Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 197

  • Features

    Rethinking political risk

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    In recent conversations with investors about the prospects for global growth, the focus seemed to be more on the upcoming US election and Brexit than on economic fundamentals. It struck me how musings on political risk can influence an investor’s view on long-term market returns.

  • Special Report

    Kandlbinder 2016: Spezialfonds inflows top €100bn

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Till Entzian surveys Germany’s €1.3trn Spezialfonds market, which saw record inflows over the course of 2015

  • Special Report

    Euro-Zone: Unquantifiable QE

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    The effects of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme are yet to be quantified, leading some to think of it as the world’s biggest ‘experiment’. Caroline Hay reports

  • Country Report

    Portugal: An eye on European clouds

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Against a backdrop of a steadily recovering domestic economy, private pension funds in Portugal have maintained stable asset allocations over the past year

  • Asset Class Reports

    Investment Approaches: Reasons to be cheerful

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    With 30,000 potential stocks in the global equities universe, picking the right investment approach may be more important than the right manager, argues Joseph Mariathasan

  • Special Report

    Universal-Investment: Weathering the challenges

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Markus Neubauer examines how the clients of the Master-KAG provider Universal-Investment are managing their portfolios  

  • Asset Class Reports

    Sensitivity of selected global equity funds to macro factors

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    The chart data shows the sensitivity of the five largest global equity funds to changes in macroeconomic factors: global default spreads; global interest rates; US Dollar Trade Weighted Index and global inflation. IPE and PureGroup selected the largest domestic and cross-border funds registered for sale in the UK, in terms of assets, from the Morningstar database.

  • Special Report

    US Bonds: The only game in town

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    The US bond market is benefiting from negative interest rates in Europe and elsewhere. Christopher O’Dea reports

  • Special Report

    German Asset Management: In the face of headwinds

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Never before has the German institutional asset management industry faced headwinds such as those currently confronting it, writes Clemens Schuerhoff

  • Special Report

    Corporate Bonds: Investment-grade boost

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Central bank action in the UK and euro-zone has boosted the investment-grade corporate bond market. Lynn Strongin Dodds examines whether this can continue

  • Special Report

    High Yield: A risk worth taking

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Despite the inherent risks, pension funds are looking to high-yield debt and syndicated loans in their search for above-average returns, as Anthony Harrington explains

  • Special Report

    Emerging debt attractions

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Institutional investors have under-invested in emerging market corporate debt so far, but Joseph Mariathasan finds the asset class’s attractive fundamentals mean this may change soon

  • Special Report

    UK embraces multi-asset

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    While multi-asset fixed income strategies have been popular in the UK for some time, European investors are only just beginning to take notice, says Charlotte Moore

  • From Our Perspective: How transparent?
    Features

    From Our Perspective: How transparent?

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Gerard van Olphen, CEO of APG, contends that the Dutch pension sector is in denial about the need for transparency. The same accusation could be levelled against pension funds in other places.

  • Features

    Returns: Bonds boost interim results

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Returns in the low single-digits were common across the northern European pensions landscape in the first half of 2016, as bonds rallied while equities slumped. 

  • Opinion Pieces

    Long-Term Matters - Addicted to dumb ideas

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    With the UK retailer Sports Direct in the news, it is worth recalling what one large investor said only 12 months ago

  • Opinion Pieces

    Letter from the US: Pension equities ebb

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    The defined benefit (DB) pension funds of the companies in the S&P 500 index are in deficit. At December 2015, these were $376.6bn (€337bn) underfunded, according to Citigroup’s chief US equity strategist Tobias Levkovich. 

  • Features

    Pensions Accounting: Numerology signals

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Seventy. Zero. Minus-80. We are probably going to be seeing and hearing a lot about those numbers in the coming weeks. Just as 666 is said to represent The Beast, 70, zero and minus-80 look set to epitomise monster pension deficits and the dawning chasm between IAS 19 scheme deficits and the reality of stewarding a pension scheme.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Letter from Brussels: A vision for cross-border workers

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    A former director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP) has proposed a new option for occupational pensions that could help the large number of workers whose careers take them across EU internal borders.

  • Features

    Governance Practices: Between rhetoric and reality

    October 2016 (Magazine)

    Without behavioural change, recent adaptations in the governance practices of European pension plans merely amount to re-spraying an old car when an entirely new model is needed, according to Sally Bridgeland and Amin Rajan