, private equity funds invested in Ireland totalled e255m. This represented 0.194% of the country’s GDP, and one of the highest percentages in Europe, higher than Germany, Belgium ...
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Features
Reserve fund takes first steps
The National Pensions Reserve Fund was set up in 2002 to act as a cushion against some of the expected growth in future liabilities of Ireland’s state and civil service pension arrangements. Its purpose is to act as a demographic equalisation fund, helping to redress potential underfunding which may arise ...
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Features
Danes become more focused
Pension funds are the most important source of private equity finance in Denmark, easily outstripping corporate investors, banks and insurance companies. Even so, they have recorded a sizeable increase in investment over the past year. In 2002, the percentage of Danish private equity investment raised from pension funds was 33.4%, ...
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Features
Running it all in-house
ATP Private Equity Partners (ATP PEP) is the private equity arm of the statutory pension provision fund ATP. It was set up in 2001. “ATP wanted some exposure to private equity for the purposes of diversification, as well as for superior returns,” says Jens Bisgaard-Frantzen, managing partner, ATP PEP. “At ...
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Features
Guarded welcome for private equity
Private equity is rapidly increasing in popularity among European pension funds. According to the European Institutional Asset Management (EIAM) Survey 2004, continental European institutions doubled the proportion of private equity in their portfolios to 1.3% in 2004 from 0.6% last year. The survey covered portfolios (41% of which were pension ...
