Returns – Page 180
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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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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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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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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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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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€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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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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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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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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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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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%.
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German DB losses lessened by bond rates
[16:00 CET 26-01] GERMANY – German companies saw their pension plans’ assets decline considerably over the last year but a rise in interest rates in the last quarter also helped reduce liabilities, according to a study by consultancy Rauser Towers Perrin (RTP).
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More time needed for Dutch recovery
[15:30 CET 26-01] NETHERLANDS – The Dutch employer organisation for the metal industry and union CNV have today argued pension funds need more time to recover from the global economic downturn than the current regulated timeframe.
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KPA Pension returns 7% in 2008
[15:15 CET 26-01] SWEDEN – KPA Pension, the SEK50bn (€4.8bn) Swedish public-sector pension company, returned 7% on its investments in 2008, despite the global economic downturn, IPE has learnt.
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2008 volatility hits more Finnish funds
[16:20 CET 23-01] FINLAND – Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company has reported a €1.2bn fall in the value of its assets in 2008, according to preliminary figures while Eläke-Fennia saw a negative return of 12% and VER suffered further to lose 15% last year.
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Risk-free rates add £160bn to UK deficits
[16:10 CET 23-01] UK – A move to a risk-free rate of accounting as proposed by the UK accounting standards board (ASB) would add over £160bn (€170bn) to UK deficits of the Aon200 companies alone, Aon’s Marcus Hurd has warned.
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DNB prefers gradual recovery to claims cut - Hewitt
[16:00 CET 23-01] NETHERLANDS – The pensions regulator De Nederlandsche Bank would prefer pension funds with a shortfall of their financial reserves to gradually recover, rather than to base this process on discounting the pension claims of their participants, consultants have suggested.
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Austrian funds average 13% loss
[15:30 CET 23-01] AUSTRIA – Average losses for Austria's 20 Pensionskassen amounted to -13.1% last year, according to preliminary calculations by their federation.
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First Bulgarian fund fails minimum mark
[16:30 CET 22-01] BULGARIA – A Bulgarian pension fund has failed to generate the minimum rate of return set by the supervisor for the first time since the three-pillar pension fund system was created in 1999/2000.
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Tapiola Pension limits losses through equity cull
[16:15 CET 22-01] FINLAND – Preliminary figures from Tapiola Mutual Pension Insurance Company have revealed the firm generated a negative return of 8.3% in 2008, following its decision to reduce equity allocation over the year along with its lack of hedge fund exposure.
