epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from January 2008

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from January 2008

News: Regulation sparks OPF interest in alternatives.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki The 4.5bn Oslo Pensjonsforsikring (OPF) is planning to increase its allocation to alternatives and is interested in an exposure to commodities. The fund is taking advantage of new investment rules, which cut the...

News: ABP homes in on emerging markets.
January 14, 2008... The Netherlands ABP, the 215bn Dutch pension fund for public employees, has hinted that it will increase its exposure to the Asian market in the coming year. The announcement came during a press conference on the fund's recent 1.6bn...

News: ERAFP seeks new consultant to help diversify portfolio.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson France France's 4.7bn public service additional pension scheme (ERAFP) is looking for a consultant to help it tender for two new mandates, but has denied any major changes will occur in 2008. ERAFP is...

News: FSP Pension boosts private equity stake.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Denmark Finanssektorens Pensionskasse (FSP Pension), the Danish DKr22.7bn (3bn) pension fund for financial sector employees, has increased its private equity holdings by 50 per cent over the last six months...

News: ATP hedges equity fearing US slump.
January 14, 2008... Denmark's 58.8bn ATP pension fund is hedging its equity portfolio as a US recession becomes more likely. Bjarne Graven Larsen, chief investment officer at ATP, told epn that there were serious concerns at the fund that a US recession would...

News: New Norwegian investment rules dash hopes of 20% cap.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Norway The new investment regulations for Norwegian pension and insurance companies, which came into force at the beginning of the year, were far more restrictive than the market had expected. Although the...

News: Domestic reliance leads to 4bn blow.
January 14, 2008... Ireland Irish pension funds suffered a blow of 4bn in fund values in 2007, following an over-exposure to Irish equities. A report by Mercer found that Irish funds allocated an average of 15 per cent of their portfolio to Irish...

News: FairPensions considers roll-out of ESG survey across Europe.
January 14, 2008... FairPensions has said it could extend its next environmental, social and governance (ESG) survey into Europe. Last month, the campaign and research firm released a widely published report that said the UK's 20 largest pension funds...

People News: New Corestone CIO spurs global recruitment rush.
January 14, 2008... Corestone Investment Managers has hired Paul Van Gent as chief investment officer. Mr Van Gent joined the newly formed company from the 28bn PME pension fund where he was responsible for manager selection. In an interview with...

People on the move: Finanssektorens Pensionskasse.
January 14, 2008... Finanssektorens Pensionskasse, the Danish pension fund for financial sector employees, has promoted its finance director Soren Schjodt-Hansen to deputy director. Mr Schjodt-Hansen became finance director in 2007, when the fund reorganised and...

People on the move: Aberdeen Asset.
January 14, 2008... Aberdeen Asset Managers has recruited Peter Dombeck to its Frankfurt team. Mr Dombeck has been appointed business development manager and will focus on strengthening relationships with institutional investors in Germany. He joins from Feri...

People on the move: Frontier Capital Management.
January 14, 2008... Frontier Capital Management has appointed two new partners: Colin Hodges and David Cienfuegos. Mr Hodges is chief operating officer and joined the firm in 2006. He previously worked at Gartmore in the UK and in Japan. Mr Cienfuegos, head of...

Comment: Leader - UK DB provision saved from beyond the grave.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Chris Newlands, Editor The nails were said to be well and truly in the coffin for defined benefit (DB) provision in the UK. According to statistics from the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), the number of private sector...

Comment: Industry voice - Three tenets of success.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Paul Trickett - European head of investment consulting at Watson Wyatt There are three ways to successfully manage an investment fund, each corresponding to a different quantum of governance and various permutations of three...

Comment: Mephisto - Slovakian internal politics hits home.
January 14, 2008... Ponzi schemes. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. My friend said he's starting one up, and who could blame him? The top usually wins unless the police get involved. "Hogwash," the reader shouts. "Nay," says Mephisto. "Big money...

Fund Profile: Denmark - ATP continues 'inflation beating' tactics in 2008.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Denmark's 58.8bn pension fund, ATP, is taking on new risks in a bid to beat inflation. For years it was an equity and bond heavy fund with hardly any alternative investments, but in the past 12 months it has made...

Country Profile: Slovakia.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki The newly reformed Slovakian pensions system is about to take an unexpected turn - citizens will be allowed to quit the second pillar in favour of the defined benefit state pillar. In a move that bucks the...

Features: Nordic region - Personal accounts - UK looks to Sweden despite criticism.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Chris Newlands Anything Sweden can do the UK can do better. At least that is the thinking when it comes to personal pensions accounts. In a bid to establish an effective UK personal accounts model - the pension savings system set...

The Specialist: Corporate cash flows - Tides turn toward German outlier method.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Nigel Cresswell Pension liabilities are obligations of the sponsor. The decision to fund is, therefore, simply whether or not to cash collateralise these obligations before payment falls due. In practice, however, the funding...

Economics: 2008 global trends - As the world turns so can fortunes for 2008.
January 14, 2008... Byline: Andreas Utermann - Global CIO for RCM, part of Allianz Global Investors As 2007 drew to a close and the predicted year end equity rally failed to materialise, uncertainty returned to the markets following a period of relative calm...

News: Shell drives Swiss fund into emerging markets.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Switzerland Shell's 563m Swiss pension fund has said it will expand further into hedge funds and emerging markets. Last year, the scheme made its first allocation into the two asset classes as well as...

News: In numbers.
January 28, 2008... 1.7 - Per cent growth in assets under management in France. The country's association for asset management (AFG) said that market turbulence hurt growth, but claimed that the market remains "confident and determined" with 2.5trn under...

News: OPF infrastructure plans scrapped as new rules come in.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Norway Oslo Pensjonsforsikring (OPF), the 4.5bn pension fund for Oslo's local public authority employees, has abandoned further infrastructure investments and its first foray into commodities after new...

News: UK could lose status as private equity hub.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson United Kingdom The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) has warned the UK government that private equity firms could leave the country for Italy or France. Speaking at a press...

News: Euro funds cautious but optimistic.
January 28, 2008... European pension funds appear to be cautiously moving forward in 2008, making small adjustments to their assets in order to fight a bear market. epn's latest quarterly survey (p22-23) showed that one-third of funds were considering cutting...

News in Brief: Alternative investment returns for 2007.
January 28, 2008... Alternative investment returns for 2007 were spectacular at Dutch pension funds ABP and PME, but the fourth quarter of the year as well as poor returns from equities indicated that the good times could be over. For the 216bn ABP, its...

News in Brief: IShares, the exchange traded fund (ETF) arm of Barclays Global Investors.
January 28, 2008... IShares, the exchange traded fund (ETF) arm of Barclays Global Investors, saw its assets under management increase by 45 per cent in 2007. The ETF provider saw an increase from $285bn (196.7bn) to $414bn at the end of last year. IShares saw...

News in Brief: Aon Consulting has gone head to head with the UK accountancy community.
January 28, 2008... Aon Consulting has gone head to head with the UK accountancy community by setting up a specialist trustee service to assist with covenant assessments of sponsoring employers. The service, which is traditionally provided by accountants, was...

News: Year of 'damage control' ahead for Dutch and German schemes.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Germany/The Netherlands Dutch and German pension funds look set to increase their alternative asset holdings and inflation fighting assets at the expense of equities in 2008, according to Lehman Brothers. ...

News: Belgium and Switzerland defy small cap downturn.
January 28, 2008... Belgium/Switzerland Small cap equities fared well in Switzerland and Belgium in 2007, despite a significant downturn in nearly every other small cap market in the world. The figures came in an ABN Amro report on its Hoare Govett...

News: Four-strong UK team looks into climate change investment risk.
January 28, 2008... United Kingdom Four institutional investors in the UK - the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), RAILPEN Investments, Henderson Global Investors and Insight Investment - have launched a climate change research project to look at how...

People News: State Street and BGI in transitional period.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki State Street has promoted David Goodman to take over its transition management business after the departure of previous head Lachlan French. Mr French has been poached by Barclays Global Investors (BGI) to run its...

People News: Cardano adds to growing UK team.
January 28, 2008... Cardano has made another addition to its London office, as the Dutch firm continues its push into the UK pension fund market. Keith Guthrie will join as head of the investment management team in the UK. He joins from GAM, where he served as...

People News: People on the Move.
January 28, 2008... Principal Global Investors has made three appointments to its London office. Iain Mather joins as head of compliance and Rogier van de Grift, previously at ABP Investments, joins as a senior trader. Michael Burnham also joins as product...

News Analysis: Troubled bank operating an open-book policy to save fund.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Chris Newlands Transparency appears to now be the watchword at beleaguered UK bank Northern Rock. Following its GBP26bn (34.5bn) rescue package from the Bank of England, every corner of the Newcastle-based business is trying to...

Comment: Industry Voice - No shame in schadenfreude.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Stephen Oxley Undoubtedly, 2007 was a good year for investors in hedge funds. Returns for several of the indices were in double digits and investors in some funds of hedge funds enjoyed performance in the upper teens. By contrast,...

Comment: Mephisto - Playing Russian roulette with a full barrel.
January 28, 2008... The pensions crisis is dead. Long live the surplus. Thus heard Mephisto when news broke that BP would be following Shell's lead by taking the always controversial step of a pensions holiday. Perhaps it's incorrect to say this is always...

Fund Profile: Norway - Oslo Pensjonsforsikring - OPF increases alternatives despite new regulations.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Gaining an increased exposure to alternatives is a trend for Nordic pension funds and for Oslo Pensjonsforsikring (OPF), the 4.5bn pension fund for Oslo's local public authority employees, it is no different....

Country Profile: UK.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth The UK government has been tiptoeing through the minefield of pension provision ever since the British retirement system began to unravel at the turn of the century. As a result, much of the legislation that has been...

Features: Gulf Region - Diversification of Middle East economies - The Gulf prepares for life without oil.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Murat Unal and Maik Rodewald For the last few years, the Gulf region has been profiting from rising gas and oil prices, similar to those in 1973 and 1979. The increasing energy prices have led to substantial surplus liquidity in...

Features: Gulf Region - Foreign Investment - A desert oasis beckons the euro.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson European institutional investors have not flocked to the Middle East in the same fashion as has been seen with China and India, but the region looks set to turn heads in 2008. Indeed, returns of 47 per cent on...

The Specialist: Richard Tyszkiewicz - Unlisted Property Funds - Diving into the housing market head first.
January 28, 2008... Do you dip your toe in or take the plunge? This is often the dilemma facing the institutional investor seeking to gain exposure to the property sector. Listed property securities may seem tempting in terms of obtaining immediate, well...

Investor Survey: Investment Outlook - Allocation slowdown amid US recession fears.
January 28, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson With economic data still far from concrete, 2008 is shaping up to be one of the most challenging years for pension funds and investors. Pension funds, similarly, seem uncertain about the best strategy going...