Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 258
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Features
Hill’s grilling on an open fire
After two hearings and nearly six hours of grandstanding and deflection, rhetorical and leading questions, the European Parliament in October approved Jonathan Hill’s appointment as financial services commissioner.
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Features
Climate risk takes centre stage
This September’s United Nations Climate Change summit in New York combined political and show business razzmatazz with the gravitas of investors like Mats Andersson, CEO of Sweden’s AP4 pension fund, who addressed the UN General Assembly.
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Asset Class Reports
Beleggersberaad 2014: Managers sing praises of frontier markets
Emerging market debt (EMD) has matured and could now act as a “useful addition” to a pension fund’s fixed income portfolio, according to Roy Scheepe, senior client portfolio manager at ING Investment Management.
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Features
Infrastructure: Pension funds turn back on middlemen
European pension funds have long been aware of the benefits of infrastructure but, in 2014, the idea of co-investment with other pension funds has become a much more realistic option.
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Features
Long-term Matters: Lost on Tesco
The UK Financial Conduct Authority’s inquiry into the supermarket Tesco is almost certain to miss a key part of the story – how investors enabled this dysfunctional culture. In September the retailer announced it had significantly overstated its first-half profit forecast.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Capital market union
The capital market union (CMU) is a new emphasis in Brussels and Jonathan Hill, the new Commissioner for financial services, mentioned the subject repeatedly at his initial vetting by MEPs.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from the US: Pensions and start-ups
Can pension funds play a greater role in stimulating start-ups and economic growth? Some US politicians think so and are trying to deploy public retirement assets for this goal. But critics claim that results have been disappointing so far, mostly because pension funds invest through private equity funds that demand very high fees. So a new idea is gaining support – pension funds investing directly in private companies, cutting out intermediaries.
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Asset Class Reports
Interview - DMO:We want to hear from you
Robert Stheeman, CEO of the UK Debt Management Office, tells Taha Lokhandwala about the importance of ongoing dialogue with institutional investors
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Features
Interview - BVI: When special becomes alternative
Thomas Richter, CEO of the German Investment Funds Association, discusses the AIFMD, the future of Spezialfonds and opt-out models for occupational pensions with Barbara Ottawa
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Features
Focus on new models
In this first article on a new study, Pascal Blanqué and Amin Rajan outline how pension funds are adopting new asset allocation models and governance practices
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Opinion Pieces
Guest viewpoint: “Macro matters. We ignore it at our peril”
Open a newspaper. Any newspaper. Read the front page and then the business pages. Absorb, assimilate, repeat. After half a dozen goes, you may notice a pattern.
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Asset Class Reports
In-house strategies offer greater advantages
On The Record: Do you use external hedge funds?
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Features
How we run our money: In search of a future-proof ATP
Henrik Gade Jepsen, chief investment officer of ATP, tells Caroline Liinanki why he thinks the fund must adapt its portfolio structure
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Special Report
Active Management: DIY active
Charlotte Moore looks at the smart beta phenomenon and asks, is it really ‘smart beta’, or rather ‘cheap active’?
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Features
ECB exercise to beef up ABS
The ECB hopes its plans to invest heavily in the asset-backed securitisation market will encourage other investors and ultimately help boost real economy lending, writes Anthony Harrington
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Features
The hubris premium
Jeremy Lang and Ben Fitchew explain how company managers’ inherent cognitive biases and environment can influence company risk
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Features
Dollar storm ends 10-year FX calm
A full decade of range-bound trade in the dollar has dulled pension investors’ sense of the risks of currency exposure. As Christopher O’Dea reports, all that’s about to change
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Features
ESG: Profit with purpose
In the wake of a recent G8 working group on impact investing, Jonathan Williams examines how pension investors view strategies with a social purpose
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Features
ESG: A means to capture value
Hendrik du Toit and Therese Niklasson tell Nina Röhrbein about ESG integration at Investec
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Interviews
Strategically speaking - Majedie Asset Management: Global, naturally
Before this year, Majedie Asset Management had rolled out just five products since it was established in 2002 – one of which was a concentrated version of another. By those standards, 2014 has seen riotous activity, with the summer launches of a US equities fund and two global funds adding to the existing line-up of UK equity and global long/short funds.