All articles by Robert Melia Watson – Page 5
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News
Stoiber promises to simplify Riester pensions
GERMANY – Edmund Stoiber, the conservatives’ candidate for chancellor in this autumn’s elections, has promised to simplify the new private Riester pension schemes if elected. Stoiber says the reforms have created a "bureaucratic monster."
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Northern Trust in European pensions drive
UK – London-based Northern Trust Global Investments (Europe) has appointed Keith White as director of European sales with a particular mandate to expand the company’s relationships with continental pension funds.
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AP2 issues equity mandates worth $5.4bn
SWEDEN – The Gothenburg-based $13.5bn (€13.6bn) second Swedish national pension fund, AP2, has issued a RFP for managers for various European, North American, Asia-Pacific ex-Japan, Japanese and global equity mandates, worth a collective $5.4bn.
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Swiss fund to allocate 3% to hedge funds
SWITZERLAND – The SFr 4.6bn (€3.2bn) Bernische Lehrerversicherungskasse (BVLK), the pension and insurance fund for teachers in the Swiss canton of Berne, is to allocate 3% of its assets to hedge funds to help it achieve its long-term goal of 6.6% returns and to make up for poor overall performance ...
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French government slated over pensions policy
FRANCE – Pre-election promises to pump €152bn into the state reserve fund and introduce long-term reform to France’s pension system are likely to amount to nothing, says Arnauld d’Yvoire, general secretary of Observatoire des Retraites, the Paris-based pensions association.
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Brown urged to restore dividend tax credit
UK– The government should make pension fund membership compulsory, restore the dividend tax credit it removed in 1997 and make schemes tax exempt according to ITEM Club, the London-based economic forecasting group sponsored by Ernst & Young.
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New research suggests SRI increases risk
EUROPE- Socially responsible investments (SRI) incur higher risk than traditional portfolios and investors are failing to use SRI indices as benchmarks according to new research from Germany’s Commerzbank.
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German media industry launches new Riester fund
GERMANY – The media, printing and paper industries have become the latest industrial sector to establish a new industry-wide supplementary pension scheme as part of the Riester reforms. It has a potential membership of some 400,000 workers.
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Edinburgh Trust picks Fidelity for e1.7bn mandate
UK – The Edinburgh Investment Trust (EIT) has appointed London-based Fidelity Investments to manage its £1.1bn (€1.7bn) assets following an RFP it conducted earlier this year. Fidelity narrowly beat Scottish fund management group, Baillie Gifford.
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CAPS data show pooled funds continue to struggle
UK – The UK’s pooled pension fund market again reported negative results for the second quarter of 2002, held down by negative returns in the equity markets, according to the latest Russell/Mellon CAPS survey of the UK’s pooled pension fund market. The balanced pooled fund median for the period ...
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90% of German companies to launch Riester schemes
GERMANY – Nine out of ten companies in Germany are planning to establish a new occupational retirement fund under the Riester pensions reform, according to research just published by the German occupational pensions association, ABA.
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Life insurance more popular than Riester pensions
GERMANY– The life insurance funds business in Germany is enjoying something of a renaissance as people favour them over Riester private pensions funds as a means of investing for their retirement.
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DKW raids Deutsche's securities lending team
UK/US– Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DKW) has poached four more members of Deutsche Bank’s agency securities lending team in order to build up its own new securities lending division.
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State Street wins $45bn custody from Nuveen
US– Chicago-based mutual fund and asset management company Nuveen Investments has appointed Boston-based financial services group, State Street Corporation, to provide custody and accounting services for 130 of its funds, worth collectively some $45bn (€44.7bn).
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Skandia raids AP1 and AP3 for asset managers
SWEDEN – Stockholm-based Skandia Liv Kapitalförvaltning, the asset management division of banking group Skandia, has appointed Bo Ljunglöf as a portfolio strategist and Kristian Nammack as head of external asset management.
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EC takes optional social responsibility approach
EUROPE – The European Commission has published a communication on corporate social responsibility (CSR) outlining a series of optional recommendations.
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European ETF range exceeds US following new launch
GERMANY - Europe now has more ETFs than the US following the launch of fourteen new ETFs by Munich-based exchange traded fund (ETF) specialist company, IndExchange.
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LSE to switch DB equity assets to fixed income
UK – The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is to switch the remaining 25% -£41m (€64m) - equity portion of the defined benefit segment of its pension fund into fixed income which now accounts for £107m of the total £148m.
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Lazard appoints new head of UK operation
UK – New York-based Lazard Asset Management (LAM) has appointed Bill Smith as managing director and co-chief executive officer to take care of its London-based UK operation.
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Schroders questions shift from equities to bonds
UK – Stock market history does not support the current trend in the UK that favours investments in fixed income over equities, claims new research from Schroders.
