All articles by IPE staff – Page 39
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News
Austrian fund tenders e25m global balanced mandate
UK- Bank Spängler and the consultancy Kottmann Advisory Services are looking, via the electronic manager search system IPE-Quest.com, for a manager to oversee a e25m global balanced mandate on behalf of their client, an Austrian pension fund.
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News
IPE announces 2002 pension fund awards winners
EUROPE- IPE Magazine has announced the winners of its 2002 pension fund awards for both “investment strategy” and “fund structure and administration”. Entrants were judged by selected panels of experts selected country by country.
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News
Trustee association selects new chairman
UK- Mark Howard, a partner at the consultant Barnett Waddingham has been elected as the new chairman of the Association of Pensioneer Trustees. Howard has served on the APT Committee for five years and has over 15 years experience in the field of small self administered schemes (SSaS).
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Features
Slow to start
The pension reform passed in Germany last year was a step in the right direction for the development of private pension provision, even though the market growth expected a year ago hasn’t yet materialised. Most blame the complicated regulatory framework as the main reason Germans have shown little interest in ...
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Features
Politics prevail
The development of the pension fund industry in Italy has been, once again, the centre of political discussion throughout this year. Changes in the labour market by the Berlusconi government and the on-going debate about the transfer into pension funds of the TFR, a lump sum workers receive when leaving ...
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Features
Radical reforms support third pillar
Luxembourg’s government has taken a step forward in developing the country’s retirement system affecting both the first- and third-pillar pensions. In July the government announced radical measures to reform the state pension that aim to provide higher basic pensions and incentives to retire later. Under the new legal framework the ...
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Features
Looking out
In July, Iceland’s largest pension fund LSR appointed MFS Investment Management to run a segregated global equity mandate that will eventually be worth $100m. The e1.3bn pension fund for Icelandic civil servants, which invests around 20% of its assets overseas, has shown with this appointment its intentions to increase exposure ...
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Features
Still loyal to the home market
The average pension fund in Finland invested 58% of total assets in Finnish bonds, according to data from Watson Wyatt at the end of 2000. The total exposure of pension fund portfolios to fixed income vehicles represented around 74% of total assets, with the proportion invested in bonds in the ...
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Features
Small market, foreign focus
The small size of the domestic equity market has forced investors to invest more abroad, mainly in the Euro-zone; less than 5% of total assets are invested in Belgian equities. The small size of the average Belgium pension fund and tax benefits have encouraged the use of investment funds, with ...
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Features
Resisting the European trend
Belgium has been in the spotlight of the European pension fund industry since it decided not to back the EU directive on occupational pensions, presented for approval in Spain last June. This decision did not come as a surprise. The Belgians want the directive to include more restrictions on pension ...
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Features
Into a new era
The long-awaited Irish Pension Bill was passed in March, establishing a new legal framework that includes the creation of Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs), amendments to the occupational system and the introduction of a pensions ombudsman with power to investigate any complaints against occupational plans. The PRSAs, similar to the ...
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Features
Equity exposure slow to grow
Although Danish pension funds some years ago began to diversify towards a greater exposure to equities, their portfolios remained bond-oriented. According to data from Nykredit Markets, the overall allocation of the pensions sector in Denmark at the end of June showed little change from that registered during the previous two ...
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Features
Equities still take second place
Although the percentage of equities in French institutional portfolios has increased during the past few years, fixed income investments still attract the higher proportion of assets. According to figures from Watson Wyatt, at the end of 2000 French investors only allocated around 13% of total assets to equities and just ...
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Features
Domestic holdings shrink
Irish pension funds invested around 65% of their assets in equities at the end of 2000, according to data from the Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF), which represents a similar percentage to that registered at the end of 1999. Regarding the geographical allocation of the equity investments, 19% were ...
