Returns – Page 174
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News
Greencore deficit hits €68m
[16:40 CET 02-02] IRELAND – Greencore, the Irish convenience food manufacturer, has reported the deficit in its defined benefit (DB) pension schemes more than doubled to €68m in 2008.
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News
Finland to set guaranteed pension level from 2011
[16:30 CET 02-02] FINLAND – The Finnish government has announced a guaranteed minimum pension for pensioners will be introduced in 2011.
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News
French reserve fund loses a quarter
[16:20 CET 02-02] FRANCE - The Fonds de reserve pour les retraites (FRR) has revealed its assets decline by 24.8% during 2008.
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News
Cautious DNB examines recovery time
[16:00 CET 02-02] NETHERLANDS - The president of the Dutch central bank and pension regulator will decide before 1 March whether pension funds will be given more time to recover from the credit crisis, though he has stressed in advance he does not favour giving more time to repair their ...
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FeaturesThe yoke of uncertainty
In ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, William Shakepseare describes a February face as “full of frost, of storm and cloudiness”. The turning of the year has certainly done little to lift the mood of institutional investors. After briefly warming to risky assets at the end of 2008, 2009 has begun with ...
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Features
A torrid year
After three months of significant losses, the stock markets managed a positive return (+1.06%) in December, with volatility remaining high (40%), albeit down to two-thirds of November’s level. Over the year, the S&P500 index registered a record loss of 37%. Once again, the commodities market registered a double-digit loss (-10.65%), ...
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FeaturesPensions in Obama’s sights
When Barack Obama is inaugurated as president in January 2009, provisions affecting the pension fund industry could well be an important part of his intended new economic stimulus. But this follows little debate about the retirement system during the campaign, except when US employee’s losses in 401(k) individual accounts were ...
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Features
Trend-following slows losses
December offered some respite to the hedge fund industry at large from the string of losses seen in the last six months, with the composite Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index finishing the month up 0.9%. Funds of funds, however, returned -0.7% on average. December has traditionally been a positive month for ...
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FeaturesMinus five is the new zero
Absolute return strategies do not always produce absolute returns, and alternative investments are not always decorrelated from the mainstream. Long/short investors do not always have skill in shorting, let alone the long. Convertible arbitrageurs are not always able to arbitrage their convertibles. Leveraged strategies have seen their leverage dry up ...
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FeaturesBeware Japanese proverbs
The experience of Japanese pension funds in the 1990s provides an interesting lesson for Western investors, finds David White
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News
VB joins pressure for more recovery time
[16:55 CET 30-01] NETHERLANDS – Gerard Riemen, director of the Dutch association of industry-wide pension funds (VB), has joined several unions and employer representative bodies in their plea to give pension funds more time to recover.
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News
Zurich to set up new Royal Mail DC scheme
[16:10 CET 30-01] UK – Royal Mail has appointed Zurich to provide a new defined contribution (DC) scheme starting in April 2009.
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News
IBM withholds indexation as BPF Bouw imposes limit
[16:00 CET 30-01] NETHERLANDS - BPF Bouw, the pension fund for the building industry, will only grant its active participants an indexation of their pension claims for 2009 while IBM is holding off from paying it this year.
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News
Funds blame bulk of decline on interest rates
[16:40 CET 29-01] NETHERLANDS – Major pension funds have argued up to two-thirds of the decline in their cover ratios, which now hover between 85% and 100%, was because of the steep drop in interest rates.
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News
€72bn evaporated from Dutch big four in 2008
[15:45 CET 29-01] NETHERLANDS – The four largest pension funds in the Netherlands, ABP, PFZW, PMT and PME, have seen their assets drop by €71.6bn as a results of the credit crunch.
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News
Pension funds set to receive €500m in Dutch tax rebates
[16:20 CET 28-01] NETHERLANDS/UK – The Dutch tax office will have to refund up €500m to pension funds after a legal challenge by the UK’s £9.24bn (€10.3bn) Strathclyde pension fund.
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News
Last-minute gains fail to recover Polish funds
POLAND – After reporting the worst month since inception of the system, Polish pension funds managed to return 3.6% in November and December 2008.
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News
AUA mulls flight from pensions payment
[16:45 CET 27-01] AUSTRIA – The Austrian airlines group AUA is considering halting payments to the Pensionskasse in a bid to save money.
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News
Dutch KPN pledges €120m for pensions
[15:30 CET 27-01] NETHERLANDS – The Dutch telecoms giant KPN today said the cover ratio of its €430m pension fund dropped to 94% at the end of last year, requiring the corporation to inject around €120m into its fund over the course of this year.
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News
Risk not rewarded in the medium-term
[15:00 CET 27-01] SWITZERLAND – Risk in Pensionskassen portfolios has not been rewarded over a longer period, Credit Suisse has claimed, while State Street has calculated pensionskassen saw an average 2008 return of -16.83%.
