epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from February 2004

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from February 2004

News: Fonchim re-tenders E800m.
February 2, 2004... Fonchim, the Italian E800m pension scheme for chemical workers, has re- tendered five mandates. Francesco Lorenzetti, finance director of Fonchim, said the previous tender had "too few responses". The fund is re-tendering its portfolio of...

News: German BVI issues new conduct regulations.
February 2, 2004... Germany's asset management association, the BVI, has revamped the country's code of conduct rules for asset managers to take into account market timing issues. These rules codify the provisions of the new Investment Modernisation Act,...

News: Hermes hires de Koning.
February 2, 2004... Hermes has appointed Peter de Koning as its institutional relations advisor in the Netherlands. He will support the London-based firm's corporate governance and shareholder engagement activities and help it to build closer working relationships...

News: Investors cut into corporate bond holdings despite outperformance.
February 2, 2004... The returns on corporate bond funds outstripped that of government funds in 2003, according to the results of Standard & Poor's latest European fixed income survey. But despite the sector's strong showing, the survey also found that the...

News: Chinese equities still strong with yields of 105%.
February 2, 2004... Chinese equities returned 105% last year, according to figures from The WM Company but, while some commentators believe that the economy looks set to take a tumble, asset managers are beefing up their exposure. Percival Stanion, chairman...

News: Italians not ready for GIPS.
February 2, 2004... Less than a third of asset managers in Italy adhere to the Italian version of Global Investment Presentation Standards (GIPS), according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers in Milan. The survey, the first to be carried out in Italy on...

News: Aima seeks clarity with EU.
February 2, 2004... The Alternative Investment Management Association (Aima), the global trade body for hedge funds, is seeking talks with the European Commission after hedge fund proposals passed by the European Parliament included what it called "misconceptions...

News: Universally most successful.
February 2, 2004... Universal Investments was the most successful German fund management administrator in 2003, with net capital inflows of E5.41bn. It also expects a further E5.1bn in new business in the first quarter of this year. The Frankfurt-based...

News: News In Brief - Watson focuses on Germany.
February 2, 2004... Watson Wyatt has intensified its push into the German market and has set up an insurance consulting team to be based in its new Munich office. The news comes just eight weeks after the firm recruited a team of 14 benefits consultants from...

News: News In Brief - Hedge funds at record high.
February 2, 2004... The global hedge fund industry marked record inflows in 2003, taking in an estimated US$60bn (E47bn) in net assets, according to preliminary estimates by TASS Research. The early data suggests US$15bn in net assets for the fourth quarter,...

News: News In Brief - Pimco hires Morley's Bentley.
February 2, 2004... Pimco has appointed Peter Bentley, formerly of Morley Fund Management, as vice president and manager of its UK corporate bond portfolio. Bentley will be based in Pimco's London office and will report to Robert Mead, head of European...

News: News In Brief - Gavanou joins Watson Wyatt.
February 2, 2004... Watson Wyatt has added Jean-Francois Gavanou as a senior consultant to its Paris benefits practice. Gavanou, who previously worked in Deloitte & Touche's Paris office where he was head of their pension team, spent much of his time providing...

News: News In Brief - GAM appoints Sam Taylor.
February 2, 2004... Sean Taylor has joined GAM as investment director to manage the firm's international long as well as global long/short mandates. Taylor joins from SG Asset Management.

News: PME hands E4.5bn overlay mandate to ISIS.
February 2, 2004... In the first ever move of its kind in the Netherlands, PME, the Dutch pension fund for metal industry employees, has outsourced the social, environmental and governance responsibilities of its E4.5bn equity assets to ISIS Asset Management. ...

News: MetallRente aims for 400,000.
February 2, 2004... MetallRente, the largest of Germany's new corporate pension funds, aims to increase the number of its participants four-fold in the next eight years. Speaking at a news conference in Frankfurt, Heribert Karch, managing director of the fund...

News: Danish multi-manager deals on the increase, says Russell.
February 2, 2004... The number of Danish schemes awarding multi-manager briefs is set to grow, says Russell, the US-based multi manager, which has just been awarded two mandates from the PKA and another unnamed fund. The house, which picked up a $140m US...

News: State Street wins Aventis bid.
February 2, 2004... Aventis Pension Trust has awarded State Street Corporation a E1.8bn mandate to provide custody, accounting, performance and analytics services. External fund managers have also recently been appointed but Aventis has not named them. In...

News: Pensions to mirror income.
February 2, 2004... A government-appointed commission has submitted pension reform proposals that could save Norwegian companies almost E6000 a year for every retired member of staff at the higher end of the salary range. Under the proposals, which would...

News: EU Watch.
February 2, 2004... The European Commission is taking member states to task over their failure to implement consumer protection legislation for life insurance policy holders where the company has cross border operations. Life insurance solvency is a critical...

News: AXA IM tackles ETF real estate market.
February 2, 2004... Innovation continues in the European market for exchange traded funds (ETFs) following retrenchment in the market in 2003 with the closure of Merrill Lynch and Barclays Global sector funds. AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) is the latest to...

News: ABP to put $200m in US enhanced indices.
February 2, 2004... The E150bn Dutch pension fund for civil servants, ABP, is deepening its ties with the State Street Global Alliance. It has announced that it is to invest $200m in a US enhanced indexation portfolio run by Advanced Investment Partners (AIP), a...

News Analysis: Greenwich suggests alternative solution.
February 2, 2004... Farmers have long known that the old adage about reaping what you sow is problematic. After all, if you sow crops that need rain, and the rains don't come, you'll go hungry. One answer is to stick a finger in the wind, make a prediction and...

Comment: Leader - Solutions are few and far between.
February 2, 2004... Pension funds sometimes look as if they are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to scheme deficits. Equities have proved to be false friends in the past couple of years and may not be reliable as a means to wiping out scheme...

Comment: ETF View - Balancing risk and returns.
February 2, 2004... A logical consequence of bear markets in recent years has been a closer focus on investment risk on the part of investors. Ironically, investor expectations of high long-term profits have never been greater than they are today. The only...

Comment: Industry Voice - Making a stand for gender discrimination.
February 2, 2004... The recent legislative proposal tabled by the European Commission, which aims to ban gender discrimination in the access to and supply of goods and services, includes a rather controversial aspect of particular concern for the financial service...

Comment: Mephisto.
February 2, 2004... Mephisto notes with interest the lengths to which governments go to ensure that an appropriate EU institution is located in their country. Think of the wrangle when Italy insisted that the nascent EU food authority should be located in...

Special Focus: UK - Not yet out of the woods.
February 2, 2004... The UK equity market has moved on a long way from where it once stood in the second quarter of last year and for the first time in 19 months the FTSE 100 has broken the 4500 mark. But, while some trustees are taking time out for celebration,...

Special Focus: UK - Chinese promise of a good new year?
February 2, 2004... Deficit problems look set to plague UK pension fund managers for some time to come as falling bond yields cancel out the recent gains in equities. But managers might have had more to cheer about if they had pushed a higher percentage of their...

Special Focus: UK - Funds slowly decreasing equity exposure.
February 2, 2004... Until equity markets started to fall after March 2000, conventional wisdom was that UK defined benefit pension schemes could afford anything between a 70/30 and 80/20 equity-bond split. Asset allocation decisions were rare events. The trustees'...

Hedge Fund Portrait: AlphaGen Credit - Gartmore gives credit its due.
February 2, 2004... The launch of its London based AlphaGen Credit Fund is evidence that Gartmore views credit funds as a significant growth area. "We believe we can build a $500m credit hedge fund business, adding additional resources as necessary to support this...

Fund Profile: TNO - Avoiding the big explosion.
February 2, 2004... No one likes a nasty surprise, but just imagine the cost of your pension tripling in three years. This could be the case for TNO, the E1.3bn fund for researchers and scientists in the Netherlands. From employers and employees together...

Pensions Snapshot: Luxembourg.
February 2, 2004... The EU's pan-European pensions directive will mean a lot to many different European markets but none more so than to Luxembourg. The land-locked Grand-Duchy, with 95,000 cross-border workers out of a population of less than 450,000, is...