Latest from IPE Magazine – Page 48
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Special Report
Finland: New laws passed ahead of unified pensions blueprint
Working group proposals for merging pension systems yet to be published
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Special Report
France: New government revives pension reform
Under Emmanuel Macron’s second presidential term, the French government hopes to achieve an overhaul of the first-pillar pension system
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Special ReportGermany: Unlocking innovation and improving risk assessment
The German government is encouraging institutional investors to invest in venture capital funds to help support start-up companies
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Opinion PiecesInstitutional capital for energy resilience
Ukraine’s independence day on 24 August also marked six months since the start of Russia’s invasion and with it a profound shift in the global geopolitical and economic balance.
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Opinion PiecesHeatwaves remind us climate finance is more than net zero
In the middle of the now-famous speech that ended Stuart Kirk’s tenure as HSBC’s head of responsible investment, he said something that got lost. While most of Kirk’s controversial May presentation on ‘why investors need not worry about climate risk’ was picked apart on social media and in the press – resulting in his suspension and exit from the asset manager – his slide on climate adaptation (or ‘adaption’) was largely ignored.
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Opinion PiecesNotes from Amsterdam: Reform speeds up consolidation
With each passing day the likelihood diminishes that the law on the future of pensions (Wet toekomst pensioenen) will come into force as planned on 1 January next year. The law was sent to parliament in spring this year, but a date for parliamentary discussion is yet to be set.
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Opinion PiecesPrivate managers ‘not serious’ about climate
Fears about the effect of human activity from the climate date from the ancient Greeks, but it was not until the 1980s that scientists began to unite for action on climate change, and the warnings have only escalated since. Too often they have been ignored or denied.
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Opinion PiecesAustralia: Downturn casts a shadow over super anniversary
Australia’s superannuation industry enters its fourth decade under the darkening clouds of a global economic slowdown that is already having a dramatic impact on returns.
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Opinion PiecesUS: The great unfreeze - does it make sense to reopen DB plans?
US defined benefit (DB) public and corporate pension funds are responding differently to inflationary pressures. Public schemes are more concerned about the negative impact of financial market turmoil on their returns, while corporates are enjoying the rising discount rates that are lowering their liabilities and improving their funded status.
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FeaturesCEE private equity: in search of capital
War in Ukraine is just one factor deterring investment in private equity and growth capital in Central and Eastern Europe
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FeaturesResearch: The democratising of impact investing
Amin Rajan and Sebastian Schiele find investors are opting for more social-related investing
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InterviewsOn the record: bracing for uncertain times
Investors stay true to their diversification strategies in response to an increasingly complex inflation and global growth outlook. Alternatives are still seen as the best instrument to diversify risk
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Opinion PiecesESG Viewpoint: Article 9 of SFDR – the new green lodestar?
Regrettably, the EU’s Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities has gone from proposing “real change” to “may be imperfect”. These are the polite words of EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness. Less politely, Greta Thunberg judged that the taxonomy simply “takes greenwashing to a completely new level [since t]he people in power do not even pretend to care any more. They just label fossil gas as green and nuclear waste as pollution controllable over the next 100,000 years.”
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Special ReportIceland: International Monetary Fund warns on system risk
Despite its top-ranking pension system, there has been slow progress on increasing diversification abroad and in infrastructure
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InterviewsRailpen: Next stop, sustainable long-term returns
Richard Williams (pictured), CIO of Railpen, the manager of the UK’s rail transport pension schemes, talks to Carlo Svaluto Moreolo about the institution’s investment strategy, governance model and commitment to sustainability
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InterviewsStrategically speaking interview: Italian, global and poised for growth
In asset management, three years can be a short or a long time, depending on many factors, including market conditions. To some asset management executives, the second half of the 2010s perhaps felt like an endless slog, due to the intense competition for market share and outperformance within the seemingly never-ending bull market. The first two years of the new decade have certainly elapsed more quickly, thanks to the historical significance of the events that have occurred.
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FeaturesWe need better climate models to manage global warming impacts
Travelling back to the UK from Sri Lanka in July, I experienced a 10-degree temperature rise with the UK hitting over 40°C. While some people may argue that such extreme temperatures in the UK could just be a statistical anomaly, climate scientists such as Tim Palmer, Royal Society research professor in climate physics at Oxford University, who I spoke to at length on the subject, have no doubt that global mean temperatures are rising as a result of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities.
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FeaturesAccounting: Packed agenda as ISSB takes shape
ISSB board aims to finalise its first two sustainability standards by the end of the year A consultation on the ISSB’s work priorities is planned for later this year The role of materiality in sustainability reporting remains a hotly debated topic
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Opinion PiecesGuest viewpoint: Pension funds and the EU’s sustainability agenda
The European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Strategy, published in summer 2021, sets out how it will support the EU Green Deal and Europe’s transition to carbon neutrality by 2050.
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FeaturesEuro peripheral spreads
Just over a decade ago, Mario Draghi, then President of the ECB, gave a speech in which he uttered the famous words: “.…the European Central Bank [ECB] is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro”, a phrase often credited with hauling Europe out of the depths of its sovereign debt crisis.
