Financial Times Mandate articles from March 2008

Financial Times Mandate archives from March 2008

From the Editor: Time to fight for fairer deal on fees.(Editorial)
March 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith It is often said that diversification is the only free lunch in town. Perhaps not anymore - if it ever was, for investment consultants, Watson Wyatt, have produced some research which shows that pension funds are paying...

News & Comment: Strategies, Products & Mandates - Intech research puts case for revival of active management.(Conference notes)
March 1, 2008... Byline: MS Intech, the specialist quantitative equity manager for institutional investors, presented research at the NAPF [UK National Association of Pension Funds] Investment Conference in Edinburgh that challenges the widely accepted...

News & Comment: Strategies, Products & Mandates - Personal Accounts likely to favour passive style.
March 1, 2008... Byline: MS The investment options under Personal Accounts, the government's complementary pension scheme due for launch in 2012, are likely to be dominated by passive strategies in order to keep costs down, according to Paul Myners, chair...

News & Comment: Strategies, Products & Mandates - BVCA report highlights growing concerns over taxation.
March 1, 2008... Byline: MS The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) used the publication of its report into The Impact of Private Equity as a UK Financial Service 2006/7 to warn that the benefits its industry brings to financial...

News & Comment: Strategies, Products & Mandates - No change for Rank scheme's asset allocation.
March 1, 2008... Byline: HS The transfer of the Rank Group's GBP700m (919bn) pension scheme to Goldman Sachs will have little effect on its asset allocation in the short term. Addy Loudiadis, chief executive of Rothesay Life, the subsidiary of...

News & Comment: The Consulting Room - How to measure risk.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Dawid Konotey-Ahulu Pension fund trustees are increasingly grappling with the question of risk. How, for instance, to judge whether a scheme is running too much risk (whatever that means), embracing risk with insufficient...

News & Comment: The Bender Agenda - F&C faces future without Friends.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Yuri Bender In much of Europe and the US, the fortunes of the life insurance and asset management industries have long been tied together, and dismantling them, as life stalwart Friends Provident is finding, is no easy matter. ...

News & Comment: Market Analysis - Europe - Growth in Italian retail property.
March 1, 2008... Following the credit crunch of 2007, many parts of the European property market saw some correction during the latter half of the year, with secondary property taking the biggest hit. While higher yields present a buying opportunity, investors...

News & Comment: Market Analysis - North America - Rate cuts do little to ease crunch.
March 1, 2008... The US economy remains fragile as housing sector weakness feeds through to consumer sentiment and spending. It now seems likely that economic growth will slow, inevitably impacting profits growth. However, the markets have already priced in a...

News & Comment: Market Analysis - South America - Growth brings inflation concerns.
March 1, 2008... In the US the focus is on the subprime debt and credit crunch woes and the course of interest rates and possible stagflation. The outlook is more benign however for Latin American economies and markets, as for emerging markets generally. The US...

News & Comment: Market Analysis - Asia Pacific - Asian economies in good shape.(Industry overview)
March 1, 2008... In our view, Asia is exceptionally well positioned to outperform despite a G7 economic slowdown. The post-1997 financial rebuilding of the region is now beginning to bear fruit. In contrast to the G7 economies, balance sheets are in good shape...

Features & Interviews: The Chief - There really is no such thing as a free lunch.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith In the asset management industry, portfolio diversification is widely regarded as the only "free lunch" in town. But according to Gus Sauter, CIO of Vanguard Investments, ill-fated structured products came to be...

Features & Interviews: Scheme spotlight - Railpen chief maintains forward momentum.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Nat Mankelow On one of the walls at the offices of Chris Hitchen, the chief executive of Railpen, the GBP19bn (25bn, $38bn) UK railways pension scheme, is a clock which ticks backwards. "A colleague bought it for me because she...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Alternative Investments - Private Advisors builds European profile.(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward Pension fund allocators often complain that hedge fund and private equity managers just don't understand the way they think. That's not a charge that can be levelled at Jens Bisgaard-Frantzen. The chief executive...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Structured Products - Credit crunch stalls European CMBS market over two decks.(Industry overview)
March 1, 2008... Byline: Nat Mankelow Gauging where the asset backed securities (ABS) market will end up by the end of 2008 is becoming a bit like the popular children's game, pin the tail on the donkey. But in the case of structured finance, it is...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Asset Backed Securities - Austria at the centre of a new wave of ABS activity.
March 1, 2008... The first shoots of recovery in the asset backed securities (ABS) market are at last beginning to show, however in a marketplace where you would least expect. Among the tree-lined avenues of Austria's capital city, Vienna, there is a hive of...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Equity Derivatives - Capital market trends join the mainstream.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Christine Senior The equity derivatives market has displayed a high degree of innovation over the last few years, driven both by the demands of hedge funds for ever more complex products, and by the opportunities identified by...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: China - Brain-drain fuels growth in Chinese private funds.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Henry Smith Chinese investment houses running publicly-traded mutual funds are facing a growing competitive threat from privately-managed funds, according to a report by Shanghai-based consultants, Z-Ben Advisors. While private...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Prime Brokerage - Hedge funds concern over utilisation of their assets.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Elizabeth Cripps As if investment banks weren't in enough trouble following the much publicised write offs on US sub prime debt, they are coming under increased scrutiny from their prime brokerage clients. Hedge funds are...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Socially Responsible Investment - Institutional interest in SRI continues to grow.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Elizabeth Cripps Climate change and social responsibility are unavoidable topics. As Karina Litvack, head of governance and sustainable investments at F&C puts it: "You can't open a newspaper without seeing an article about bio...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Sponsored Article - ETF Platform - A range of uses in volatile times.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Ceri Jones The use of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has boomed in current volatile markets. Although equities have fallen in the last few quarters, assets under management in ETFs are at record levels, at $796bn at end-January, and...

Strategies, Allocation & Performance: Fund Overview - Fund Performance Overview - Caution in uncertain times.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward All four funds we look at in the Euro Cautious Balanced sector have distinguishing features that significantly affect their respective investment strategies and risk profiles. This is true even of our top-two funds...

Operations, Trading & Technology: Indemnity Insurance - Tailor-made cover for hedge fund liabilities.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Martin Steward The days when hedge fund managers gradually built assets under management one high net worth client at a time are long-gone. New firms have to hit the ground running with tens of millions in seeding capital just to...

Operations, Trading & Technology: Short Extension Funds - 130/30 funds strain existing systems.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest Conceived after the introduction of more relaxed Ucits III investment regulations, 130/30, or short extension funds, are starting to gain more traction, at least among fund management groups, which continue to roll out...

Operations, Trading & Technology: Venture Capital - Putting the vultures in their place.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest Adeo Ressi speaks like a Silicon Valley native, his speech peppered with "like" and "dude" but the serial entrepreneur risked being cast out into the cold by the Golden State's venture capital community when he opened...

Special Supplement: Overview - Derivatives business livens up a quiet year.(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Byline: Gerry O'Kane Following last year's mergers among the grandees of custody, the subprime credit crisis has refocused a few minds. Market volatility saw a new run to alternative assets and despite healthy transaction revenues,...

Special Supplement: Fund Domiciling - Passporting ends up in a no-go zone.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Ceri Jones Difficulties in regulatory supervision, and stiff opposition from member states such as Dublin and Luxembourg appear to have put paid to the introduction of a management passporting system for selling Ucits funds across...

Special Supplement: Roundtable - Taking the long view on outsourcing.(Discussion)(Company overview)
March 1, 2008... Henry Smith: Welcome to you all. Over the past 12 months, the outsourcing market has slowed down slightly. According to consultants Investit, a total of six investment operations outsourcing deals were announced last year, compared with 14 in...

Special Supplement: Funds of hedge funds - All systems go.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Peter Guest Although the industry has reached $1300bn (877.5bn) in assets under management, funds of hedge funds remain underserved by technology providers, according to a recent report from the Aite Group. The explosive growth...

Special Supplement: OTC derivatives - Buy-side sees the upside of automation.
March 1, 2008... Byline: Virginie O'Shea There can be no doubt that the sell-side is well ahead of the buy-side when it comes to establishing straight-through processing (STP) in the area of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. To a large extent this is...

Special Supplement: Global custody survey - A dip in performance.(Survey)
March 1, 2008... Byline: Gerry O'Kane Global custodians failed to raise their game in the past year. According to R&M's annual global custody client satisfaction survey, only three firms were regarded as having improved their services with an increased...