epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from April 2004

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from April 2004

News: Commodities in favour as SSgA plans launch.
April 12, 2004... Investment managers are looking to market commodities products as pension funds turn increasingly to the asset class. Among them are State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) and Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM). Alistair Lowe, head of SSgA's...

News: Barclays and Vanguard scoop 25% share of E10bn FFR deal.
April 12, 2004... After an eight-month wait the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the E16bn French pensions reserve fund, has awarded E10bn of bond and equity mandates to 16 asset managers, with two non-French houses scooping the largest single share of...

News: Dutch funds back to double digits.
April 12, 2004... Dutch corporate pension funds reported strong returns for 2003, on the back of improved equity markets, averaging 10.7% for the year. Industry-wide funds had similarly strong results with 11.4%. And ABP, Europe's largest fund, began to...

News: US stock market could fall by 50%, says GMO.
April 12, 2004... Investors have experienced only the first leg of the bear market and US equities could fall by up to 50%. That is the chilling prediction by Jeremy Grantham, founding partner of value investor, GMO, which has looked at patterns of...

News: RCP shows shift into bonds.
April 12, 2004... German and Austrian institutional investors are shunning equities in favour of bonds, according to a survey by RCP & Partners, a German-based consultant. The survey showed that in 2003 investors reduced their equity holdings by 2.2...

News: ATP to shift E1.75bn into equities.
April 12, 2004... ATP, the E35.35bn Danish Labour Market Pension Scheme, is to increase its exposure to equities by E1.75bn in 2004 and by almost E10bn in the long term. The Danish fund, which posted returns of 8.2% last year, up from -3% in 2002, currently...

News: VPK vows to double SRI holdings.
April 12, 2004... Vereinigte Pensionskasse (VPK), Austria's largest pension fund, is planning to double its exposure to socially responsible investments this year to E400m. The E1.9bn scheme, which also recently said it intended to up its equity holdings,...

News: News in Brief - Konrad takes ASIP chair.
April 12, 2004... The Swiss pension fund association, ASIP, has named Hanspeter Konrad, former head of pensions and benefits at Swiss industrial group Sulzer, as its new chairman and technical adviser. The appointment was effective from 1 April 2004. ...

News: News in Brief - Norway not hot property.
April 12, 2004... Returns from Norwegian property rose to 7.8% last year, from 6.8% in 2002, but remained the worst performing asset class in the country, according to property performance measurement company, IPD. A strong showing from the office and retail...

News: News in Brief - DeAM rolls out IAS service.
April 12, 2004... Frankfurt-based Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) is to offer a comprehensive International Accounting Standards (IAS) reporting service for the Spezialfonds it manages and administers. Spezialfonds are tax-efficient funds traditionally used by...

News: News in Brief - Morgan wins E30m mandate.
April 12, 2004... BVP Pensionskassen, the E1bn Austrian multi-employer pension fund, has awarded Morgan Stanley a E30m global convertibles mandate. The brief, which will be managed by Morgan's global convertibles portfolio team, will be 30% benchmarked...

News: NTGI enhances quant models.
April 12, 2004... Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI) is to develop the first quantitative model to overcome weaknesses of traditional momentum indicators in its enhanced indexation portfolios. It is working with the consultancy R-squared to develop...

News: State Street to roll out regional investor confidence indices.
April 12, 2004... State Street Associates (SSA), a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based subsidiary of State Street Corporation, intends to come to the market with regional investor confidence indices for North America, Europe and Asia. The move follows the launch of...

People on the move: Sullivan head at Mercer.
April 12, 2004... Mark Sullivan has been appointed head of international consulting at Mercer Human Resource Consulting. He takes over from Alastair Hunter, the firm's newly promoted UK retirement practice leader. Sullivan, who joined Mercer in 1988, is a...

People on the move: Wyatt welcomes Witt.
April 12, 2004... Jens Witt has joined Watson Wyatt from Aon Jauch & Hubener Consulting as managing consultant of the firm's Munich office. As a member of the Association of Actuaries in Germany and Austria, Witt has 30 years' experience advising organisations...

People on the move: GAM appoints Muller.
April 12, 2004... GAM has appointed Reinhard Muller as managing director and head of its institutional and intermediary business. Muller (pictured), who joined at the start of the month from Deutsche Asset Management where he was a director responsible for...

People on the move: Dasher joins SEI.
April 12, 2004... SEI Investments has appointed Karl Dasher as chief investment officer and Greg Stahl as chief investment strategist. In his new role as CIO, Dasher will be responsible for leading the firm's investment management unit in the US, UK, Canada,...

News: Cominvest to offer hedge funds.
April 12, 2004... Cominvest Asset Management in Frankfurt is in negotiations with an unnamed hedge fund provider with a view to offering a fund of hedge funds and tailored hedge fund solutions to domestic institutional investors. Demand for 'comprehensive...

News: Hedge fund transparency needed.
April 12, 2004... Edhec Business School has issued a 32-page discussion paper aimed at improving fund of hedge fund reporting. The French-based research centre says that the lack of transparency of hedge funds is the last major obstacle to the industrialisation...

News: EU Watch.
April 12, 2004... The EU moved closer to an integrated market for investment management services at the end of last month. This follows parliament's adoption of a draft directive allowing investment managers to operate anywhere in the union on the basis of their...

News Analysis: Dutch funds turn in more than 10%.
April 12, 2004... Dutch corporate pension funds reported 2003 results in line with their industry-wide colleagues, as the sector's so-called z-scores - measuring management performance - continued to improve. The Netherlands' two largest funds, ABP and PGGM,...

Comment: Leader - Taking note of currency plays.
April 12, 2004... In this issue of epn, also our 150th, we try to open up an area of debate or two. When it comes to asset allocation, it has been evident in recent years that few funds have taken currency into account. When you look at the corporate world,...

Comment: World View - Risk back on the agenda.
April 12, 2004... Few investors have been concerned with risk of late. Even the CEBO volatility index VIX was recording multi-year lows as the rally in the equity market continued. Only currency markets appeared to provide some reason for worry as the US...

Comment: Industry Voice - Risk: optimism triumphs over experience.
April 12, 2004... For most things in life, I like to think that my glass is half full, rather than half empty. But when it comes to investing, it pays not to get too carried away. If things look too good to be true, they generally are. It seems to me that there...

Comment: Mephisto.
April 12, 2004... Mephisto would not normally have many unkind words for the Dutch. On the contrary: the owners of Europe's most robust and healthy retirement system, while not immune to the problems that plague others, are to be commended for doing the right...

Focus: Asset allocation - The tactical game.
April 12, 2004... "Bob Litterman says he is more in the Netherlands than in Washington at the moment," volunteers Ruud Hendriks, head of continental European institutional business development at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM). And why is Litterman, the...

Focus: Asset allocation - Why TAA needs a space of its own.
April 12, 2004... Tactical asset allocation (TAA) has been one of those 'stray dog' investment strategies that finds favour once in a while before being chased out of town in disgrace. Just ask yourself how many consistently high-profile TAA practitioners you...

Focus: Asset allocation - Do hedge funds aid strategic allocation?
April 12, 2004... Hedge funds have leapt to prominence in the current post-bubble equity markets. Institutional investors have caught up on the idea that in order to deliver future performance and meet obligations, it may be unavoidable to include absolute...

Research Update: Will pension reforms increase savings?
April 12, 2004... As Europe prepares for an ageing population, one of the key worries is that many countries are not prepared in terms of having set aside adequate resources to provide for the elderly. Those who advocate reform emphasise the gaps between what is...

Hedge Fund Profile: Bayes Capital - Equity funds: the tactical move.
April 12, 2004... Watson Wyatt is recommending that clients approach tactical asset allocation gradually. The consultancy suggests a commitment of only 10-20% of assets on the rationale that "this is new thinking and needs to be tested through experience". ...

Pensions Snapshot: Austria.
April 12, 2004... Pension fund assets in Austria jumped by almost 8% last year to E97bn and more than doubled the gains of the previous 12 months, according to statistics from Vereinigung Osterreichischer Investment-gesellschaften, the Austrian Investment...

News: BGI backs FRR claim of unbiased selection.
April 26, 2004... Barclays Global Investors, the largest single winner of the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites' (FRR) recent E10bn tender, has joined the fund in criticising reports that it discriminated against non-French houses. Since the 5 April...

News: FTK too strict on coverage ratio, says Dutch industry.
April 26, 2004... One of Europe's largest pension funds has criticised the Netherlands' new Financial Assessment Framework (FTK) for overly limiting schemes' flexibility. PGGM, the second largest fund in the country and in Europe, feels that the FTK -...

News: Equity demand on the wane.
April 26, 2004... Pensions funds are increasingly worried about holding equities, according to epn's latest quarterly investment survey. In the study, which polled 23 pension fund and investment managers, nearly 25% of respondents said they intend to cut their...

News: Big three to gain most from EU enlargement.
April 26, 2004... The economies of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic stand to benefit most from the enlargement of the European Union on 1 May, according to a new study by HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt in Dusseldorf. The study shows that for 2004 and 2005,...

News: Alternative holdings set to rise.
April 26, 2004... The demand for alternative investment products looks set to rise after nearly one-fifth of the respondents to epn's latest quarterly investment survey revealed that they intend to increase their exposure to the asset class over the next six...

News: Janus chief executive resigns.
April 26, 2004... Janus Capital Group, a US-based fund company, has announced the sudden resignation of chief executive Mark Whitson, as it continues to battle charges in the US that it was involved in improper trading practices. Whitson, 42, stepped down...

News: News in Brief - SRI attracts Danish funds.
April 26, 2004... Denmark's E10.7bn PKA and E4.8bn Magistrenes pension funds are to use SRI equity research provided by the UK's ethical investment organisation EIRIS and by Imug in Germany. The organisations have opted for software based on EIRIS' Ethical...

News: News in Brief - BVI publishes standards.
April 26, 2004... Germany's asset management association, the BVI, will publish standards for the confirmation of orders between asset managers, custodians and brokers. Rudolf Siebel, the BVI's managing director, told our sister publication, dpn, that the...

News: News in Brief - SWIP targets Dutch business.
April 26, 2004... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, the Edinburgh-based fund manager with E46bn under management, is to target institutional business in the Netherlands, where it has not managed institutional business for nearly five years. It has...

News: News in Brief - Mn wins SPW's E50m brief.
April 26, 2004... The E2.6bn pension fund for Dutch housing associations, SPW, and ASW, its administration arm, have appointed Mn Services to run a E50m international real estate mandate. The mandate will invest in a range of non-listed real estate funds. ...

News: Better hedge fund risk prediction.
April 26, 2004... Riskdata, the Paris-based risk monitoring company, has produced research that confirms the long-standing belief among many investment managers that hedge funds have to be treated as a distinct asset class in order to improve the quality of risk...

News: S&P sets up long/short equity index.
April 26, 2004... Standard & Poor's is to launch an Equity Long/Short Index that will expand on the five funds in its S&P Hedge Fund Index and add another 19. "Since the launch of our hedge fund index in October 2002, we have seen a tremendous surge in...

News: Paamco offers multi-strategy vehicle to European market.
April 26, 2004... Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company (Paamco), the Californian fund of hedge funds manager, has launched a new vehicle that will give European institutional investors access to its moderate multi-strategy approach with separate sterling...

News: Mezzanine debt rises to record E4.03bn.
April 26, 2004... The European mezzanine debt market increased by 16% last year to E4.03bn, according to research from independent mezzanine and private equity provider Mezzanine Management. The increase, the second largest after 2001, was bolstered by a...

News: BlueBay takes aim at European institutions.
April 26, 2004... BlueBay Asset Management, the London-based credit-specialist investment boutique with E1bn-worth of assets under management, is planning to boost its European marketing effort. It is to roll out capital protected vehicles based on its three...

People on the Move: Moneron joins F&C Paris.
April 26, 2004... F&C Management has appointed Bruno Moneron as director of its French operation. Moneron, who prior to joining F&C spent 12 years at JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management in Paris, will be responsible for developing the relationship with MAAF...

People on the Move: Loweth goes up at AXA.
April 26, 2004... AXA Investment Managers has promoted Nigel Loweth, previously head of UK institutional sales, to director of global consultant relations, where he will work with Joanna Munro, head of global consultant relations and UK institutional business...

People on the Move: UBS puts Sotorp on US.
April 26, 2004... UBS has appointed Kai Sotorp, former head of UBS Global Asset Management, Asia Pacific to head up its Americas business. Christof Kutscher will assume Sotorp's previous role and both Sotorp and Kutscher will report to John Fraser, chairman and...

People on the Move: McNulty chairs EquiLend.
April 26, 2004... Kevin McNulty, managing director of European and Asian securities lending for Barclays Global Investors, has been elected chairman of the board of EquiLend Europe, which is developing a global platform for the automation of securities lending...

Comment: leader - Investors eye up the emerging tiger.
April 26, 2004... Setting out on the course of pension reform is a tricky path for governments, but it is an absolute necessity in most western democracies. The argument is familiar: it is impossible for the working generation to fund the living standards to...

Comment: World View - Inflation creeps up on us.
April 26, 2004... Inflation, the forgotten beast from the past, could become a concern for financial markets again. Even though central bankers and investors seem unconcerned and are talking about deflation returning to the fore in 2005. But it is important...

Comment: Industry Voice - Not enough skill to meet demand.
April 26, 2004... Institutional interest in alternative investments has never been stronger. Pension consultants now recommend hedge funds in their asset allocation models. This is a significant secular change, which should provide more efficient portfolio...

Comment: Mephisto.
April 26, 2004... Mephisto notes with interest the lengths to which investment managers, consultants and other members of the institutional investment community will go to gain awards - the sort that usually come with a gala black tie dinner, a celebrity compere...

EPN Quarterly Investment Survey: Equity markets face decline in confidence.
April 26, 2004... Investors are growing increasingly worried about holding equities, according to the results of epn's latest quarterly investment survey. In our most recent study, which took in 23 pension funds and investment managers with E3.7 trillion-worth...

EPN Quarterly Investment Survey: Managers to increase currency hedges and alternatives.
April 26, 2004... Almost 60% of investors polled in our latest quarterly investment survey said they apply a currency hedge to their portfolios and, of those that did not, more than 42% revealed that they intend to in the future. The results, which are...

Special Focus: The Netherlands - Falling in line.
April 26, 2004... The Netherlands, which has arguably the strongest second-pillar in the industrialised world, has for some time now been ahead of the pack when it comes to pensions. It seems ironic, then, that the country should find it so difficult to...

Special Focus: The Netherlands - Dutch funds benefit from move out of equities.
April 26, 2004... The Dutch faith in equities of late has been almost messianic. Despite leading to a sector-wide funding gap in the autumn of 2002, the vast majority of funds kept buying equities throughout that year - and even more so in 2003 as markets began...

Special Focus: The Netherlands - A framework for Dutch pension funds.
April 26, 2004... Pity the PVK. The Dutch pension and insurance watchdog has a thankless task. The funds it oversees are among the healthiest in Europe, and yet perhaps because of that achievement they are growing increasingly impatient with the PVK's regulatory...

Hedge Fund Profile: Arrow Voyageur - Arrow on hedge fund voyage.
April 26, 2004... Arrow Hedge Partners' Voyageur Fund was launched to focus on and build a diversified portfolio of high quality, talented early stage equity long/short hedge fund managers. Arrow follows a dynamic and iterative process in constructing the Arrow...

Pension Fund Profile: FRR - FRR insists merit was only criteria.
April 26, 2004... After eight months of deliberation, the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the E16bn French pensions reserve fund, has awarded E10bn-worth of bond and equity mandates to 11 firms. Despite criticism that the award favoured local players,...

Pensions Snapshot: Spain.
April 26, 2004... Spain reformed the rules governing its corporate and private pension system in February, shortly before Jose Maria Aznar's centre-right administration was voted out after the Madrid bombings. The promise of greater employer influence over...