Latest Special Reports – Page 101
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Special ReportSecurities Services: Clearing for take-off
Central clearing of OTC derivatives is supposed to increase transparency and reduce systemic risk. But Richard Hemming finds that pension funds might be among those counting the costs
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Securities Services: Liabilities into assets
As large, maturing pension schemes turn to liability-driven investing, Benjie Fraser talks to Martin Steward about the opportunities available to custodians that can draw on broader institutional capacity and expertise
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Securities Services: Testing times ahead
With consolidation and growth expected in the European custody markets in the coming years, Luxembourg could be one of the biggest beneficiaries, says Iain Morse
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Securities Services: A matter of choice
Andrew Baker says the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive could restrict choice and impose some unreasonable burdens on depositaries
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Securities Services: Welcome to the dark side
Traders seeking maximum liquidity with minimum impact on the markets are turning to the dark arts, says Simmy Grewal
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Securities Services: Risk and return
The credit crisis has focused the minds of lenders on getting their risk-reward parameters right, as Susan Pike explains
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Special ReportBP, investors’ blind spot
Has the need for dividends compromised the green credentials of pension funds when it comes to oil companies such as BP? Nina Röhrbein reports
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Garbage in, garbage out
Like all investment data and ratings, environmental, social and governance indicators need to be scrubbed clean and carefully analysed, writes Adam Seitchik
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Fiduciary/Delegation: Your faithful friend?
Liam Kennedy assesses the European market for fiduciary management. Where the earliest fiduciary contracts outsourced almost the entire value chain of pension management, more recent agreements centre on different levels of delegation, and managers are having to learn new tricks
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Fiduciary/Delegation: Topiary
Failed by the fund of funds industry, investors are beginning to plant, nurture and clip their hedge funds themselves, finds Martin Steward
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Fiduciary/Delegation: Competing advice
The obvious objection to pension funds bringing hedge fund selection in-house is the strain it puts on resources in the service of such a small part of the overall risk budget. The counter-argument, put by Andre Konstantinow, head of manager selection at the Barclays UK Retirement Fund, is that hedge ...
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Special ReportFiduciary/Delegation: Still life in the FoFs model
While relationships with funds of funds are evolving, Katharina Lichtner outlines the costs and dangers of going it alone in private equity
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Local supporter
Nina Röhrbein finds out how the Minneapolis-based Community Reinvestment Fund is helping to funnel capital into distressed urban communities
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Fiduciary/Delegation: Hedge fund beta: a cheap core portfolio?
If the trend is towards core-satellite hedge fund portfolios, what does that mean for resource budgeting? It is tempting to see this as a passive-active portfolio – why would an investor not wish to maximise her budget for the active part and minimise her budget for idiosyncratic risk, illiquidity risk and, of course, costs, in the passive part? This is the argument behind ‘hedge fund beta’ – investable indices, ETFs, super-diversified funds of funds and quantitative, hedge fund replicators.
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Special ReportPortfolio Construction: Three Blind Mice
Accounting for fat tails of individual instruments is not the same as managing those tails at portfolio level. Svetlozar (Zari) Rachev and Georgi Mitov explore how advanced copulas might address the problem of fat tails, dependence models and portfolio risk
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Special ReportPortfolio Construction: It’s the economy, stupid
Efforts to diversify have for too long assumed that we live in non-cyclical economies, and ignored the mix of economic factors that drive asset-class risk. Lynn Strongin Dodds takes a tour of some alternatives
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Portfolio Construction: Allocating risk, allocating time
Martin Steward talks to ex-FRR CIO Jean-Louis Nakamura about Lombard Odier’s volatility-driven allocation and its time-horizon tactical allocation process
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Special ReportPortfolio Construction: A question of skill
The hedge fund world is supposed to be about skill. But Martin Steward asks, if you use a fund of funds, what skills are you buying – and whose?
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Portfolio Construction: The horrible handful
Raphael Douady outlines the top five investment risks that every investor in hedge funds should know about
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Special ReportThe environment factor
Nina Röhrbein reports on the progress of sustainable real estate
