epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from June 2004

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from June 2004

News: France plays down pension expectations.
June 7, 2004... The French government has poured cold water over expectations of robust demand for its two new voluntary retirement savings schemes, known as PERP and PERCO. Launched this spring, PERP is an individual retirement savings plan, while PERCO...

News: FRR confirms award of further E4bn bond and equity briefs.
June 7, 2004... The French pensions reserve fund, FRR, has awarded another E4bn of equity and bond mandates and will outsource the remaining E2bn of its E16bn-worth this month. Antoine de Salins, a member of FRR's executive board confirmed the...

News: PGGM in E1bn GTAA award.
June 7, 2004... The E52bn Dutch pension fund for the healthcare sector, PGGM, has awarded a E1bn global tactical asset allocation (GTAA) mandate to Goldman Sachs Asset Management's quantitative strategies team. The fund is putting some E1bn at risk, with a...

News: Watson Wyatt research beats benchmark.
June 7, 2004... Watson Wyatt has released a track record of its manager research performance in which only one of its 13 model portfolios failed to beat its benchmark after transition costs and fees. The notional figures, which show how a pension fund...

News: Nordic SRI assets exceed E60bn.
June 7, 2004... The Scandinavian market for socially responsible investments (SRI) has surpassed the E60bn mark and will continue to see dynamic growth in the near future, according to research conducted by a Swedish SRI consultant. The figure includes...

News: Luxembourg creates Sicar.
June 7, 2004... Luxembourg has enacted a law creating a new investment vehicle for the specific benefit of European private equity and venture capital investors. The new vehicle, called the Societe d'investissement en capital a risque (Sicar), is intended...

News: News in brief - Avadis seeks equity adviser.
June 7, 2004... Avadis, the SFr5.5bn Swiss-based pension foundation, is in negotiations to hire a private equity advisor. It has been a client of Frank Russell in three global funds and one North American fund but is changing following Russell's purchase of...

News: News in brief - ABN Opens Lux custody base.
June 7, 2004... ABN Amro Mellon Securities Services, the Dutch-based joint-venture custodian with almost E3 trillion in custody, is to open a Luxembourg office by the first quarter of next year. It is currently looking for staff for the venture. ABN Amro...

News: News in brief - Baring sets up Chinese fund.
June 7, 2004... Baring Asset Management is to launch its Baring China Absolute Return Fund, a long/short hedge fund, which will be managed by the firm's investment team in Hong Kong. Khiem Do, head of Asian equities at the company, said: "We have a track...

News: AP3's new CEO to champion shareholders.
June 7, 2004... Swedish pension fund AP3 has recruited a new chief executive with a background in corporate governance to continue the Skr142bn (E15.59bn) fund's focus on shareholder activism. Kerstin Hessius, currently president of Stockholmsborsen and a...

News: Consultants urged to rethink fee models.
June 7, 2004... The long-standing debate over performance-related fees for pension fund consultants has reared its head again. And traditional consultants admit that the advice they give by the hour differs from what they would advise if their remuneration...

News: Hedge fund boom sparks regulatory fears.
June 7, 2004... Growing access to cheap credit is making it easier for hedge funds to up their use of leverage and will increase the likelihood of US and European regulation, says US consultancy Greenwich Associates. The US firm, which surveyed 36 hedge...

People on the move: Burgess head at CSAM.
June 7, 2004... Mark Burgess has been selected as global co-head of equities at Credit Suisse Asset Management and will be responsible for the management of all its equities in Europe, Asia Pacific, all multi-country equity products, and balanced portfolios....

People on the move: Hartmann to Universal.
June 7, 2004... Dr Sven Hartmann, former head of institutional clients at MEAG Munich Ergo KAG in Munich, has moved to the master-KAG fund administrator Universal as a senior staff member responsible for institutional business. Alongside client relations...

People on the move: Romer moves to SEI.
June 7, 2004... SEI Investments has appointed Stephan Romer as head of institutional business for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Romer, previously an independent pensions adviser, will be responsible for the company's co-operation with Cominvest, The...

People on the move: NTGI appoints Pesci.
June 7, 2004... Northern Trust Global Investments has boosted its global fixed income team with the appointments of Credit Suisse Asset Management's Marcelo Pesci (pictured), Pimco Europe's David Rothon and Dan Smith from elsewhere within the firm. Pesci,...

People on the move: LC&P hires Gordon.
June 7, 2004... Lane Clark & Peacock has appointed Neil Gordon, Robin Smith and Alasdair Mayes as partners. Smith and Mayes are existing employees at the firm; Gordon joins from Australian law firm Allens Arthur Robinson.

People on the move: Schuhlen joins Watson.
June 7, 2004... Watson Wyatt has appointed Kristin Steinsen-Schuhlen as investment consultant at its Munich office. The appointment forms part of Watson Wyatt Europe's general expansion in the German market. Steinsen-Schuhlen was previously at Allianz Dresdner...

News: SCGOP calls for shareholder voting system.
June 7, 2004... If you have more than a billion euros in assets, you should be voting regularly at shareholder annual general meetings by now. And if you have trouble with voting issues, call your custodian. That is the message propagated by Jos van...

News: Additional yield through ETFs.
June 7, 2004... Exchange traded funds (ETFs) can be sold short. Although this is a well known fact in the financial markets, only a few investors so far are making use of this feature. Many still miss this opportunity to enhance the yield of their investments....

Comment: Leader - Getting the balance right on governance.
June 7, 2004... All business owners want to influence for the better the companies that they own. But there is still little consensus over how much influence shareholders should have over the management board, to which day-to-day management decision-making is...

Comment: World View - Inflation rears its ugly head.
June 7, 2004... This column has discussed inflationary pressures a couple of times in recent months, even when concern was still focused on deflationary tendencies. It was obvious that rising commodity prices coupled with energy and oil prices will sooner...

Comment: Industry Voice - Singularly better?
June 7, 2004... Loosely regulated investment vehicles employing various non-traditional investment strategies such as short selling and dynamic leverage are usually categorised as hedge funds. This has raised some attention from investors recently when...

Comment: Mephisto.
June 7, 2004... Clearly, there is much Russia can learn from foreign experience when it comes to pension reform. Much of its recent pension reform has been modelled - albeit loosely - on Sweden's PPM. Some suggestions, however, should probably be ignored....

Feature: Fixed Income - Active risk helps to boost bonds.
June 7, 2004... Pension funds once regarded bonds simply as safe assets, and looked to equities to drive returns. But as they shrink their equity holdings, some fiduciaries are now looking to their bond portfolios to provide extra performance. This means...

Special Focus: Switzerland - Cosying up to the Swiss.
June 7, 2004... 'Gemutlich' or 'cosy' is how one in-house pension official describes the Swiss market. Funds still prefer local providers, someone who speaks their own language and wresting business from them means tackling some deep-rooted relationships. ...

Special Focus: Switzerland - Swiss funds refine their asset allocations.
June 7, 2004... Last year may have been kind to Swiss investors from spring onwards but pension funds were not ready to blossom. In spite of a healthy rise in the markets - the domestic equity index rose by more than 25% between the start of April and the...

Special Focus: Switzerland - Avadis seeks to raise general standards.
June 7, 2004... Ask Daniel Dubach to choose an active Swiss manager worth its salt and silence ensues. The chief investment officer of Baden-based Avadis may be pondering his answer, or perhaps he is looking for new business. Avadis is a fully-fledged...

Special Focus: Switzerland - How to get ahead in a narrow market.
June 7, 2004... Schroders may share its name with Germany's chancellor but its official history begins in London. The umlaut ( " ) was dropped in 1957 and today it manages more assets for pension funds and individuals in the UK than any other country. So...

Special Focus: Switzerland - Annuity clamp-down reflects longer living.
June 7, 2004... The Swiss federation of trade unions has been crowing over last month's rejection by public referendum of a rise in the state retirement age for women. Women can currently collect a state pension at 64. The government unsuccessfully tried...

Pension Fund Profile: Canton of Ticino - Fund has a fight on its hands.
June 7, 2004... Few towns can boast of having three castles, but Bellinzona, in the Swiss canton of Ticino, has merited a lot of protection down the ages. Before man learned how to fly, the main route north out of Italy was via this strategic post in the...

EU Accession Investment Report - Part 3 of 5 - Latvia - Still escaping from the shadow of the bear.
June 7, 2004... To paraphrase a former Mexican leader, pity poor Latvia, so far from Brussels, so close to Russia. More than any new EU member, Latvia has suffered from an unfortunate coincidence of both strong economic links and poor political relations with...

EU Accession Investment Report - Part 3 of 5 - Lithuania - European focus brings renewed confidence.
June 7, 2004... Now that it is safely ensconced within the European Union, Lithuania is beginning to look east again with new-found confidence. Some 14 years after leading the secession movement that eventually brought down the Soviet Union, Lithuania is...

Pensions Snapshot: Slovenia.
June 7, 2004... Slovenia entered the European Union last month as the most prosperous of all of the former communist-bloc countries. With its economy already highly integrated with neighbouring Italy and Austria, it seems poised to be the first of the new...

News: Norwegian Petroleum to add to active managers.
June 21, 2004... The E112bn Norwegian Government Petroleum Fund, the world's third largest pension fund, has signalled its intention to increase its use of active management and take on a greater number of external managers. However, the fund has reservations...

News: FTB expands into Dutch pensions.
June 21, 2004... Financial Times Business has expanded its portfolio of European pensions and investment titles with the launch of npn, Nederlands Pensioen- & Beleggingsnieuws. Initially to be published quarterly, the Dutch-language magazine is tailored to...

News: Fixed income market redefined by pressure on liability matching.
June 21, 2004... The pressure on European pension funds to improve liability matching and push more of their assets into bonds is redefining the fixed income market, according to Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and increasing the demand for alpha-seeking...

News: Belgian Silver Fund doubles in size to E10bn.
June 21, 2004... The Belgian Silver Fund has more than doubled in size to E10bn, thanks to the Federal Government's decision to take on the pension obligations of telecommunications giant Belgacom. The fund, with E4.266bn at the end of last year, has...

News: Norwegian compulsion.
June 21, 2004... Sigbjorn Johnsen, the former Finance Minister of Norway, has told epn that the Norwegian government is putting together proposals for compulsory occupational pension schemes in the country, which will be ready for review by the autumn. ...

News: Finnish fund to try property.
June 21, 2004... Kuntien Elakevakuutus, the E14bn local government pensions institution in Helsinki, is to invest in the foreign property market for the first time in its history with a E60m outlay. The fund, which allocates E1.2bn of its assets to...

News: News in brief - SSgA buys Mediolanum.
June 21, 2004... State Street Global Advisors has acquired Mediolanum's 50% stake in the Italian joint venture Mediolanum State Street, set up in 1998 to provide asset management services to the Italian institutional investment market, and will name the newly...

News: News in brief - Towers hiring in Germany.
June 21, 2004... Towers Perrin has seen massive growth in its German actuarial services and occupational pensions consulting business and is now looking to hire new staff to cater for this growth. The firm is looking for several experts in these areas as well...

News: News in brief - Portuguese funds down.
June 21, 2004... Portuguese pension funds returned negative median results of -0.7% last month bringing the average for the first five months of the year down to 2.5%. A decent month of yields from property (0.4%) and funds of hedge funds (0.5%) were...

Moves: TRP poised for Stockholm move.
June 21, 2004... T Rowe Price is just weeks away from opening up an office in Stockholm and taking on two new Swedish staff, says Peter Preisler, the firm's director of Nordic sales and client relations. Preisler says the house, which has almost E400m of...

People on the move: F&C appoints McKnight.
June 21, 2004... F&C Management has appointed Alison McKnight as group head of new business services, a new position. Working closely with F&C's sales and marketing teams across Europe and all its investment desks, McKnight will take ultimate responsibility for...

People on the move: Quirke moves to Hermes.
June 21, 2004... Hermes Pensions Management has appointed Gerard Quirke as its new chief operating officer starting August. He will replace Adrian White who retires in July. Quirke's previous appointments include chief financial officer and deputy chief...

People on the move: Meister joins DeAM.
June 21, 2004... Urs Meister has joined the fixed income team at Deutsche Asset Management Switzerland as senior Portfolio manager reporting to Beat Widmer. Meister will primarily be responsible for the foreign-currency bond segment, and has many years'...

People on the move: Watson hires Frost.
June 21, 2004... Watson Wyatt has appointed Margaret Frost as a senior research analyst to its global investment manager research team. Frost, who was previously a senior vice president in the fixed income department at the Kuwait investment office, joins the...

People on the move: Gray goes to CSAM.
June 21, 2004... Credit Suisse Asset Management has announced the appointment of Michael Gray as managing director and global head of credit research in the firm's fixed income group. In this new position, Gray's role will be to further the manager's global...

News: Alternatives for Danish lawyers.
June 21, 2004... Juristernes og Okonomernes, the E3bn fund for lawyers and economists in Copenhagen, is examining the possibility of moving up to 5% of its assets into hedge funds and is currently in talks with a number of providers about the prospect. But...

News: London could lose out on hedge funds.
June 21, 2004... London could lose its iron grip on the European hedge fund industry as regulatory changes pave the way for managers to set up on the continent, new research from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows. "There are opportunities for managers to set up...

News: Russian equity fund from East.
June 21, 2004... East Capital, the Stockholm-based Eastern Europe boutique with $700bn under management, is to launch a small and mid cap Russian equity fund targeted mainly at institutionals. The fund, which has raised about $25m so far, will be capped at...

News Focus: Netherlands - Largest manager undershoots again.
June 21, 2004... For the second year running, the Netherlands' largest commercial pension fund manager has under-performed the rest of the market, according to analysis by epn and its sister publication, npn. The 22 industry-wide pension funds managed by...

News Focus: Netherlands - Dutch regulator imposes IAS 19 rules.
June 21, 2004... The Dutch accountancy board, the Raad voor Jaarverslaggsgeving (RJ), has decided to impose international accounting disclosure rules on companies belonging to industry-wide schemes. This is despite the fact that the industry considers the risks...

Comment: Leader - Two cheers for Belgium.
June 21, 2004... Funds created with the far-sighted aim of paying for state pension liabilities can profit from - or lose by - the degree they are prepared to listen to experts about the best way to invest the money. For those considering pension reform,...

Comment: World View - Crisis? What crisis?
June 21, 2004... The oil price is back on the agenda. In early June it hit a 21-year high. This is a recent phenomenon as the world economy had not been too concerned about oil prices over the past few years, even as they crept up slowly. During...

Comment: Industry Voice - Exciting accountancy.
June 21, 2004... When the IASB's chairman, Sir David Tweedie, left the UK accounting standards board in 2000 he joked that he would miss the punch-ups. There has been no sign that he has become any less combative. Sir David has continued to push and prod...

Comment: Mephisto.
June 21, 2004... Now the Dutch accountancy board, the Raad voor Jaarverslaggeving (RJ), looks like it is to face a bout of civil disobedience following its decision to apply an international interpretation of IAS rules on industry-wide pension funds. This...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - Europe sets the pace.
June 21, 2004... Multi-manager assets in the UK increased by almost E1.5bn last year and rose by more than 150% on the previous 12 months, according to data from the Association for Institutional Multi-Manager Investing (AIMMI). Despite this growth, however, it...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - SEI Investments - Amsterdam expansion.
June 21, 2004... It has been a busy six months for SEI Investments. After making its first move into Germany with Commerzbank at the beginning of the year and naming Stephan Romer as its head of institutional business for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - Q & A.
June 21, 2004... Questions: 1. What moves are you making into areas of Europe outside of the UK? 2. Is it as easy to convince clients that a manager-of-manager solution works best above other strategies now that equity markets around Europe have...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - Q & A - KBC to be sole distributor for Northern in Ireland.
June 21, 2004... KBC Asset Management, Ireland's fourth largest investment manager, has signed a deal with Northern Trust that will see it become the sole distributor of the US house's multi-manager services in Ireland. "We estimate that inflows into Irish...

Research Update: The shortcomings of 401(k) plans.
June 21, 2004... The US experience with 401(k) plans has been widely held up as a success to emulate in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. If only Europe could find some way to emulate the success in the US, the argument goes, it would go a long way towards...

Pension Fund Profile: NPRF - Making hay while the sun shines.
June 21, 2004... Compared with its fellow European countries, Ireland has a young population - more than five workers to every pensioner. But this will not last forever. "We are heading the same way as the rest of Europe," says Adrian O'Donovan, senior...

EU Accession Investment Report - Part 4 of 5 - Malta - Waking up to the realities of accession.
June 21, 2004... Malta, in many respects, had the least work to do of all the new member states in order to get into the EU. In fact, the hardest part seemed to be convincing a sceptical population to approve membership in a referendum. Now that it is in,...

EU Accession Investment Report - Part 4 of 5 - Poland - Getting ready to start rocking the boat.
June 21, 2004... Poland has spent most of the past 15 years ahead of the pack. In 1989, it was the first of the eastern bloc countries to throw off communist rule and, later, the first to attempt radical economic reform. Now that it is in the EU - where it has...

Pensions Snapshot: Czech Republic.
June 21, 2004... One might have expected the Czech Republic, run by a man who admires western liberal economics, would have made considerable progress by now with reforms to its pensions system. Yet pensions remain one area where Vaclav Klaus, formerly prime...