Financial Times Mandate articles from July 2008

Financial Times Mandate archives from July 2008

Analysis: Liquidity injection leads to record deals.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Nat Mankelow After a dismal few months for structured finance, a number of deals have come to the marketplace spurred on by the recent injection of central bank liquidity into the financial system. Four UK banks have issued a...

Analysis: IAM returns to independent roots.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest International Asset Management, the specialist fund of hedge fund manager, has undergone a management buyout to take it out of Fortis Investments. The Belgian group acquired IAM when it merged with ABN Amro's asset...

Analysis: Market analysis - Europe.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Raj Shant The European Central Bank (ECB) is right. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are wrong. Well not so much wrong as just unfortunate. Surging food and fuel prices are pushing up the cost of living at the most rapid...

Analysis: In brief.
July 1, 2008... Impax Asset Management has launched an institutional share class for the IFSL Impax Environmental Leaders Fund, launched in March 2008. The fund invests globally in public companies which derive at least 20 per cent of revenues or profits from,...

Analysis: Market analysis - North America.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Angus Campbell To describe the last few weeks and months in the financial markets as a roller coaster would be an understatement to say the least. Towards the end of 2007, we had economists saying that the risk of the US going...

Analysis: A responsibility to deliver.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith Asset managers have a "moral responsibility" to ensure that members of defined contribution (DC) pension schemes can look forward to a reasonable standard of living when they retire. Paul Price, global head of...

Analysis: Market analysis - South America.
July 1, 2008... Byline: John Cleary Investors in Brazil, since the election of its president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October 2002, have many reasons to smile. The currency and bond crisis that preceded his election reflect the types of uncertainty...

Analysis: Pension schemes seek standards.
July 1, 2008... Pension funds are prepared to put their weight behind ethically active managers according to a new survey commissioned by KPMG into attitudes towards the Hedge Fund Standards Board (HFSB) best practice standards. It found that eight out of...

Analysis: Hedge funds deliver.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward US institutions surveyed by Greenwich Associates and Global Custodian in October 2007 found 23 per cent planning to increase their hedge fund allocations by 2010 and only 2 per cent set to reduce them. Events...

Analysis: Market analysis - Asia Pacific.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Vinay Gairola The euphoria that drove investment in India in 2007 wore off in 2008, as negativity in the market continues to lead a bout of risk aversion. Prospective investors have since been pre-occupied with macro concerns,...

Comment: Leader - Act now to avoid a DC scandal.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith - Editor With falling house prices forcing people to review their pension plans, many will be wondering what level of income they can look forward to when they retire. Those enrolled in defined contribution (DC)...

Comment: The Consulting Room - Creative management.
July 1, 2008... Byline: James Maggs The recent collapse in real yields puts pension plan trustees looking to manage investment risk in a difficult position. Index-linked gilts, traditionally used to match inflation-linked defined benefit liabilities, seem...

Comment: The Bender Agenda - Combining tactics and patience in CEE region.(Editorial)
July 1, 2008... Byline: Yuri Bender - Editor-in-chief With growth for US and European asset managers currently restricted to Asian markets, where the vast majority of pooled funds are being sold, forward- thinking players are starting to look closer to...

Comment: Soapbox - Ensuring the benefits of diversification.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Mitesh Sheth The principle of diversification is intuitively appealing and benefits from significant academic support. It is widely regarded as being the only 'free lunch' in financial markets. However, in the past 12 months we...

Interview: The chief - Grand designs.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith When one plus one does not add up to two, usually something is wrong. Not so in the world of Fortis Investments. William De Vijlder, managing director and CIO, regards the takeover of ABN Amro Asset Management as a most...

Interview: Targeting Asian growth.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith For a firm that prefers to have full operational control, Bank of New York Mellon has shown it is not averse to a healthy dose of pragmatism when pursuing a strategic objective. Such was the case when Mellon...

Features: Cover story - Inflation hedging - Reducing the impact of inflation.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Nat Mankelow When Stuart Stephen, head of the GBP16bn (20.2bn) UK pension fund of Lloyds TSB bank said in a recent FT Mandate interview that there wasn't enough proofing product to go around to hedge the scheme's liabilities...

Features: Cover story - Inflation proofing - Inflation-proofing hard to achieve.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward As baseball legend Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra once put it, "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore." Even if the recent inflation uptick is down to a short-term commodity-price shock that will ease off as global...

Strategies: Fixed income - Central banks diversify away from dollars to sterling bonds.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Nat Mankelow A resurgence in the largest fixed rate bond market outside the dollar and euro could be the key to unblocking pent up liquidity in the sovereign and supranational space, market makers claim. The GBP1300bn (1620bn)...

Strategies: Currency management - Solving the currency conundrum.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward Hedging foreign exchange used to be a concern only for fixed income managers. The logic was that global equity market movements were closely-correlated with their local currencies, and so inherently volatile that the...

Strategies: Transition management - Evolving relationship benefits clients.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest The transition management industry has until recently resembled the market for cosmetic surgery. When clients needed dramatic and often costly one-off changes to their portfolios, they went to their transition manager....

Performance: Fund performance overview - Living with inflation.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward After hitting lows in mid-March credit markets thought about making a comeback, with April's spectacular returns the best for five years. Since then, a measure of sobriety has returned as gloomy talk of 70s-style...

Technology: Prime brokerage - Electronic trading - Breaking into the US.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest For anyone watching the few lights left on in the Bear Stearns building, the US prime brokerage industry might not look like the best investment opportunity. And yet, BNP Paribas has forked out an estimated $300m (193m)...

Technology: Clearing and settlement - Making economies of scale work for Europe.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest Don Donahue does not like the word 'monopoly,' but to many in Europe, that is what the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation represents. In America, the DTCC is a de facto utility, clearing and settling the vast...

Technology: Smart routing - The smart way to deliver best execution.
July 1, 2008... Byline: Richard Hills Smart routing has been around for many years, but in my travels I am surprised at how little is known about the importance of this technology and how it works, particularly for the European trading region. Maybe our...