epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from August 2007

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from August 2007

News: Blue Sky ponders move to hedge fund replication.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Blue Sky Group, manager of the KLM pension funds, is investigating the possibility of incorporating hedge fund replication into its investment portfolios. The company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of KLM's...

News: Randstad considers taking fiduciary route.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt The 400m Randstad staff pension fund is considering hiring an external fiduciary manager, according to its director, Raimond Schikhof. Mr Schikhof said that diversification would always be a challenge in a...

News: Prepare for Dutch fiduciary dominance.
August 13, 2007... Fiduciary services will eventually become the only route into the Dutch pensions market, according to Olof Konst, Mr Konst, whose company is a minnow in the Dutch institutional market alongside many local and international giants, believes...

News: JPMorgan cuts another 12 funds from PPM system.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Caroline Liinanki JPMorgan has slashed another 12 funds from the Swedish national premium pension system (PPM) in response to the platform's new fee structure. The cuts follow the axing of 12 funds at the end of May and leave...

News: Lindgren exit sparks Pimco Nordic head hunt.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands Pimco, the US bond house, is on the hunt for a Nordic director of business development following the departure of Peter Lindgren. Mr Lindgren, who has been director of business development for the region since...

News in Brief: London scheme looks for specialist currency manager.
August 13, 2007... The London Borough of Tower Hamlets pension fund has put out to tender for a specialist currency mandate of between GBP100m (148m) to GBP500m. The council pension fund said the mandate may also include a passive currency overlay. The...

News: SocGen unveils Ucits product.
August 13, 2007... Societe Generale Asset Management Alternative Investments (SGAM AI) has launched its first Ucits III compliant mutual fund under French law that seeks a risk/return profile related to global hedge funds. Strategically, the fund will try to...

News is Brief: International expansion drives strong first half for SWIP.
August 13, 2007... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has seen strong growth in the first half of this year following the expansion of its international business. The fund manager's profits in the first six months of the year went up by 24 per cent to...

News: Unigestion poaches SocGen's Ekengren in new Nordic focus.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands Unigestion, the Geneva-based asset management house, has poached Gunnar Ekengren from Societe Generale Asset Management to become its Scandinavian head. The firm has also hired Serge Houles from Risk and Portfolio...

News: Danske Captial looks to rebuild team following post-merger exits.
August 13, 2007... Danske Capital in Finland is on the hunt for researchers for its Eastern Europe team following the departure of three portfolio managers. The search comes in the wake of Danske Bank's acquisition of the Sampo Group in February, which saw...

News: People on the Move - Connell to head up LDI at ABN Amro.
August 13, 2007... Schroders has poached Andrew Connell from ABN Amro to join as head of liability-driven investment (LDI). Mr Connell will be responsible for developing LDI, including the pooled LDI product Schroder Matching Plus, which was launched in April. At...

News: People on the Move - Stockley grabs global cash at BGI.
August 13, 2007... Barclays Global Investors (BGI) has appointed Mark Stockley as head of global cash sales. He will oversee BGI's global sales teams in London, San Francisco and Hong Kong. Mr Stockley has been with BGI for two years and was most recently head of...

News: People on the Move - McElvanney joins Hewitt UK consulting team.
August 13, 2007... Hewitt has appointed Robert McElvanney to its UK investment consulting team. Mr McElvanney joins from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked as an investment consultant. He began his career at Britannia Life and is a qualified actuary. Mr...

News: People on the Move - Yong-Moon rises at Credit Suisse.
August 13, 2007... Credit Suisse has poached Yong-Moon Kim from Mirae Asset Global Investment Management in Hong Kong to head its global equities team. Mr Kim will lead a team of portfolio managers based in Zurich to manage the funds invested in the global...

News: People on the Move - Sloan to manage property at UBS Global Asset Management.
August 13, 2007... Roddy Sloan has joined UBS Global Asset Management as global head of real estate fund of funds and securities. Mr Sloan will lead a global real estate fund of funds initiative as well as supervising the global real estate securities business,...

News: People on the Move - Naish heads up SWIP's real estate investments.
August 13, 2007... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Malcolm Naish as head of property. He will join the firm in October and will report to Andrew November, CIO fixed income and property. SWIP has also added Haseeb Hassan and Mark...

News: People on the Move - Richardson steps up to actuarial director role at HSBC.
August 13, 2007... HSBC Actuaries and Consultants has recruited Colin Richardson as actuarial director to its pension consulting practise in Manchester. Mr Richardson joins from KPMG, where he was a director, and was prior to that a partner at Barnett Waddingham....

News: People on the Move - Spenner takes on IAM CEO post after Fuss.
August 13, 2007... International Asset Management (IAM) has announced that Morten Spenner has taken over as CEO from Albert Fuss. Mr Spenner joined the firm in 2003 from Putnam Lovell and has been working with Mr Fuss in a strategic, planning and advisory role....

News: MSIM makes push for UK pensions market - One-stop-shop DPAA product aims to cater to schemes' taste for alternatives.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Kalpana Fitzpatrick Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) is making a push for the UK pensions market with its diversified portfolio allocation strategy (DPAA), which aims to provide a one-stop-shop for schemes interested in...

News: Anglo Saxon hands-off approach losing out to stricter regime.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt The loose registration-style systems for authorising pension schemes in Anglo-Saxon countries appear to be on their way out in favour of stricter licensing regimes. This is the view of Juan Yermo, who works on...

News: Joint venture prepares for Eastern assault.
August 13, 2007... Macquarie Bank and Renaissance Capital have entered a joint venture to develop infrastructure advisory and fund management opportunities in Russia and former Eastern bloc countries. The play will be Macquarie's first venture inside the...

News Analysis: Equity strength sees deficits cut to GBP21bn.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Though improving markets have lent defined benefit (DB) schemes a helping hand worldwide, the world's largest corporate pension schemes are posting large aggregate deficits. However, high average levels of...

News Analysis: UK managers still close to home.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Even as the UK asset management industry spreads its wings abroad, only a minority of the country's asset managers have a primarily foreign client base. This is one of the results of this year's survey of the...

Switzerland: Swiss investors challenge rule book.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Michael Lennert Most Swiss institutional investors are no longer happy with the BVG investment guidelines. About 80 per cent are making use of the so-called extension clause of the investment guidelines rule 59 BVV2. This was...

130/30 Funds: Why pay more? 130/30 starts to prove its worth.
August 13, 2007... Byline: James Hand In the last three years, hedge fund assets have doubled to an impressive $2trn (1.46trn) and the rents in London's Mayfair reflect the success this has conferred on hedge fund companies and partners around the world. One...

Defined Contribution in Italy: Overcoming ignorance.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Marcello Marchese Traditionally, the comprehensive nature of the social security system in Italy, combined with a mandatory termination indemnity (TFR), meant that the scope for supplementary pension arrangements was limited. Only...

Pensions Snapshot: United Kingdom.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Iain Morse This is a big year for the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). The PPF has had a mixed reception since its founding in April 2005, but pension industry opinion towards it is improving and this year the PPF's profile looks set...

Comment: Leader - Where is the fun when all the deficits are gone?
August 13, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands, editor So how will the market, and indeed the trade press, cope when there are no more pension deficits? Badly, one suspects. Headlines such as "British Airways in pension surplus shock" will not keep journalists'...

Comment: World View - Banks calm in face of bursting bubble.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk The bursting of the last economic bubble claimed countless small and midsized companies. And the end of the crisis was marked by the bankruptcy of a major large cap company - Enron. However, the current...

Comment: Industry Voice - Cost of corruption outweighs benefits.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Karina Litvack The latest report by the World Bank on global corporate governance practices presents a mixed picture. On the one hand, it shows that a significant number of emerging countries have been taking the right steps...

Comment: We're all going on a summer holiday.
August 13, 2007... Summer brings with it the chance to unwind. Today's is the last issue of epn for a month, giving Mephisto and his colleagues the chance to pull down the shutter of epn Towers and slink off into the far reaches of the wide world. Strange that...

Belgian Pensions Law: Belgium hits back after Dutch jitters.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Anke Claasen When Belgium unveiled its plans to attract foreign pension funds, the Dutch government reacted nervously. Philip Neyt, former head of the Belgacom pension fund and the driving force behind the new Belgian pensions law,...

Belgian Pensions Law: The dangers of a one-size-fits-all mentality.
August 13, 2007... Philip Neyt thinks the new Financial Assessment Framework in the Netherlands betrays a one-size-fits-all mentality. He thinks this is dangerous. "The Dutch FTK was born of a panic reaction. The markets were doing badly and so they swiftly...

UK Regulation: Two heads are better than one in UK shake-up.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Iain Morse The Deregulatory Review of Private Pensions, authored by Chris Lewin and Ed Sweeney, makes for interesting reading. There is more realism here than in many pronouncements on the subject of pensions from UK politicians....

Fund Profile: Randstad Holdings - How to cater for the flighty investor.
August 13, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Running a pension fund with membership turnover above 200 per cent, average contribution periods of less than a year, and untraceable members sounds unappealing. For Raimond Schikhof, director of Randstad...