epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from May 2005

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from May 2005

News: Well-funded UK schemes 'forum shop' as PPF bites.
May 9, 2005... UK multinationals with well-funded pension schemes are reviewing the possibility of shifting their fund's regulatory domicile to non-EU locations in a bid to escape pension protection fund levies. Some major pension schemes are faced with...

News: Bertelsmann plans CTA funding move.
May 9, 2005... German media giant Bertelsmann plans to fund existing domestic pension liabilities with a contractual trust arrangement (CTA). "Pension book reserves should not be funded from cashflow but from plan assets," said Verena Volpert, from...

News: OECD survey data.
May 9, 2005... According to new OECD data, Ireland at 30.6 per cent and Belgium at 36.3 per cent reward their pensioners with the lowest benefits found in any other European country relative to average income. Luxembourg and Greece pay the most at 99.2 and...

News: Denmark and Norway hedge towards the future with announcement of new regulatory regime.
May 9, 2005... Denmark and Norway have both announced the introduction of a new regulatory framework for hedge funds. The new framework is expected to be in place before the end of the year. Regulators intend to harmonise the Nordic hedge fund market and...

News: Fortis first to bring euro-denominated pooled liability-driven fund to market.
May 9, 2005... Fortis Investments has announced the launch of the first pooled liability- driven fund to assist continental pension funds to improve the matching of their liability profiles within their investment portfolios. State Street Global...

News: Finland's Lutherans act to plug one-third deficit.
May 9, 2005... The Finnish Lutheran Church's E550m pension institution is in the process of bridging its funding gap. The church, which began placing funds in pensions a decade ago, has an estimated total worth of E2.5bn. Its total pension liabilities are...

News: News in brief.
May 9, 2005... SAMPO ANNOUNCES MOVE INTO SWEDISH MARKET Sampo Life has announced a move into Sweden this summer under the "If Livforsakring" brand. It will initially market personal risk, life cover and health insurance and monitor local market...

News: Estonian regulator trumpets second-pillar and third-pillar pension take up successes.
May 9, 2005... Growth in the Estonian pensions market continues apace following the successful introduction of second- and third-pillar pensions in 2002. Andre Nomm, head of investment and pension funds supervision at the Estonian Financial Supervision...

News: London, Milan and Paris top property return table.
May 9, 2005... The highest risk-adjusted total 2005 returns on property are to be found in London, Milan and Paris, claims a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report. PwC surveyed over 250 representatives of the property, investment and banking sectors and...

News: People on the move.
May 9, 2005... MERWITZ MAKES MOVE TO INVESTEC TEAM Investec Asset Management has expanded its global equity team with the appointment of Sandi Merwitz as a sector specialist in Investec's Four Factor Equity team. Sandi joins from LECG Europe, where she...

News Analysis: Leading Dutch player ABP continues to 'weigh' its options for a possible move to ERM, learns epn.
May 9, 2005... It has emerged that ABP is reviewing the usefulness of an Enterprise-wide Risk Management (ERM) model to its organisation. It is believed that any move from ALM to ERM would supposedly permit the pension fund to cope more readily with...

News Analysis: PGGM heralds grouping of absolute return strategies as 'new' asset class.
May 9, 2005... PGGM, has announced what it has dubbed a new asset class of a "portfolio of strategies" - essentially the clustering of a range of absolute return strategies. The fund expects the asset class to achieve annual absolute returns of 370 basis...

Comment: Leader - Outsourcing: striking the right balance.
May 9, 2005... The outsourcing deal between Merrill Lynch and Philips at the end of April has raised some timely questions, not only about the issue of outsourcing in- house portfolio management operations, but also about balanced management. Readers...

Comment: World view - Style with substance?
May 9, 2005... The performance of equities has been unremarkable in recent years; concerns about bonds and property are now being raised. Only international equities, particularly emerging markets, have provided relief from the grey reality of the financial...

Comment: Industry voice - "Pensions waddle and quack just like bonds".
May 9, 2005... It seems only appropriate following the sad and untimely death of John Shuttleworth to address the issue of measuring liabilities. As John was keen to point out, the foundations on which we build our pension castles are more often made of...

Comment: Mephisto - Stop press: Sherlock Holmes might have been a Belgian.
May 9, 2005... The Belgian government has had a brainwave. While many of its European peers dream up a plethora of wild and wonderful wheezes to secure a pension and a rose-tinted retirement for their citizens, the Belgian authorities have devised the...

Fund Administration: The calm before the storm?
May 9, 2005... There are those custodians who believe that once the first few have taken the plunge and pooled their assets, many more will follow suit and pool their assets. Interest has grown substantially in European multinational pooling; Nestle,...

Roundtable: Multinational Pooling.(Panel Discussion)
May 9, 2005... The questions 1. Do you favour Ireland or Luxembourg as the preferred location for multinational pooling? 2. Can other countries now compete in this? 3. The pace of multinational pooling is still quite slow. Why is this? 4....

Special Focus: Master KAGs - A mixed prognosis for Germany's master KAG.
May 9, 2005... German master KAGs currently manage some E162.3bn of assets according to the most recent survey carried out by epn's German sister publication dpn. This is up from E124.4bn, serviced by 13 providers, a year ago. However, not only have the...

Fund Profile: Uniklinik Dresden - An unlikely recruitment and retention tool.
May 9, 2005... The Carl Gustav Carus university clinic at the technical university of Dresden (CGC) was the first German university clinic to go it alone independently of the state operated pay-as-you-go VBL pensions system. The fund took this step at the...

Pensions Snapshot: Ireland.
May 9, 2005... The implementation of the Irish Social Welfare and Pensions Act has not been without controversy. Critics chaffed over the government's indecision whether to ban pension funds from borrowing. They complained that the final result - a ban but...

News: MLIM accused of overbidding for Philips assets.
May 23, 2005... Dutch industry experts believe that Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) overpaid Philips to take over the internal investment management of the electronics multinational's E12bn pension fund. The value of the deal, understood to exceed...

News: Allianz Global posts first positive return.
May 23, 2005... Allianz Global Investors has reported its first ever positive net return of E27m for Q1 2005. Net inflows at the asset management arm of Germany's Allianz group were E17bn for the same period. Marna Whittington, global COO, attributed the...

News: French live longer.
May 23, 2005... Polish men enjoy just 13.6 years of retirement, while men in France can look forward to 20 years, says a study into retirement length by Aon Consulting. The consultants also found that women in Austria, the UK, Italy and France can on...

News: FTSE 350 companies' pension fund deficit tops oe76bn - up oe3bn on 2003, finds Mercer survey.
May 23, 2005... The total aggregate pension deficit for UK FTSE 350 companies reached a new high of GBP76bn (GBP110bn) in December 2004 - up from GBP73bn (GBP73bn) in 2003 - according to a new study from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The study also...

News: Ruukki forges alternative strategy.
May 23, 2005... Ruukki, Finland's E480m steel and metal worker pension fund, has announced a move into commodities. The company also announced an increase to its hedge fund holdings at the expense of bonds. Ilkka Arjaluoto, the fund's CIO, told epn: "We...

News: Environment agency appoints six new fund managers.
May 23, 2005... The UK's Environment Agency has announced the revision of its pensions strategy and appointed six specialist investment companies to manage its GBP986m (E1.4bn) Active Pension Fund. The move follows the fund's dismal performance in 2003...

News: News in brief.
May 23, 2005... NORDEA ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF NEW PRIVATE EQUITY FUND OF FUNDS Nordea has announced the launch of Private Equity II - Global Fund of Funds. Having received strong support from a number of Nordic institutional investors, including one of the...

News: Alan Brown to head investments at Schroders as Richard Horlick departs.
May 23, 2005... Schroders Investment Management has announced the appointment of Alan Brown as its head of investment. He will replace Richard Horlick, who leaves to pursue 'other opportunities', and will focus on the American institutional marketplace. ...

News: Parties agree terms in Watson Wyatt action.
May 23, 2005... The High Court in London has stayed the action brought against Watson Wyatt on behalf of the UK pension fund of Credit Lyonnais - now merged with Credit Agricole. The claim was brought by the Credit Lyonnais Group and concerned the Credit...

News: People on the move.
May 23, 2005... POHJOLA APPOINTS KOSKIMIES Pohjola Asset Management in Finland has appointed Mikko Koskimies as its head of investment services and president of the company. Koskimies joins from Alfred Berg Asset Management where he was managing director....

News: German pensions insolvency protection fund proposes move to a full- funding model.
May 23, 2005... Germany's insolvency protection fund for occupational pensions, the PSV, has submitted a proposal to the ministry of health and social security to amend its statutes to enable it to operate on a fully funded financial model. The PSV,...

News: Aberdeen targets small institutions and investors with Swedish property fund launch.
May 23, 2005... Aberdeen Property Investors (API) has launched a new property fund for the Swedish market. Structured as a semi-open-ended fund, it seeks to build a portfolio consisting mainly of Swedish real estate around a balanced and well-diversified 'core...

News: Move towards better client reporting is consumer led.
May 23, 2005... Pressure to increase service levels is driving investment management firms to deliver significant improvements in client reporting to institutional clients, a new study by Investit has found. "Historically, investment in client reporting...

News: Tri announces EU property fund partnership.
May 23, 2005... Tri Investments, the retail and institutional investment company, is to launch a European residential property fund in a bid to offer investors diversified exposure to the fast-growing European residential housing markets. Tri will launch the...

News: Treasuries creak into action to meet demand for long-issue debt.
May 23, 2005... Europe's national treasury agencies are slowly answering the call from pension funds for very long-dated issuance. On 26 May, the UK's Debt Management Office (DMO) is to issue a nominal deal that will stretch out to 2055, Meanwhile...

News: HSBC survey's surprise finding - 80 per cent would scrap mandatory retirement age.
May 23, 2005... Eighty per cent of people want to scrap mandatory retirement and only 14 per cent of respondents in the same study associate financial independence with old age, are just two findings of an HSBC survey of more than 11,000 citizens in 10...

News Analysis: Sweden's traffic light solvency scheme gets the green light from life industry players.
May 23, 2005... Finansinspektionen (FI), Sweden's financial regulator, plans to implement a "traffic light" solvency system in January 2006 to manage investment risks in the life insurance sector. A beta version of the system has already received plaudits from...

Comment: Leader - Not so much a wind of change as a breeze.
May 23, 2005... German banks lag behind their top European counterparts when it comes to costs and income structures. But their dire straits have failed to trigger consolidation at a national level. Which leaves the sector's future depending on cross-border...

Comment: World view - Good news for the insightful investor.
May 23, 2005... It is almost a given that equity prices tend to anticipate news and information. Obviously there is often sudden news that cannot be anticipated, at which point investors will spot a sudden rise in the stock price. However equity markets...

Comment: Industry voice - The alternative future for indices.
May 23, 2005... For many years, hedge funds have been sold and perceived as investment management entities for which the objective measure of absolute performance excluded all reference to any index. Today there are three major reasons why that approach has...

Comment: Mephisto - A veritable norse saga.
May 23, 2005... Norse legend has it that Odin's twin ravens, Huginn and Munin, would fly around the world daily and report back on what had happened in Midgard. Mephisto has the more mundane ambition of reporting developments in the Norwegian pensions...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - Europe's latest arrival.
May 23, 2005... Changes in due diligence and reporting standards are often cited as the main drivers behind the take-up of multi-manager schemes across Europe, while the pace of regulatory reform has left many trustees mired in detail and regulatory...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - Bramdean: the further adventures of Nicola Horlick.
May 23, 2005... Until their client list is published later this year, 'What Nicola did next' will remain Bramdean Asset Management's unfortunate soubriquet. Established late last year by Nicola Horlick, the founder of SG Asset Management and well-known...

Special Focus: Multi-managers.
May 23, 2005... The questions: 1. Are there sufficient potential clients to service the growing number of multi-manager providers? 2. Why have European multi-managers been slow to take off compared to their US counterparts? 3. Are fees set at the...

Special Focus: Multi-managers - When interests collide.
May 23, 2005... In recent years, it has become common to ask: when is a consultant not a consultant? It seems that the answer is: 'when the consultant is a multi- manager'. Struck by plummeting fees, many consultants have spent the last few years revisiting...

Fund Profile: Ruukki Pension Fund - Forging ahead to a low-risk future.
May 23, 2005... Ruukki pension fund, whose members comprise employees in the Finnish metal and steel products company Ruukki, enjoyed a second year of encouraging performance in 2004 when it achieved an annual return of 9.1 per cent on assets totalling E480m....

Pensions Snapshot: Russia.
May 23, 2005... Pension funds have failed to capitalise on the liberalisation of Russia's pension markets. Despite market reforms introduced to encourage people to opt out of the state system, take-up remains negligible. According to Wil Olsthoorn, the...