epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from March 2004

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from March 2004

News: Dutch government thinks again on pensions policy.
March 1, 2004... Government officials in the Netherlands are reconsidering proposals that would have prevented pension funds from investing significantly in real estate and private equity. The disagreement began on 9 February this year when the junior...

News: Airbus considers launch of employee savings schemes.
March 1, 2004... Airbus in Toulouse is considering rolling out employee savings schemes in Europe, following the award of a brief for a similar scheme in Germany. "Other countries are interested in the business model we have developed," said Kersten...

News: Mercer in Zurich appoints Ebeling.
March 1, 2004... Mercer Investment Consulting has hired Sven Ebeling, the former executive board member of the consultant Ecofin, to head its Zurich office. The appointment follows Mercer's recent acquisition of KPMG's Swiss institutional investment consulting...

News: S&P shows strong Asian growth.
March 1, 2004... Standard & Poor's says that south-east Asian markets have continued to perform strongly. Achieving a 12.4% rise over the final quarter of 2003, the regional benchmark index MSCI AC Far East Free (ex Japan) index finally ended the year 44.9%...

News: Equities big in Japan in 2004.
March 1, 2004... Investors should push back into Japanese equities, according to Joji Maki, head of Japanese equities at Baring Asset Management (BAM). In a message to investors, he said: "Prospects for Japanese equities this year are excellent. We have had...

News: LCP to push into Dutch pensions.
March 1, 2004... Lane Clark & Peacock, the UK-based actuarial and benefits consultant, has acquired the Belgian consulting operations of Ernst & Young and has also revealed that its next push will be into the Dutch pensions market. The current move, which...

News: Italian fund seeks three managers for up to E45m.
March 1, 2004... Prevaer, the Italian pension fund for airport workers, is inviting bids from fund houses to manage its entire fund. The directors will be appointing three managers to handle all the assets. The term is for three years and the assets will be...

News: Degussa appoints Bayern to passive E200m equity brief.
March 1, 2004... The E2.4bn Degussa Pensionskasse in Dusseldorf has appointed Bayern Invest in Munich with a passive European equity mandate of E200m, according to Andreas Poestges, currently head of investments at the scheme. Lupus Alpha in Frankfurt and...

News: Swedish yields set to plunge.
March 1, 2004... The yields on Swedish long-dated government bonds look set to fall as pension funds in Sweden prepare for the IAS 19 accounting rule, says Carnegie Pension Consulting. "Existing rules in Sweden encourage pension and insurance funds to...

News: Absolute mandates double since 2002, says Watson Wyatt.
March 1, 2004... UK pension schemes awarded over 100% more absolute return mandates to pension fund managers last year than they did in 2002, according to Watson Wyatt. "In order to make their assets work harder and rectify this position, many schemes are...

News: FTSE and DJ pool expertise.
March 1, 2004... FTSE and Dow Jones Indexes are to create a common industry classification standard to rival MSCI and S&P's global industry classification standards (GICS). FTSE and Dow Jones' new standards, known as industry classification benchmark (ICB),...

News: Universal sets up first mutual funds multi-manager.
March 1, 2004... Universal Investments, Germany's largest provider of administration platforms for outsourced portfolio management, is launching what it describes as the country's first mutual funds multi-manager concept targeted at institutional investors. ...

News: Attica puts the MM into management.
March 1, 2004... Attica Asset Management, the UK-based multi-manager of which Threadneedle became the majority shareholder at the end of last year, has changed its name to MM Asset Management. The move follows the company's decision to focus on long only...

People on the Move: SEI appoints Fugert.
March 1, 2004... SEI Investments has appointed Nadine Fugert as sales director for Germany. Fugert, who will be based in Munich, will focus on managing the recently announced relationship between SEI and Commerzbank and will also be responsible for researching...

People on the Move: Poestges leaves Degussa.
March 1, 2004... Andreas Poestges, former head of investments at Degussa Pensionskasse in Dusseldorf, Germany, has been appointed as director of investments at the Wuppertal-based Pensionskasse for the employees of the Barmer Ersatzkasse. Poestges said that the...

People on the Move: New CFO at T Rowe.
March 1, 2004... T Rowe Price has hired Kenneth Moreland as chief financial officer. Moreland, who will join the firm in the second week of March, has more than 20 years of accounting, finance, and treasury management experience. Most recently he served as CFO...

People on the Move: Watson partner shuffle.
March 1, 2004... Babloo Ramamurthy, the present head of Watson Wyatt's benefits group, is to be appointed managing partner in place of Alan Whalley, who is to transfer from London to Washington to take up the position of US regional manager. Alan Whalley...

People on the Move: Pine joins Fidelity.
March 1, 2004... Julie Pine has been recruited by Fidelity Investments as a relationship director within the team responsible for UK segregated and pooled clients. Pine was formerly director of business development at Henderson Global Investors. Prior to that...

News: ASIP median returns 9.5%.
March 1, 2004... The twice annual performance survey, carried out by Watson Wyatt for the Swiss pension fund association (ASIP), has shown a median return of 9.5% for 2003. This is in line with previous 2003 data - last month the performance measurement...

News: CSFB/Tremont index up 1.7%.
March 1, 2004... The CSFB/Tremont Hedge Fund Index was up 1.7% in January, with all investment strategies yielding positive returns except for dedicated short bias. Emerging markets hedge funds led the way, with a 2.53% return for January. The strategy...

News: Swedish pension schemes move away from hedge funds.
March 1, 2004... Swedish Pension funds are growing increasingly dissatisfied with their hedge fund holdings and are moving back to mainstream products, say consultants in Stockholm. "Hedge funds have been talked about constantly in Sweden for the past two...

News: CIOs predict 32% hedge fund growth.
March 1, 2004... Chief investment officers are predicting strong growth for their hedge fund assets, according to a survey conducted on behalf of risk-consulting firm, Barra. Greenwich Associates carried out the survey of 62 CIOs for Barra. European...

News Analysis: Is multi-management back in Germany?
March 1, 2004... Managers of managers have not had great success in continental Europe. Disappointed players who have tried to gain a market foothold, and failed, say that fees were a problem. Add to that a lack of fund structures for smaller investors in...

Comment: Leader - The forgotten corner of Europe.
March 1, 2004... Eastern European companies could end up in European investors' mainstream equity portfolios sooner than many investors think, if some fund managers are to be believed. Economic development of central and eastern Europe is still often only...

Comment: World View - The end of easy money.
March 1, 2004... The Bank of England has already raised interest rates twice in the past four months and expectations continue that at least a further 50 basis points of tightening can be expected before the end of this year. However, the interest rate...

Comment: Industry Voice - When alpha comes first.
March 1, 2004... Portable alpha has been gaining popularity among investors as a means of adding excess returns to a portfolio. It is based on the strategic inclusion of additional asset classes or sources of alpha that have a low correlation to core holdings,...

Comment: Mephisto.
March 1, 2004... The Frankfurt institutional investment community has often had a malicious word or two to pass over a Bier and Wurst about its lobby association, the BVI. Once it was too retail-centred. Then it spent too much time and effort on grandiose...

Special Focus: A region finds its voice.
March 1, 2004... Late in the last decade, Poland's revolutionary leader and ex-president Lech Walesa told a conference of investors that if he heard his country referred to once more as "former-communist Poland", he would begin referring to the United States as...

Special Focus: EU opens its doors to 10 more countries.
March 1, 2004... The first of May - when the EU balloons from 15 members to 25 - is only the beginning of a process that could see an EU of as many as 30 by the end of the decade. Already, two more countries - Bulgaria and Romania - are in line to join,...

Special Focus: Russia: more than a hotbed of commodities?
March 1, 2004... Not all of eastern Europe is in the process of joining the EU. Indeed, much of the continent holds out no hope of joining in the foreseeable future at all. Chief among those, of course, is Russia. Granted, the former primer minister of the UK,...

Special Focus: Opportunities beyond the Black Sea.
March 1, 2004... With attention more focused on the EU accession countries and Russia, it is understandable that the search for investment opportunities in the illiquid, murky economies of the Caucasus and central Asia is not really at the top of fund managers'...

Pensions Snapshot: Belgium.
March 1, 2004... The EU Commission may have cleared the transfer of Belgacom's E3.6bn pension fund assets to the Belgian State, but big questions remain over a move described by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as "ad hoc". Why? "If you look behind...