epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from December 2005

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from December 2005

News: Shunning social issues may lead to litigation.
December 5, 2005... Pension funds which fail to include environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into investment management decisions could face negligence claims according to a report from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer on behalf of United Nations...

News: Germans and Norwegians target Folkeborsen.
December 5, 2005... Folkeborsen, the Danish electronic pension savings platform launched in January 2005, is attracting interest from companies in Norway and Germany "Companies from Norway visited us to see if they could also use Folkeborsen as a general...

News: Turner's NPSS vision.
December 5, 2005... But this push for ultra-low costs has upset the market. "The proposals present a genuine threat to the provision of financial advice to individuals by introducing a target level annual charge of 0.3 per cent," Steve Folkard, head of pensions...

News: Kempen prepares to sign up first fiduciary client.
December 5, 2005... Kempen Capital Management in the Netherlands expects to double its E7bn in assets under management within five years with revenues to its new fiduciary management product. Jan Bertus Molenkamp, who joined Kempen in November this year from...

News: Fortis unveils new multi-management arm.
December 5, 2005... Fortis Investments has announced the launch of a multi management arm in co- operation with its commercial and private banking operations. The new division, Fortis Multi Management, will operate independently from Amsterdam and London, with a...

News in brief: EC to take action against pan-Euro directive infringers.
December 5, 2005... The European Commission will start infringement procedures against member states that have not notified the Commission of their implementation of the pan-European occupational pension fund directive, or who have given it a notification on...

News in brief: ABP claims it wil reach cover target by year-end.
December 5, 2005... ABP, the pension fund for Dutch civil servants, expects to obtain the required cover ratio set out by the new financial framework (FTK) by the end of 2006, even though FTK has been postponed until 2007. The new recovery plan by the ABP shows...

News in brief: Ruijgrok to take over at TNO after Ballegooijen retirement.
December 5, 2005... Erik van Ballegooijen, director of the Dutch TNO pension fund with E1.7bn under management, has announced he will retire on 1 January 2006. Mr van Ballegooijen is a well-known figure in the Dutch pensions industry. Joop Ruijgrok has been...

News in brief: Belgian trade unions object to retirement age increase.
December 5, 2005... Belgian trade unions have yet again agreed to demonstrate in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels this month in protest against the government's intention raise the age for early retirement. Many Belgians have the opportunity to retire at 58, but...

News: ABP's Straatman becomes latest to leave Dutch shores.
December 5, 2005... Jan Straatman, chief investment officer for capital markets at ABP Investments, has left the fund to become CIO at the Pearl Group, a closed life fund company with E277bn of assets under management. The move follows a flurry of senior transfers...

People on the move: Larsen takes on risk at Danish labour scheme.
December 5, 2005... ATP, the Danish labour market pension scheme, has appointed Henrik Olejasz Larsen as chief risk officer. Mr Larsen joins ATP from Carnegie Bank, where he was head of structured finance.

People on the move: Eyre is the new man of principal at Mercers.
December 5, 2005... Mercer Human Resource Consulting has appointed Peter Eyre as a principal. Based in London, he will provide pensions and employee benefits advice to global company head offices and their overseas subsidiaries. He joins from Watson Wyatt, where...

People on the move: Schurmann in charge of relationship building at Robeco.
December 5, 2005... Fernand Schurmann has joined Robeco Asset Management as head consultant relations. It will be his direct responsibility to build on the existing relationships between Robeco and investment consultants on a European level. Mr Schurmann was...

People on the move: Penfold added to ranks at Watson Wyatt consulting.
December 5, 2005... Watson Wyatt has appointed Robin Penfold into its growing investment consulting team. Mr Penfold leaves Russell Investment after 11 years, during which time he held a number of positions. He has UK and US experience including risk budgeting,...

People on the move: Maarek brought in for new Edhec research centre.
December 5, 2005... Edhec has appointed Gerard Maarek as senior economic adviser to work in its new economic research centre. Mr Maarek will advise Edhec on the orientation of its research work in economics and participate in validating the results of its research...

People on the move: Darmanin makes switch to European pensions at BoNY.
December 5, 2005... The Bank of New York has appointed Robert Darmanin as head of European custody and pensions. Mr Darmanin moves from the investment management banking division where he headed up corporate finance activities and business development. Mr...

People on the move: Hammer hits home in Mercers retirement business.
December 5, 2005... Mercer Human Resource Consulting has appointed Mike Hammer as a principal within its retirement business. Based in London, he will provide actuarial and employee benefits advice to institutional clients. He joins from Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow,...

News: UK bodies appeal for auto-enrolment.
December 5, 2005... Research from the National Association of Pension Funds, a speech from government pensions minister Stephen Timms and the expected recommendation from Adair Turner on the new workplace pensions have sparked renewed interest in auto-enrolment...

News: Fears over buy and sellside effects and increasing costs means MiFID adoption faces another stumbling block.
December 5, 2005... Amid an equal mixture of fanfare and fear, the new Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) was adopted by the European Union in April 2004. Designed to replace the far-reaching provisions of the Investment Services Directive, which...

News Analysis: Swedish lessons for proposed new UK pension system.
December 5, 2005... The UK seems set to follow New Zealand's lead with its forthcoming KiwiSaver pension scheme and supplement the pay-as-you-go state system with a funded second pension. The UK scheme will probably involve contributions of 3 per cent each from...

Netherlands real estate: Dutch property heats up after cool period.
December 5, 2005... The allocation of Dutch retirement assets to real estate is certainly no longer what it once was (see figure one). Over the last six years, even though investment in real estate has increased in terms of overall assets, part of that increase is...

Focus: Review of the year: M&A activity - Asset managers come together.
December 5, 2005... It was only weeks before the curtain was raised on 2005 that Isis Asset Management announced the completion of its merger with F&C. That deal, which had been kick started some six months earlier, gave rise to a firm with assets in excess of...

Focus: Review of the year: Regulation - Reforms and broken promises.
December 5, 2005... Sweden Throughout 2006, the Swedish supervisory authority (FI) has focused on developing the traffic-light system, a new supervisory tool for measuring exposure to risk in life-insurance companies and occupational pension funds. ...

Focus: Review of the year: Fiduciary management - Dutch managers make the switch to fiduciary concept.
December 5, 2005... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Mn Services board chairman Ruud Hagendijk might look back on 2005 with these words. Despite increasing assets under management to E30bn for Dutch pension funds, the company also managed to...

Fund profile: Railways pension scheme - Painting a picture of rail fund's new track.
December 5, 2005... The former British Rail Pension Scheme was known for its investments in art, a strategy begun in 1975 as protection against inflation; retail price inflation in the previous year had been over 15 per cent. Eventually equalling around 3 per cent...

Pensions Snapshot: The Netherlands.
December 5, 2005... Next year will be one of big change for Dutch pension funds with a new pension law, including the FTK financial assessment framework, coming into force in January 2007. The much-vaunted postponement of the FTK came as no surprise to Dutch...

Pensions Snapshot: In brief.
December 5, 2005... - The concept of rating pension funds is growing in prominence in the Netherlands. One idea is to establish a similar rating system to that which applies to banks and insurance companies. Although industry experts are generally excited about...

Switzerland Supplement: The incalculable cost.
December 5, 2005... Is Switzerland out of touch with the rest of Europe? Is a nation famed for its banking acumen ignoring internal debts worth billions of francs? These questions hang like a Damoclean sword over the wealthy Alpine federation. The market...

Switzerland Supplement: How Swiss schemes are SFr130bn in the red: Morgan Stanley's assumptions.
December 5, 2005... Morgan Stanley began with the figure of SFr657bn for both assets and liabilities of Swiss occupational pension funds. It then divided the assets into pools of defined benefit and defined contribution (DC). On a nominal basis the split...

Switzerland Supplement: Fixed income investing free from interest rate fears.(Company Profile)
December 5, 2005... Banks have become increasingly willing to provide medium-term capital to their corporate borrowers since the late-1960s, partly because of the emergence of the eurodollar market. This market represented an enormous and reliable source of...