epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from December 2004

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from December 2004

News: Austrian VBV reveals details of new structure.
December 6, 2004... Austria's VBV-Pensionskasse, which emerged from the recent tie-up between pension fund giants BVP-Pensionskasse and Vereinigte Pensionskasse (VPK), has revealed its new structure. In line with expected changes to Austrian legislation, the...

News: Pensions to be part of the eurozone pact.
December 6, 2004... Ecofin, the European Council committee of member state finance ministers, has agreed to include pensions in the euro area's Stability and Growth Pact criteria. This follows a decision at an informal finance ministers' meeting to evaluate...

News: More than half of French institutional investors are committed to SRI.
December 6, 2004... More than 50% of French institutional investors have already committed to socially responsible investing, a new survey has revealed. According to the third annual report from Novethic, Amadeis and BNP Paribas Asset Management, 51% of...

News: Swedish guidelines.
December 6, 2004... Sweden's Finansinspektionen is to develop life insurance and pension fund solvency guidelines modelled on the early warning system introduced in Denmark in 2001 while it awaits a decision on its SOU 2003:84 solvency requirement proposal. This...

News: Stockholm move for Oppenheim.
December 6, 2004... Germany's leading real estate manager, the Wiesbaden-based Oppenheim Immobilien-Kapitalanlagegesellschaft (OIKAG), is likely to set up a subsidiary in Sweden, and may start offering its services to Swedish investors at an as yet unspecified...

News: In brief.
December 6, 2004... Man plans German FoHF Man Investments plans to roll out a fund of hedge funds for the German market, according to company officials. It has teamed up with Germany's Deka Group as a distribution partner. Man is also working on providing...

News: PFA hedge fund move.
December 6, 2004... PFA Pension, the E22bn Danish life insurance company, plans to increase its exposure high-yield and emerging market debt and will also increase its allocation to hedge funds, which currently make up less than 1% of total holdings. "We do...

News: Etera plans high yield exposure.
December 6, 2004... Etera, the E4.6bn Finish mutual insurance fund, is to increase its holdings in high-yield and emerging-market debt. It has also considered moves into hedge funds and overseas indirect real estate. The company insures employees in the...

News: Ilmarinen boosts equity allocation.
December 6, 2004... Ilmarinen, the E14.69bn Finish pension insurance player, is to raise its allocation to equities from roughly 26% of total assets to one-third. It is also looking to start investing in commodities. "Some of my team approached me last year...

News: People on the move.
December 6, 2004... Goossens at Schroders Hans Goossens has replaced Pieter van Daalen as country head, Benelux, at global asset manager Schroders. Goossens joins from Fidelity where he had overseen the Dutch arm of the American investment house for the past...

News: Baring sold on again - this time to MassMutual.
December 6, 2004... Dutch financial giant ING Group has sold Baring Asset Management to two US financial institutions amid claims of fund underperformance. ING has split BAM into two, and sold the investment management business to MassMutual Financial Group,...

News: BNP Paribas teams up with Fauchier.
December 6, 2004... French fund management giant BNP Paribas Asset Management has joined forces with hedge fund specialist Fauchier Partners to capitalise on the rising demand for alternative investments. The existing joint venture, BNP Paribas Fauchier...

News: Brummer offers unit-linked menu.
December 6, 2004... Swedish hedge fund group Brummer & Partners Life and Pensions is set to launch a unit-linked product designed to allow corporate pension schemes access to its range of hedge funds. Brummer, which only established its life and pensions arm...

Comment: Leader - Facing up to the eastern challenge.
December 6, 2004... In a little over nine months EU member states must implement the provisions of directive 2003/41/EC - better known as the EU occupational pension funds directive - into national legislation. As we reported in these pages, the EFRP issued a...

Comment: World View - Discounting markets.
December 6, 2004... Preoccupations with oil, energy and even gold prices have been overshadowed by new developments. Currently, it seems that only the relationship between the dollar, the euro and the yen is all important. European politicians appear to be...

Comment: Industry Voice - Long-lived woes.
December 6, 2004... One of the current jokes about actuaries goes something like this: "How can you tell the actuary in the room? He's the only one who doesn't look pleased at the news that people are living longer." While it is easy to laugh at the...

Comment: Mephisto.
December 6, 2004... Sampo, the Finnish insurance company, is bravely trying to revive Finland's corporate pensions sector with an advertising campaign that one senior pensions figure in Helsinki described to Mephisto as the first time he can remember such...

Age Discrimination Directive: The ADD: how will it affect pension arrangements?
December 6, 2004... In the next few months employers and administrators of pension schemes will need to consider what effect, if any, implementation of the age discrimination aspects of EU Directive 2000/78/EC will have on their pensions policy and scheme rules...

Special Focus: End of year review - Troubled waters.
December 6, 2004... The results of epn's August quarterly institutional investor survey picked up on two issues that were set to dominate market events in 2004: escalating oil prices and rising interest rates. But, while the majority of investors we polled -...

Special Focus: End of year review - Bumpy ride for hedge funds as investors sit on their hands.
December 6, 2004... It has been an up and down year for the hedge fund industry. Figures from Edhec Risk and Asset Management show that nine out of 13 hedge fund strategies lost money in April and May with convertible arbitrage, emerging markets and funds of funds...

Special Focus: End of year review - The year from the perspective of some of Europe's largest pension funds.
December 6, 2004... April - Barclays Global Investors, the largest single winner of the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites E16bn tender, joined the fund in criticising reports that FRR discriminated against non-French houses. The reserve fund came under fire...

Special Focus: End of year review - Funds flex their muscles.
December 6, 2004... Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat. The roll call of disgraced companies has echoed around the business pages over the past few years. In 2004 it was the turn of Shell. After sending an email to the company's chairman, Sir Philip Watts, in which...

Special Focus: End of year review - Desperately seeking alpha.
December 6, 2004... The search for alpha has intensified over the past few years as the equity markets have drifted sideways and since the beginning of this decade, Europe's pension funds have foraged further afield in search of higher returns. Using bonds as both...

Nordic Liability Valuation: Danish lessons prove tricky to understand.
December 6, 2004... While pension fund managers in the Netherlands and Sweden sweat over the likely supply problems and subsequent deterioration in prices, pension funds and life insurance companies in Denmark are sitting pretty. They have been marking their...

EPN Annual Index: epn stories from 2004.
December 6, 2004... Subject: Issue Special focus features Consultants: 144 (p12) UK: 145 (p12) Indices: 146 (p12) Eastern Europe: 147 (p12) Equity survey: 148 (p12) Nordic region: 149 (p12) Asset allocation: 150 (p12) The...

Pension Fund Profile: Etera - Maintaining a domestic bias.
December 6, 2004... Unlike many pension schemes and insurance companies in the Nordic region, Etera - the E4.6bn Finish mutual pension insurance player - was able to increase its exposure to equities during the 2001 and 2002 stock market fallout. While other...

Pensions Snapshot: Netherlands.
December 6, 2004... A letter of 2 September 2002 issued by the then PVK regulator first informed the Netherlands' pension foundations of a move to a new solvency regime. Now the new regulatory body, the Dutch National Bank (DNB), which merged with the PVK at...

Supplement: Exchange Traded Funds - Core/satellite strategies with exchange traded funds.
December 6, 2004... Since the long stock market boom ended in March 2000, a period of lower nominal growth in the global economy, lower corporate profits and lower investment returns with increased risk and volatility seems to have begun. Critical external...