epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from June 2007

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from June 2007

News: UK industry warned of losing market share abroad in wake of offshoring.(Industry overview)
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt The UK pensions industry could end up losing market share to other European countries in a wave of pensions offshoring, a senior industry figure has warned. Robin Ellison, a pensions specialist at the law firm...

News: Pensions push up wealth in emerging Europe.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Growth in pension savings has driven household wealth in the central and east European region up by 14 per cent over the past year, reaching 583bn, according to a Unicredit report. Out of the total wealth...

News: Turkey tied by regulation as awareness grows.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Pension funds in Turkey are tied down by excessively restrictive investment guidelines at a time when public recognition of their importance is spreading, according to Mercer. Sibel Yucesan, general manager at...

News in Brief: Russell teams up for Islamic compliant fund offering.
June 4, 2007... Russell Investment Group has teamed up with Saudi firm Jadwa Investment in a bid to boost its Sharia-compliant investment offering. Under the agreement, Jadwa will focus on client relationships while Russell will manage the funds. An...

News: Golding poached from Merrill Lynch for Norges property push.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), gatekeeper of the 231bn Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global, has poached Merrill Lynch's head of European property, Paul Golding, to oversee its push into...

People on the Move: Trio boost Credit Suisse EMEA distribution team.
June 4, 2007... Credit Suisse has made three additions to its EMEA institutional distribution team for asset management. Serge Chiaramonte, previously at Lehman Brothers, will be responsible for European fund of funds sales. Reyer Kooy joins from JPMorgan as...

People on the Move: Macro has big ideas for Watson Wyatt DC team.
June 4, 2007... Watson Wyatt has appointed Paul Macro as a senior consultant to its defined contribution (DC) consulting team. He joins from Aon Consulting, where he was head of DC consulting. Mr Macro will lead the DC consulting practice in Manchester, help...

People on the Move: Aberdeen bolsters EMD team with pair of appointments.
June 4, 2007... Aberdeen Asset Managers has made two appointments to its emerging market debt team. Kevin Daly has been appointed as portfolio manager to focus on tailored fixed income and emerging market debt solutions. Mr Daly joins from S&P, where he...

People on the Move: Dickson joins SWIP European equity team.
June 4, 2007... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Kathleen Dickson to its European equity team. She will take on the newly created role of European equity product specialist and will be the senior investment specialist for its...

People on the Move: Datta signs up to Hewitt investment consulting team.
June 4, 2007... Hewitt has appointed Tapan Datta to its UK investment consulting team. Mr Datta has over 20 years investment experience and most recently worked as a senior global economic advisor at Experian. Prior to that, Mr Datta held a position as...

People on the Move: Reyes takes on emerging market housing at F&C.
June 4, 2007... F&C has appointed Martha Reyes to its global emerging equities team. She will join on 1 June and focus on the consumer and house building sectors in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Peru. Ms Reyes will be based in London and report to Jeff...

News: Heissmann acquisition marks Watson Wyatt's German move.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt With its acquisition of the German investment and actuarial consultancy Dr Heissmann, Watson Wyatt is sending a signal of its determination to strengthen its position in Germany. This was the message given by...

News: Insight reveals plans for increasing European exposure.
June 4, 2007... Insight Investments is pushing its services into the Nordic region, an area the firm sees as a key market for development. In addition, the firm is looking to expand business opportunities in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. ...

News: Consultants divided over state of UK funds.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Consultants are torn over whether to weep or cheer at the condition of UK pension funds. While Aon Consulting was last week rejoicing at the news that "at 3.25pm" on 18 May, "there was an aggregate UK pension...

Comment: When law takes a religious stance.
June 4, 2007... The asset management world could hardly be accused of falling behind in the fashion stakes. Show Mephisto a trend, and he will show you a horde of asset managers waiting to climb aboard. And if Islamic finance is not the trend of the...

Focus: Mergers and Acquisitions - Nordic investors show merger concerns.
June 4, 2007... epn's sister magazine, nrpn, asked the following question to the 10 pension and insurance funds who responded to its latest quarterly investment survey: would it worry you if one of your appointed managers merged with another investment...

Focus: Mergers and Acquisitions - Barclays' nice little package to sell off.
June 4, 2007... Of all the column inches eaten up by the proposed merger of Barclays, the UK's third-largest bank, and the biggest Dutch bank, ABN Amro, not much has been said on what a possible tie-up might mean for the two houses' respective asset management...

Focus: Mergers and Acquisitions - Rarely a match made in heaven.
June 4, 2007... UK companies that rush into merging multiple pension schemes following an acquisition could be doing so at their peril. While some companies have taken the plunge, others are reluctant to bring their pension schemes into line following a...

Focus: Mergers and Acquisitions - Breathing new life into pension schemes.
June 4, 2007... Sometimes company directors wrestling with intractable pension scheme issues must sigh and wonder why they cannot just concentrate on making widgets. For wistful directors, there is a growing band of investment banks and life companies...

DC in the Netherlands: Interview - Tearing apart the DB and DC hypothesis.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Mariska van der Westen Keith Ambachtsheer is nothing if not outspoken. In his view, both defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pension systems have failed miserably when it comes to resolving the pensions crisis. ...

DC in the Netherlands: Investment sectors react to scathing research.
June 4, 2007... Individuals with a pension scheme are being left to the wolves, according to experts. A recent article, written by pension experts Keith Ambachtsheer and Rob Bauer, states that at least 2 per cent of individually saved pension fund returns is...

Fund Profile: Norwegian Government - Norway's global fund gets to spread its wings.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Caroline Liinanki After 10 years spent establishing and consolidating a giant, the 231bn Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global is starting to spread its wings. A dramatic increase in the fund's equity allocation is planned,...

Supplement: Transition Management - A word from the editor.(Editorial)
June 4, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands, editor Finding the right transition manager is no mean feat for any European pension fund. Not only is the market heavily populated with providers but more and more participants are joining the arena each year from...

Supplement: Introduction - Finding the right transition manager in a crowded lot.
June 4, 2007... Transition management is a competitive field, with more and more entrants to a crowded arena, each offering their own brand of management. With providers coming from different segments of the financial services industry, offering different...

Supplement: Dark Liquidity Pools - Navigating the dark landscapes in Europe.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Sam Lundqvist and Matthew Clay The US equity market has witnessed a rapid proliferation of so-called dark pools of liquidity and algorithmic trading technologies. The number of dark pools, often structured as alternative trading...

Supplement: Risk Management - Providing a guiding light through risky times.
June 4, 2007... Risk is the uncertainty of an outcome to actions or events. It is not always a bad thing, but it does need to be weighed up in terms of the likelihood of something happening and the consequences if it does. Transition events are fraught with...

News: Pensions Regulator admits buy-out rules are 'onerous'.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Regulations on achieving buy-out levels of funding for UK pension schemes can subject scheme sponsors to unnecessary costs, the chairman of the UK Pensions Regulator has said. Speaking at a conference in London...

News: Credit Suisse unveils euro version of LDI products.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands The asset management arm of Credit Suisse is to launch euro versions of its sterling target return and diversified growth LDI funds, which the house brought to market at the end of April. Paul Bourdon, managing...

News in Brief: USS gives $200m alternatives mandate to Partners Group.
June 4, 2007... The GBP30bn (44bn) Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has allocated $200m (148m) to Partners Group Alternative Beta Strategies. The move represents one of the first investments by the pension fund into alternative assets following the...

News in Brief: UK workers would take a pay cut for occupational pensions.
June 4, 2007... Three quarters of people in the UK believe workplace pensions are important, with 66 per cent saying they would move to a lower paid job if it meant they could be part of an occupational scheme. A survey by the National Association of Pension...

News: Syse leaves NBIM for former research post.
June 4, 2007... Henrik Syse, head of corporate governance at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the operational manager of the 231bn Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global, is to leave the organisation. Mr Syse, who will continue working for the...

People on the Move: Henderson knocked for six by Botham's Morley move.
June 4, 2007... Morley has poached John Botham from Henderson Global Investors to head its European equities team. At Henderson, Mr Botham was director of pan-European equities. Last year, Niall Paul, Morley's head of equities, refocused its equities business...

News: FRR looks to appoint for 'exhaustive' database.
June 4, 2007... The 32bn French reserve fund, Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites, is to create a database of its assets to help maximise its returns. The French scheme is looking to appoint a firm to create the database, who will work with the scheme for...

News Analysis: Appreciating the value of age.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands Far from being a drain on society, "older people are huge contributors to the economic and cultural wellbeing of their nations" - says HSBC in its Future of Retirement study, which polled 21,000 people in 21...

DC in the Netherlands: The last bastion of DB.
June 4, 2007... Remarkably, traditional pension plans are alive and well in the Netherlands. The overwhelming majority of the Dutch workforce is covered under fully funded defined-benefit (DB) plans of the average-pay variety with a good deal of inflation...

Pensions Snapshot: Turkey.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Thomas Escritt Turkey's hopes of joining the European Union may look somewhat bleaker with Nicolas Sarkozy's elevation to the French presidency. But, according to the EU's latest progress report, published last November, Turkey may...

Comment: Leader - Whatever the reason, M&A gives investors the jitters.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands, editor In the wake of Royal Bank of Scotland's 38.40 per-share offer for ABN Amro, which values the Dutch bank at 71.1bn - 8bn more than Barclays' bid - epn's sister magazine, nrpn, asked the pension fund community...

Comment: World View - Is the market peak any reason to panic?
June 4, 2007... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk Investors are getting increasingly uneasy about the new highs in financial markets, with many believing that they may have reached a peak. Speculation over the emergence of a new bear market is rife. Fuelling this...

Comment: Industry Voice - Finding the right funding level.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Nigel Cresswell There are a whole host of arguments often advanced in favour of funding, ranging from enhanced employee security to better allocation of cash costs by period. However, as so often in life, it seems that the...

Focus: Mergers and Acquisitions - Investors nervous over new banking behemoths.
June 4, 2007... Byline: Chris Newlands Barclays' acquisition of ABN Amro will mean a lot of things to many people, but for the European pension fund community it will mean one thing: another tie up in the asset management market. A union between the...