Financial Times Mandate articles from June 2006

Financial Times Mandate archives from June 2006

From the Editor: Testing times: will LDI take off?(Editorial)
June 1, 2006... Those asset managers who have been busily launching new liability-driven investment (LDI) products to great fanfare in the UK institutional market shouldn't hold their collective breath in fevered anticipation of a flood of new mandates....

News & Analysis: Strategies, Products & Mandates - League tables count the cost of environmental investment.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Paula Garrido Carbon emissions by companies is an important risk factor investors need to take into account when constructing their investment portfolios. As a result of the introduction of different regulations, including the EU...

News & Analysis: Strategies, Products & Mandates - Directional strategies can cushion tough bond markets.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Paula Garrido Under current market conditions, bond investors might want to consider adopting directional strategies that have the potential to make money even when markets fall. According to Baring Asset Management, as the...

News & Analysis: Securities Services - Progress made, but firm steps yet to be taken against disaster.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Roger Aitken Despite disaster recovery programmes having been initiated by many firms following the September 11 terrorist attacks, scenarios for dealing with a failure of key securities market players and intermediaries have not...

Asset Allocation: FTM Interview - Alain Clot - Big players demonstrate value of investment sustainability.(Company overview)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Henry Smith "Would you pledge your long-term future to a company composed of five brilliant young insolent guys whose ambition is to make a fortune as quickly as possible and then disappear?" The question, posed rhetorically by...

Asset Allocation: Scheme Spotlight - Taking a different track.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Paula Garrido The privatisation of the UK's railways industry, completed in the 1990s, had a big impact on the way retirement provision for those working in the sector is organised today. At present the Railways Pension Scheme...

Asset Allocation: Market Analysis - Europe - Jittery investors spark correction.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Tony Dolphin After months of consecutive rises, many major equity markets throughout the world fell sharply in May. Because the falls were primarily a result of nervous investor sentiment rather than deteriorating fundamentals, the...

Asset Allocation: Market Analysis - North America - Large caps ride out volatility wave.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Scott Ayres As US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke assumes his role as successor to Alan Greenspan, he also faces the re-emergence of volatility in global markets. While at the macro level the general direction of US equity...

Asset Allocation: Market Analysis - South America - Elections key to regional markets.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Mile Reynal The recent sell off in Latin American equity markets was largely triggered by fears of further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in the US. However, investors must now beware a rollover in commodity markets, a pick up...

Asset Allocation: Market Analysis - Asia Pacific - Asia experiences market sell-off.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jerome Booth Most of the major risks in the global economy emanate from structural imbalances in the developed world, not in the emerging world. More than that, the very definition of being an emerging country may be construed as...

Asset Allocation - Portfolio Flows - Snow's fall is greenback's rise.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Neil Mellor The nomination of Goldman Sachs CEO, Henry Paulson, as US Treasury Secretary clearly came as a surprise to many in the market place. Indeed, the very morning of Mr Paulson's nomination, speculation had been growing...

Strategy Selection: Credit Default Swaps - CDS shed illiquid image and move on to next generation.
June 1, 2006... Think credit default swaps (CDS), and you might automatically envisage a sell-side tool, allowing banks to exchange corporate risk amongst themselves. This would be to severely underestimate the scope of CDS. It is a flexible, sophisticated...

Strategy Selection: Commodities wobble fails to dampen investor appetite.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Paula Garrido Despite recent market volatility, institutional investors' interest in commodities continues to grow. Since the end of the last decade when oil prices started rising, investors from across the world have been looking...

Strategy Selection: Derivatives Clinic - How to get to grips with risk.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Wojtek Nabialek Efficient frontier analysis aims to select the best risk/return profile for an investment portfolio. In an article in the March 2006 edition of FT Mandate, we praised the merits of optimising this profile by...

Strategy Selection: Benchmark.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Djuro Rnic Djuro Rnic writes: The FT Mandate Benchmark Online database is a unique, fully searchable database listing the latest mandate wins and losses in the asset management, custody and related third-party services in...

Special Report: Fixed Income - Pension funds focus on liability matching.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Ceri Jones Two apparently contradictory trends characterise the fixed interest arena - on the one hand there is the move towards specialist bond mandates promising alpha; on the other is the emergence of a paradigm shift among...

Advertising Feature: Combining alpha generation with LDI.
June 1, 2006... Liability driven investment (LDI) is becoming increasingly common in institutional investment, for pension schemes. For most clients, however, simply investing the assets with the aim of matching the liabilities as closely as possible is not...

Advertising Feature: Creating value through the best opportunities.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Sylvain de Ruijter When an institutional investor decides to outsource the management of a fixed income portfolio to external money managers there are several decisions that have to be taken. The most important decision is likely...

Special Report: Equities - Volatility sparks flight to quality.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Ceri Jones Recent market volatility has had a muted impact on the structure of equity mandates, largely because the equity crash at the turn of the century was so violent it has not yet left the collective mindset. "The bear...

Sponsored Report: Equities - Putting the case for corporate America There are more reasons to invest in the US than you may think, says Jean Maunoury, head of US, Asian and emerging market equities, long-only investments team, of Natexis Asset.(Industry overview)
June 1, 2006... Byline: Jean Maunoury One could find many reasons for not owning US equities: why bother investing in an economy which will only grow at around 3 per cent in 2007 while emerging economies could grow by 6 per cent and Japan may even reach 3...

Special Report: Alpha Strategies - Portable alpha gains widespread acceptance.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Paula Garrido Generating alpha in a lower return environment has become investors' most important goal. Over the recent past the trend towards separating alpha and beta investments has resulted in the development of sophisticated...

Sponsored Report: Alpha Strategies - Isolating the alpha from the beta.(new investment techniques)
June 1, 2006... A"revolution', a "paradigm shift", something that will "alter the business of investing" and "turn investing on its head". These phrases have all been used to hail the rise of portable alpha. What is portable alpha and will it stand up to...

Sponsored Report: Alpha Strategies - Alpha overlay: employing active management risk more efficiently.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Ray Dalio In simplest terms, alpha overlay is the process of generating excess returns through active management, independent of an underlying asset class. Properly executed, alpha overlay leads to better investment results with no...

Technology: Stock Exchanges - Brewing the perfect storm.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Roger Aitken While missiles in stock exchange M&A activity fire across the Atlantic between London, Paris and New York as Europe's leading bourses fail to consummate a deal between themselves, virt-x, the pan-European exchange and...

Special Report: Algorithmic Trading - Getting Asia to adopt algorithmic trading.
June 1, 2006... While the Asia Pacific region lags the US and Europe in terms of the adoption of algorithmic trading by financial institutions, markets across Asia are generally characterised (with exceptions) by less liquidity, lower electronic trading...

Sponsored Report: Algorithmic Trading - Algo trading solutions for savvy investors.(interview)(Interview)
June 1, 2006... FT Mandate: What are the key factors in a decision to deploy one algorithmic trading strategy over another? Ashok Shah: In selecting an algorithmic strategy, the phrase 'caveat emptor' must remain at the forefront of one's mind. The...

Sponsored Report: Algorithmic Trading - Adding a human touch to algorithmic trading.
June 1, 2006... FT Mandate: While the use of algorithmic trading strategies by buy-side companies in Europe now stands at 78 per cent, according to a new survey by Edhec Risk Advisory, algorithms in European buy-side firms actually accounted for only 3 per...

Support Services: Sponsored Article - Letter from Europe - Managers rediscover tax reclaims.
June 1, 2006... Tax reclaim was often seen as an ancillary service, and due to its administrative nature and the heavy drain on fund managers' resources, was often overlooked. However, in times of greater competition and focus on fund performance, asset...

Support Services: Hedge Fund Administration - Minimising the risk from unregulated fund services.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Henry Smith As institutional investment in alternative assets increases, concern is mounting about operational risk and regulated entities. According to Julian Korek, founding member of consultants Kinetic Partners, many...

Special Supplement: Introduction - Big players winning fund servicing battle.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Gerry O'Kane Fund administration is maturing. Whether it is the service, the pricing or the attitude from either supplier or client, it is frequently described as a 'maturing sector'. An asset manager talking about outsourcing fund...

Special Supplement: Outsourcing - Custodians show their mettle in mature market.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Gerry O'Kane It was a gleeful announcement. JPMorgan Hedge Fund Services (JPMorgan HFS) had signed an agreement to take over the middle- and back-office of Henderson Global Investors, along with staff for its 14 hedge funds,...

Special Supplement: Real Estate Investment Funds - Reifs give portfolios a solid foundation.
June 1, 2006... Byline: John Wantz According to ALFI, the Luxembourg investment funds association, the domestic regulated real estate investment funds (Reifs) market now comprises more than $10bn (e7.7bn) in gross assets. With the market continuing to...

Special Supplement: Fund Administration - The challenges of the alternative world.
June 1, 2006... FTMandate: What are the biggest challenges facing fund administrators today? Germain Birgen: Complexity of the fund strategies and increasing frequency of reporting and dealing. Investment products are becoming increasingly complex and...

Special Supplement: Straight-through Processing - A step closer to untangling the web.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Ivan Nicora Across Europe, investment managers are experiencing clear investor demand for greater private pension saving schemes. Long- and medium-term financial products such as mutual funds are increasingly seen as the preferred...

Special Supplement: Transfer Agency - Transfer agents playing by the rules.
June 1, 2006... Byline: Germain Birgen FTMandate: Despite several attempts (Euroclear's FundSettle, Clearstream, possibly Swift), the market still misses a commonly-accepted platform for settlement of investment funds transactions. Is there any hope of...