epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from December 2006

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from December 2006

News: ATP to explore external portable alpha strategies.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Liam Kennedy ATP, the 50bn Danish labour market pension fund, is looking to add portable alpha strategies within its dedicated alpha portfolio. "In external alpha we are going to go out and actively, within an alpha framework...

News: Lansforsakringar aims for 20% in alternatives.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Reeta Cevik Lansforsakringar, the 12.4bn Swedish pension insurance company, is to expand its alternatives portfolio from 7 per cent to 20 per cent of total assets over the next four years. Hans Sterte, CIO of Lansforsakringar,...

News: Semaya takes over from Williams at BGI.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt Nigel Williams, chief executive for Europe and Asia ex-Japan for Barclays Global Investors, is to retire in mid-2007. He will be replaced by David Semaya, president and chief executive of BGI Japan Trust and Banking....

News: Nordic investors place faith in equities over fixed income.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Chris Newlands More than two-thirds of leading Nordic investors polled by our sister publication Nordic Region Pensions & Investment News (nrpn) intend to increase their exposure to equities over the next six months, and more than...

News: Italian pension funds hold breath for TFR asset boost.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt Italy's sector pension funds could receive a boost if a law on pensions currently before parliament is passed before the end of the year. The Finance Act, which will affect the way statutory pension...

News: A positive perspective needed on SRI issues.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt Investors should see socially responsible investment (SRI) as a positive tool of engagement rather than as an exclusively negative screening process, believes Ashmore, the London-based top-down emerging markets...

News: News in Brief - Aberdeen sets up shop in the Grand Duchy.
December 4, 2006... Aberdeen Asset Managers has opened an institutional business development and client servicing office in Luxembourg. Nigel Storer will head the office, which has been opened in response to the growth in Aberdeen's continental European...

News: News in Brief - ETFs being used for equities.
December 4, 2006... Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are carving out a central role for themselves in the institutional space, with more than half the respondents to a survey using or planning to use ETFs for equity investments. French business school Edhec's survey...

News: News in Brief - NAPF wants more simplification.
December 4, 2006... The UK's Pensions Bill does not go far enough down the road towards simplification, the National Association of Pension Funds has claimed. Designed partly to help women and carers, the bill links the basic state pension to earnings and makes...

News: News in Brief - Du Penhoat signs up at Hewitt.
December 4, 2006... Nicolas du Penhoat has left Robeco Asset Management to take up the role of head of investment consulting for France at Hewitt. Mr du Penhoat's career has included stints at AGF Asset Management, Axa Investment Managers and BTP Banque before he...

News: Metcalfe joins First State in push towards infrastructure.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt First State Investments has enticed Charlie Metcalfe away from Hermes to serve as its new chief executive, where he will develop an infrastructure investment business. Mr Metcalfe's strategy for First State...

News: Asset managers and pension funds must show return realism.
December 4, 2006... Asset managers have to make realistic promises to pension funds as trustees are under growing pressure to plug funding gaps, a consultant has claimed. Amin Rajan, chief executive of the UK think-tank Create, said: "Fund managers need to be...

News: People on the Move - Nichols taps charitable side in Pensions Trust move.
December 4, 2006... Stephen Nichols has been appointed chief executive of UK occupational pension fund The Pensions Trust with effect from 1 May 2007. Mr Nichols, who has been deputy chief executive of the trust since the beginning of 2002, has run pensions at...

News: People on the Move - Long-serving PWC partner promoted to global head post.
December 4, 2006... Marc Saluzzi, a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner of 10 years standing, has been appointed global head of the company's global investment management and real estate group. Mr Saluzzi will be based in Luxembourg and will head up PWC's assurance,...

News: People on the Move - Frantzmann takes Fidelity Germany head of sales job.
December 4, 2006... Fidelity Germany has appointed Hans-Jorg Frantzmann head of institutional sales. Working under Klaus Mossle, head of institutional business, Mr Frantzmann will be in charge of further developing Fidelity's institutional business and advising...

News: People on the Move - Lindqvist defects to Pramerica for Euro fixed income drive.
December 4, 2006... Pramerica has poached Peter Lindqvist from Threadneedle to lead the expansion of its institutional client fixed income business in Europe. Mr Lindqvist will be based in London and will be selling Pramerica's fixed income products in Europe and...

News: People on the Move - Seymour leads Henderson move to Spanish markets.
December 4, 2006... Henderson has appointed Alastair Seymour to head up its newly-opened Madrid office. He will serve as director of sales for Spain and Portugal. Mr Seymour arrives from Merrill Lynch, where he focused on selling mutual funds to Spanish-speaking...

News Analysis: European Commission proposes cutting red tape around alternatives.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Liam Kennedy The recent European Commission white paper on the Ucits regime has signalled a common private placement system to protect institutional investors from interference from national regulators in areas such as private...

News Analysis: Looking for a buyer in face of longer lives.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt Most pension funds would be happy to hedge out actuarial risk. The problem is finding a counterparty, consultants and hedge fund managers agree. It was claimed last month that London was set to emerge as the...

Focus: Real Estate - The property universe is set to explode.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Maik Rodewald It makes you feel as though you are in a gigantic shopping mall: never before have institutional investors acquired as much property worldwide as they have this year, and never have they acquired so much property...

Focus: Real Estate - Double your holdings.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Maik Rodewald epn: What is the real estate allocation that you, as an academic, would consider adequate? PE: Look at the working paper Investing for the Long-Run in European Real Estate by Carolina Fugazza, Massimo Guidolin and...

Focus: Real Estate - Fighting to fill the space.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Dirk Molenaar Many property companies worldwide could, in theory, just sit back and enjoy the profits. Rent appreciation in major prime locations, such as Paris, Manhattan, London's West End and Madrid is currently so strong that...

Accounting Standards: Recognising an accounting revolution.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Stephen Bouvier The International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) tentative decision in favour of immediate recognition, in profit and loss, of defined benefit (DB) pension costs has been called "evolution rather than...

Accounting Standards: Complex issues leads to extensive board debate.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Stephen Bouvier Special wages tax is "maybe more complex than [we] originally gave it credit for," said Phil Ameen, a member of the IFRIC, recently. His comments came as the International Financial Reporting Interpretations...

Fund Profile: Trentino-South Tyrol PensPlan - Preparing to trek across the Alps to Germany.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt Elsewhere in Europe, talk may be of pan-European pension pooling, but the North Italian region of Trentino-South Tyrol's PensPlan has more local ambitions, contenting itself with crossing the Alps into Germany. ...

Comment: World View - Could the Asian consumer help Japan?
December 4, 2006... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk At the beginning of the year, Japan appeared to be the preferred investment region for most investors in developed markets. Numerous publications featured reasons why Japan should be the equity market in which to...

Comment: Industry Voice - Gradual process to end the DC lottery.
December 4, 2006... Byline: John Nugee Many private sector pension plan sponsors have decided they can no longer afford the risks and costs of defined benefit (DB) schemes, and have replaced them with defined contribution (DC) funds that will provide smaller...

Comment: Fingers burned on hellish contract.
December 4, 2006... Sometime in the sixteenth century, Mephisto invented the human souls futures market with a diabolically clever trade. A client - confidentiality rules oblige us to call him simply the Doctor - was tired of philosophy, law and sadly theology...

Interview: ATP - Striving to thrive with unfettered alpha and beta.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Liam Kennedy One of the biggest mistakes in the investment world, says Fredrik Martinsson, ATP's CIO for alpha assets, is the over-emphasis on alpha as opposed to beta. "If you think about the endless literature covering the alpha...

Pensions Snapshot: The Netherlands.
December 4, 2006... Byline: Thomas Escritt The breakneck pace of regulatory change in the Netherlands has left pension funds in need of a breather, according to a joint letter from the country's three pension fund associations. In the letter, Benne van...