Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 265
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News
Dutch pensions regulator fines PNO Media for late reporting
Pension fund, sponsor ‘genuinely sorry’ for missing deadlines
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Features
Buy-and-hold birth pangs in Asia
In this second article on a new study, Nick Lyster and Amin Rajan debate that the notions of risk premia and time premia are slow to take root in the predominant savings culture of emerging markets.
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Special Report
Top 1000: Italy - Pensions not prioritised
Pension funds still await a reform of the law that restricts their investments and they remain cautious about SME and infrastructure investments.
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Special Report
Top 1000: Portugal - Towards sustainability
Raising the retirement age and linking pensions to life expectancy are part of Portugal’s agenda for making its retirement provision more sustainable.
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Features
Pension Fund Governance: ABP to the ballot box
For the first time, the €309bn Dutch civil servants fund has held elections for its accountability body. More controversially, pensioners will now sit on the main board, writes Mariska van der Westen
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Asset Class Reports
Investment Grade Credit: Banks or supermarkets
The world’s banks are cutting debt and repairing balance sheets. The world’s non-financial companies are gearing up to take risk. Joseph Mariathasan explores why the choice for bondholders is not as clear as it sounds
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Country Report
Italy: In search of the right balance
Further scandals at casse di previdenza highlight the urgent need to promote better governance at Italian pension funds, finds Carlo Svaluto Moreolo
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Features
Time for trusteeship
Senior staff at China Investment Corporation (CIC) are talking about investment governance these days, reflecting growing recognition of the importance of sound non-executive or supervisory board oversight for all kinds of entities, be they global companies, sovereign wealth entities or pension funds.
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Features
Bond managers are worryingly sanguine
ECB president Mario Draghi unveiled his latest measures to arrest disinflation and rouse dormant corporate lending markets in June. Soon afterwards, big records started tumbling.
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Features
Put the trust back
Italy is a self-perpetuating paradox. Structural and historical forces keep the country under constant pressure; yet they drive a search for innovation to solve long-lasting problems. The pension system is a perfect example.
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Features
Pensions cart before the horse
It may come a surprise that the UK, Europe’s leading pension market by assets, has been one of the least innovative in terms of benefit design – something the present government is keen to rectify.
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Features
What price opportunity?
An overhaul of the Norwegian oil fund’s active management approach should free it from most of its current investment restrictions, according to a report co-authored by the former chief executive of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), David Denison.
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Features
Can the UK import concepts from abroad?
Government plans for pensions caused ripples in the industry after the official opening of the 2014-15 UK parliamentary session.
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Opinion Pieces
Is divesting working?
OK, it doesn’t work very well. We’re still on track for runaway climate change, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Authority.
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Opinion Pieces
What's outstanding
The EU’s institutional world is starting a new term. Now that the parliamentary elections are over, the commissioners have only until the end of October before their replacements take up office. With the increasing presence of euro-sceptic MEPs, it could be a stressful five years ahead.
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Opinion Pieces
On track with 401(k)
Individual retirement savings accounts (IRAs) have been helping US workers navigate the ups and downs of Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis. IRAs and employer-sponsored defined contribution (DC) plans grew to $6.5trn and $5.9trn (€4.8trn and €4.3trn), respectively, at year-end 2013, up from $5.6trn and $5trn the previous year, according to data in the 2014 Investment Company Fact Book.
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Features
Risk in emerging markets and beyond
Book review Emerging Markets in an Upside Down World: Challenging Perceptions in Asset Allocation and Investment, Jerome Booth (Wiley, £29.99)
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Opinion Pieces
“Italian employees have great need of consistent additional pension coverage”
Assets managed by pension funds in Italy equate to about 6% of its gross domestic product. In a country where the social security system provides an adequate level of coverage at retirement that would not be a concern. But in Italy, after all the recent reforms, this situation represents a relevant risk for both employees and employers. Benefits provided by the social security system have strongly decreased over the last 20 years and the retirement age raised considerably.
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Features
Time to come together
M&A activity is expected to increase as the global economy recovers. Gail Moss looks at the implications for pension funds that sponsors and trustees should consider