epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from April 2005

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from April 2005

News: Dutch regulator to block cuts to contributions.
April 11, 2005... The Netherlands pension fund regulator, the Dutch National Bank (DNB) is to draw up rules to prevent funds from cutting member contributions too heavily. The proposed rules will impose a cap on discounts to prevent a repeat of the...

News: S&P hedge fund index posts negative return.
April 11, 2005... S&P's hedge fund index turned in 0.55 per cent last month to produce a negative year-to-date return of -0.20 per cent. Much of the underperformance was due to disappointing results from the firm's directional/tactical (-0.86%), arbitrage...

News: BGI adds euro and alpha products.
April 11, 2005... Barclays Global Investors is to extend its pooled liability matching product to include a euro-denominated fund to match eurozone price inflation, and will create a flexible overlay product to allow pension funds to apply portable alpha...

News: JPMorgan Fleming focuses on fund deficits.
April 11, 2005... Consultants are divided over how European corporate pension plans can claw their way out of an increasingly worrying deficit hole. According to the latest survey by JPMorgan Fleming (JPMF), European corporate schemes need to increase by at...

News: Danish lawyer and economist fund forced out of high-yield debt.
April 11, 2005... Juristernes og Okonomernes Pensionskasse, the E3.5bn Danish lawyers and economists' pension fund, is set to unload all of its high-yield bond holdings and move the bulk of that surplus into European equities, amid fears that sub-investment...

News: 'Clear communicator' Shuttleworth dies aged 47.
April 11, 2005... John Shuttleworth, actuary and partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers and a well- known and respected figure in the UK pensions market, has died. Mr Shuttleworth, 47, who joined the firm at the age of 25 and was made a partner just six years...

News: News in brief.
April 11, 2005... VANGUARD LAUNCHES PARIS AND AMSTERDAM OFFICES Vanguard Investments has increased its European presence with the opening of offices in Paris and Amsterdam, and is now looking to expand its business in the Nordic region. The Paris move...

News: CSAM offers tax-efficient US equities funds to their existing clientele.
April 11, 2005... Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has launched two new index-linked funds aimed at Swiss pension schemes. CSAM's Institutional Fund US Index pension vehicle and its Institutional Fund US Large Cap index are exclusively available to...

News: MMAM to expand its multi-manager portfolio.
April 11, 2005... Multi-manager specialist MM Asset Management is set to launch a global opportunities fund towards the end of the second half of this year. The new fund is intended to sit alongside the firm's range of multi-manager funds and will initially...

News: ABP leads European compensation moves in wake of Shell/Royal Dutch Petroleum overstatement of reserves.
April 11, 2005... ABP, Europe's largest pension fund, is in talks with Shell/Royal Dutch Petroleum to receive an unspecified amount of financial compensation. The talks will focus on the drop in the oil company's share price after it overstated the extent...

News: Shell pension fund tops Netherlands performance league with 12% return; 2004 returns range from 4.1% to 16.1%.
April 11, 2005... Dutch company pension fund returns varied from 4.1 per cent to 16.1 per cent in 2004 according to figures published by the Opf umbrella organisation in The Hague. Shell topped the bill with the highest performance. The best returns were...

News: People on the move.
April 11, 2005... DE WIT TO HEAD F&C FIXED-INCOME TEAM F&C Asset Management has appointed Jacob De Wit as head of fixed income. The move follows the decision by Helene Williamson, the firm's current head, to focus on investment management and to take on the...

News: Iceland funds consolidate as cost-saving trend continues.
April 11, 2005... Following a radical overhaul of the pensions industry the number of pension funds in Iceland is set to fall dramatically. Just 20 years ago, there used to be a fund for every 3,000 people. Now many Reykjavik-based pension fund managers...

News: Etera delays launch of hedge fund strategy.
April 11, 2005... Etera, the E4.9bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, has decided to postpone its decision to invest in hedge funds. Ari Korhonen, CIO at the fund, told epn that Etera is still, however, examining hedge funds as a possible means to...

News: Trafalgar and US-partner launch pan-Euro hedge.
April 11, 2005... London-based investment manager Trafalgar Capital Management has teamed up with US alternative specialists, the Fairfield Greenwich Group, to launch a pan-European hedge fund. The Trafalgar Advanced fund is a leveraged version of the...

News: PP Pension loses battle to diversify further into property; fund forced to drive property holdings below 25% mark.
April 11, 2005... Sweden's SKr6bn (E650m) industry-wide pension fund for the media has lost its battle to hold more than 25 per cent of assets in property. PP Pension, formerly Pressens Pensionskassa, was forced to sell houses and offices to keep in line...

News: Finnish funds to get law reform makeover.
April 11, 2005... The ministry of social affairs and health has set up an inquiry to assess the need for reforms on laws covering pension funds and insurance companies. Matti Louekoski, director at the Bank of Finland, leads the inquiry, which is expected...

News:Bank calls for 'patriotism' and strategic vision in investment choice.
April 11, 2005... Pentti Hakkarainen, executive director at the Bank of Finland, has called for Finnish pension institutions to adopt a more patriotic and long-sighted investment strategy. "Finnish pension institutions should consider broadening their...

News Analysis: UK treasury unveils Reit vehicle, but no sign whether investors will take the bait.
April 11, 2005... The UK government formally announced the introduction of real estate investment trusts (Reits) as part of this year's budget announcement. As long as there are no costs to the exchequer, the treasury's discussion paper noted, the...

Comment: Leader - Anyone want to buy a pensions liability?
April 11, 2005... The shenanigans surrounding the sale of Britain's last remaining volume auto manufacturer, MG Rover, have preoccupied the UK press in recent weeks. The company is in talks over a joint venture with the Chinese carmaker Shanghai Automotive...

Comment: World View - Greenback up, euro down?
April 11, 2005... Financial markets are often about history and too often about forgetting old lessons. It has always proved good advice to follow the trend: as the saying goes, "the trend is your friend". This simple truth, however, never tells you when it is...

Comment: Industry Voice - New options for hedge funds.
April 11, 2005... Germany's Investment Modernisation Act came into force at the start of 2004 and opened up vital new investment possibilities to German investors - hedge fund investments being the most widely publicised ones. The law also widened fund...

Comment: Mephisto - Give the little devil his cheese and pickle sandwich, or else!
April 11, 2005... Nobody understands better than Mephisto the importance of good publicity, but even he had to raise an eyebrow when he came across an example of F&C's strategy to secure high-quality media coverage. While waiting in the lobby of the firm's...

Statistics: Dutch pension fund returns 2004.
April 11, 2005... Returns 2004 The average return of the Dutch pension funds in the WM Universe was 9.9 per cent in 2004, a figure that approached 2003's return of 10.7 per cent. The 1.2 per cent rise in consumer prices into account left a real return of...

Research: The need for a hybrid alpha fund.
April 11, 2005... Investit has recently completed a detailed study of the effects of running hedge funds within established fund management companies, interviewing investment management companies, pension fund consultants, and fund-of-hedge- fund managers, as...

Special Focus: Nordic Region - High yield: testing the wind.
April 11, 2005... Danish pension and insurance funds have a problem. Like many other investors, they have been hit by declining yields and decreasing returns in the high- yield bond market. But unlike the majority of European schemes - particularly other Nordic...

Special Focus: Nordic Region - Danish high-yield holdings.
April 11, 2005... Although no official statistics exist to show how much Danish pension and insurance schemes allocate to high-yield bonds, estimates from local funds, investment managers and consultants put that figure at somewhere between five and ten per...

Special Focus: Nordic Region - The default rate question.
April 11, 2005... While Danish funds continue to reduce their exposure to high-yield bonds on the back of dramatic spread tightening, the latest default research from Moody's Investors Service, which shows the monthly global speculative default rate increasing...

Special Focus: Nordic Region - Funds take mixed view on private equity.
April 11, 2005... A study by the Stockholm Centre for Risk Research has predicted that Nordic institutional investors are likely to bolster their private equity portfolios in the future. The study analysed the investment strategies of more than 100 institutional...

Fund Profile: Finnish Seamen's Fund - Steering a profitable course.
April 11, 2005... Finland's seamen's pension fund (MEK), which provides cover for seamen of the Finnish merchant marine and icebreaker fleet, enjoyed a second year of encouraging returns last year with an annual return of 7.9 per cent on assets totalling E560m....

Pensions Snapshot: Spain.
April 11, 2005... Spanish consultants are divided over the impact of recent pension fund reforms. Despite predictions of a major invasion of foreign asset managers into the market following a liberalisation of pension fund investments, the collapse of the...