All articles by IPE staff – Page 36
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Features
Determination to show Europe what group can provide
Innovation “with new investment vehicles” is how one judge summed up his view of France’s PRO-BTP Finance. This thriving operator has long benefited domestically from a good reputation reinforced by various awards from French organisations but the IPE Award for investment strategy may allow the company to exploit markets beyond ...
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Features
Sign of distinction for strategies designed to meet goals
What the judges said: “The sophisticated financial, legal and economic unbundling of commercial real estate cash income streams as a means to protect the indexed portion of the defined benefit plan’s liabilities is assumed to reduce the overall risks of a mismatch between liabilities and assets. It has merit for ...
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Features
Nestlé optimises plan design to fit new opportunities
The beneficiaries of the Nestlé pension plan pay a fixed contribution of 2% of their respective salaries into the Nestlé Pensionskasse (NPK). In return they receive the benefit of participation in the Nestlé Versorgungkasse’s (NVK) defined benefit (DB) plan. The Nestlé Rückdeckungskasse (NRK) is a support fund, which serves the ...
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Features
Double win for fund provides delight and welcome motivation
When Vienna based Verienigte Pensionskasse (VPK), Austria’s largest multi-employer pension fund, heard the news that it had won the IPE Award for both fund administration and investment strategy, the initial reaction was one of surprise. “That’s not to say that we weren’t delighted or we felt it was undeserved,” says ...
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Features
ESB's DC redesign enhances flexibility
The E6m ESB Subsidiary Companies Pension Scheme provides retirement benefits and protection in the event of death for employees of subsidiary companies of the Electricity Supply Board. A separate scheme provides benefits in the event of prolonged disability. The schemes were set up in 1991 to provide for the employees ...
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Features
PGGM integrates DC into main scheme
The €47bn PGGM scheme is a compulsory pension arrangement for the 950,000 or so employees in the Dutch healthcare and social work sector. Until May this year, the pension scheme was entirely defined benefit (DB) in orientation. This changed with the introduction of the PGGM Extra Pension, which provides a ...
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Features
Rapid response to Swissair crisis
Within hours of the collapse of Swissair last October, the powers-that-be at the group’s various pension schemes, worth collectively SFr11bn (e7.5bn) at the time, decided to take action to protect its assets and members. Before the funds could be dragged down with the bankruptcy proceedings and see their assets exposed ...
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Features
Responding to courage and vision
Courage and vision are the two key attributes that the management of Pension Fund Services (PFS), the pension fund company created by the boards of the three main pension schemes in the Swissair group following the latter’s demise last year, believes convinced the judges to give PFS the IPE Award ...
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Features
Public recognition for 'massive contribution' to funding
The strategy of the fund, clearly impressed the judges. The process of review is well defined and seems to be performing, says one. “Very clear logical processes,” says another. At the fund, the news of the award was warmly welcomed by group chief pensions manager Frank Flynn: “The trustees and ...
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Features
Why LPFA is contrarian
As one of the largest providers of the Local Government Pensions Scheme (LGPS) in the UK, the LPFA fund provides defined benefit (DB) pensions for the employees of over 220 organisations in the non-profit sector, as well as delivering administration services to eight London boroughs amongst other organisations – giving ...
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Features
Fonditel reacts to daily market conditions
Fonditel is a pension fund management company (‘gestora’) that manages five pension funds, all of which are defined contribution structures. The company currently manages pensions for 71,500 people, representing 1% of the salaried workforce in the private sector and 14% of occupational pension schemes. Fonditel is a company dedicated exclusively ...
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Features
Working through complexities of externalisation
For a small pension fund like the pension fund for the employees of the Central Nuclear de Almaraz (CNA) in Spain, winning the IPE award for best fund structure and administration in Spain came as nice surprise, only two years after the fund was created. With around €12m under management ...
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Features
CNA combines three into one
The pension plan for employees of Spain’s Central Nuclear de Almaraz, AIE, is the only one connected to the Santander XXV pension fund, and had 530 members and beneficiaries and an asset base of €11.6m. The scheme resulted from an agreement to transform three collective insurance funds – capitalised pension ...
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Features
Centrum PensPlan's seal of quality
Centrum PensPlan is the company set up to develop all the necessary operations for the regional Trentino Alto Adige’s supplementary pensions provision project. It also has a mandate to offer economic support by helping people in temporary financial difficulty make their fund contributions and provide adequate guarantees concerning the retirement ...
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Features
Inarcassa builds on strong pillars
Inarcassa is the e2bn pensions and social assistance fund for Italy’s self-employed engineers and architects and has approximately 100,000 members. The fund’s asset allocation strategy is designed to take into account hypothetical situations looking at the long-term risk/return balance and all potential investments. It must also consider risk tolerance, return ...
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Features
Novartis shifts from 'bricks and mortar'
The SFr16.8bn (e11.4bn) pension scheme of Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Novartis, holds real estate assets that comprise 12% of the fund’s assets. Earlier this year, it completed a major transition in the approach to its property portfolio, which allowed the fund to maintain its exposure to this asset class, while enabling ...
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Features
BPMT finds the perfect inflation match
BPMT is the Netherlands’ third largest pension fund for the metal industry. In common with other Dutch defined benefit pension funds, the biggest risk it faces is inflation, since its liabilities are index-linked to prices. This impact of inflation on a pension fund can be huge and can be costly. ...
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Features
Boots win highlights shift to risk management issu
The move made by the Boots pension fund in the UK to shed all its equities and to do so before the severe declnes in the market have provoked considerable comment in the market. It is clearly one of the funds, and perhaps the most clearcut example, of the general ...
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Features
Diageo keeps benefits flowing
Diageo’s £2.9bn defined benefit scheme comprises eight membership categories: three non-contributory sections (closed since 1988); two main contributory sections (Silver and Gold); and three executive sections (two contributory, one non-contributory). The scheme has a total of 70,700 members and is open to all permanent, temporary or casual employees of the ...
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Features
PRO-BTP cornerstone of benefit structure
PRO-BTP is an organisation for the French construction industry, which runs the complementary system of social protection, insurance and pensions for over 3m people who belong to the BTP – ‘batiments et travaux publics’. The organisation was set up in 1993 by the social partners as a paritarian, non-profit making ...
