All articles by Jan Wagner – Page 20
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News
DekaBank sets up €222m pension CTA
GERMANY – DekaBank, the asset management arm of Germany’s state-owned savings banks (Sparkassen), has set up a contractual trust arrangement (CTA) for €222m in pension liabilities.
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Switzerland’s BVK returns below industry average
SWITZERLAND – BVK, one of Switzerland’s largest pension funds with CHF19.4bn (€12.3bn) in assets, says it finished 2005 with a return of 10.5% - somewhat below the industry average of 13%.
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KarstadtQuelle scheme gets real estate proceeds
GERMANY – The external pension fund of KarstadtQuelle, Germany’s second-largest retailer, will receive part of the €4.5bn in proceeds from the retailer’s sale of its German warehouse portfolio.
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Siemens Swiss scheme makes 9.6% return
SWITZERLAND – Buoyed by last year’s positive equity markets, Siemens’ Swiss pension fund says it finished its 2005 business year with a 9.6% return on its CHF1.7bn (€1.1bn) assets and with slight overfunding.
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German doctors’ fund AEVWL eyes alternatives
GERMANY – Ärtzeversorgung Westfalen-Lippe (AEVWL), a €6.6bn pension fund for physicians, plans to gradually raise its exposure to alternative asset classes like commodities and emerging market equities in 2006 to further boost returns.
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Germany’s MAN awards pension custody brief
GERMANY – MAN has hired BNP Paribas as the global custodian for its contractual trust arrangement (CTA) – an external fund the engineering group set up last summer to finance pension liabilities.
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IBM Austria pension chief steps down
AUSTRIA – IBM’s pension fund in Austria has disclosed that Axel Benesch has stepped down as its director.
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German firms plan 'pan-European pensions'
GERMANY – Nearly half the big companies active in Germany plan to create some type of pan-European pension scheme by 2010 following the emergence of the EU pension fund directive, according to a new study by Rauser Towers Perrin.
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Germany’s BVK to allocate €1bn to hedge funds
GERMANY – Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK), Germany’s largest pension fund with €38bn in assets, plans to raise allocations to hedge funds to €1bn by the end of 2006 - from €150m currently.
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German state pension contributions ‘to rise’
GERMANY – Two German economists have predicted that despite recent reforms, it is highly likely that the statutory contribution to the state pension scheme will rise to 25% after 2030 against 19.5% now.
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German boutique Lupus opens Vienna office
AUSTRIA – Lupus alpha, a Frankfurt-based asset management boutique, has opened a new sales office in Vienna as part of a push into the Austrian institutional market.
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Allianz hails pension, asset management demand
EUROPE – Insurance giant Allianz has attributed continued strong demand for its pension and asset management products for a double-digit increase in earnings during 2005.
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Germany’s BPK scheme planning new mandates
GERMANY – Barmer Pensionskasse, a €1.27bn pension fund for health care employees, plans to award new mandates for convertible bonds and options on equities in an attempt to generate more return on a portfolio that is almost entirely invested in fixed income.
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Directive to boost German Pensionsfonds - Bosch
GERMANY – Bernhard Wiesner, head of corporate pensions at Robert Bosch, says German multinationals will favour Anglo-Saxon-style Pensionsfonds due to the EU directive on occupational pension funds.
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Germany rules out mandatory retirement saving
GERMANY – Heinrich Tiemann, deputy minister for labour and social affairs, has reaffirmed that the government has no plans to make retirement saving mandatory.
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Müntefering unveils 50+ work initiative
GERMANY –Labour and social affairs minister Franz Müntefering has announced measures to boost employment among German workers aged over 50 by providing subsidies and other incentives to firms who hire them.
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Julius Baer reports a €64m pensions hole
SWITZERLAND – Swiss private bank Julius Baer has disclosed a CHF100m (€64m) deficit in its group pension schemes.
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VW pension obligations still on balance sheet
GERMANY – Auto giant Volkswagen, one of the first blue-chip German companies to create an external fund for pension obligations, still has nearly €14bn worth of those obligations on its balance sheet, according to its financial report for 2005.
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News
Germany denies DC tax axe report
GERMANY – The government has dismissed a news report that it will axe social tax exemptions for defined contribution schemes created by the Riester pension reforms of 2001.
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Hewlett in Germany taps GSAM, SSGA
GERMANY – The pension fund for Hewlett-Packard Deutschland has awarded two fixed income mandates to Goldman Sachs Asset Management and one emerging market equity brief to State Street Global Advisors.
