All articles by Hugh Wheelan – Page 10
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Features
Wilshire provides risk system
In its search for a risk management system for the fund, the NTMA finally settled on US analytics specialist Wilshire. Mike Olson, managing director of Wilshire’s London office, explains that the NTMA is using three different products from Wilshire: a product named ‘Atlas’ for equities, ‘Axiom’ for fixed income investments ...
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Features
Slipping silently into the markets
While the appointment of 15 investment managers to manage e7bn in assets is in itself no mean feat, the transition of the lion’s share of the assets from cash deposits to market via 14 different investment briefs left the NTMA – in conjunction with Watson Wyatt, the consultant appointed to ...
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Features
Spreading the load
The first tenders to be put out into the market by the NTMA were those to find the advisers that would help it in the mammoth task of implementing a suitable investment strategy, appointing the requisite investment managers, selecting an appropriate custodian and choosing the best transition manager to bring ...
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Features
Lessons in how not to do it
One of the most interesting reports to emerge in Ireland following on from the reserve fund announcement by the government appeared in December 2000. Commissioned by the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF), the report by consultancy Shane F Whelan & Co focused on the possible investment strategies that the ...
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Features
Laying down a legacy
For Irish finance minister Charlie McCreevy, interest in the concept of an Irish reserve fund for pensions came some time before his arrival on the Irish political scene. “My own interest stems from two factors. Firstly, for many years, I would read what the occasional commentators wrote about the so-called ...
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Features
A daunting experience: NTMA’s investment management
That the NTMA was in clear control of the type of managers it wanted for the fund and the type of contract it was seeking to enter into was clear from the off in this huge RFP. One pertinent example came in the second stage of the appraisal, when the ...
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Features
The commissioners
Donal Geaney is chairman and chief executive of drug delivery and biopharmaceutical firm, Elan Corporation, Ireland’s largest public company. Geaney joined Elan in 1987 as executive vice president, corporate planning before being elected to the board of directors in 1992 and later assuming the positions of president and chief operating ...
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Features
Commission of seven prudent persons
For his vision of the state pension fund to become reality, it was essential for Irish finance minister Charlie McCreevy to find the right structure to implement and manage such an important pool of assets. The arrangements for the governance and management of the fund were modelled on the successful ...
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Features
Fund gets budgetary green light from EU
For the Irish government, the introduction of such a significant reserve fund into the country’s balance sheet posed not only the question of domestic support, but also that of adherence to the EU Growth and Stability Pact – the 1997 requirement that all member states bring their budgets into balance ...
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Features
A fund is born
When Irish finance minister Charlie McCreevy announced on 23 July 1999 that the Irish government had approved a new strategy to maintain the exchequer’s ability to finance future pension provision in Ireland through the creation of a giant reserve fund, the impact of his statement was by no means confined ...
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Features
Choosing from the world's best
Once the decision was taken that the National Treasury Management Agency would look after the overall management of the National Pensions Reserve Fund, the need was to put together a specialist in-house team for the job. John Corrigan of the NTMA (the former director of funding and debt management) was ...
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Features
Custody award surprises competitors
One appointment by the NTMA that caused some surprise in the market was that of ABN Amro Mellon to the position of fund custodian. Observers had predicted that one of the larger custody players in Europe in terms of assets under custody might pick up the brief. Certainly with IR£8bn ...
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Features
Performance and attribution analysis
Such a high-profile public fund as the NPRF needed watertight systems to monitor both the performance and risk profiles of the investment managers appointed. For this, the NTMA looked to specialist providers in the market. On the performance side, performance analysis outfit StatPro picked up the mandate to provide its ...
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Features
Mixed signals on the road ahead
UK pension funds “have had more thrown at them in the last 18 months than in the last 18 years!” is how one fund manager describes the turbulent UK pensions scene since the turn of the century. The lull in UK pension fund activity over the past 10 months is ...
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Features
What next on the agenda?
With its passive managers in place from mid-January this year and the five active global equity and pan-European equity managers following soon after in early April, the NTMA had to set its sights on the daily monitoring of its managers and issues such as performance and risk analysis. The agency ...
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Features
Always looking for more
Custody today is a commodity – or so the line goes. And with the number of providers in the market steadily diminishing and technology levelling the playing field, who’s going to argue? Talk to Europe’s pension funds, however, and the debate on the role of custodians becomes less clear-cut. How ...
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News
AP6 and Nordico Invest launch Nordic venture fund
SWEDEN – Swedish state pension fund, AP6, is to merge one of its business units, Industrial Equity, with Swedish private equity outfit, Nordico Invest, to create a new venture fund for medium-sized companies in the Nordic region.
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News
Scottish Widows' global liquidity fund approved
UK- Edinburgh-based Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has received regulatory approval from the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) to begin marketing the firm’s Global Liquidity Fund in the UK, giving the firm access to a market it says could be worth tens of billion of pounds in pension fund, insurance ...
