epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from October 2002

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from October 2002

News: e13bn Swiss national fund delays equity investment.
October 14, 2002... Switzerland's SFr19bn (e13bn) AVS/ AHV social security fund is delaying a decision to implement two small and mid cap equity mandates worth SFr 700m. It has also delayed a decision to invest in hedge funds. The fund appointed AXA Investment...

News: France to issue e11bn in index-linked next year.
October 14, 2002... The French state is planning to issue e11bn in index-linked bonds next year, about 10% of total issuance for 2003. This is in recognition of European pension funds' need to match inflation- linked liabilities. The Netherlands, for...

News: Liquid small caps get index.
October 14, 2002... HSBC is going to launch a new index of Europe's most traded smaller companies. The HSBC Smaller European Leaders Index will have 135 stocks in the Europewide version; 100 in the ex-UK; and 70 in the Euroland. The average annualised...

News: German institutions cut equities from 30% to 19%.
October 14, 2002... German institutional investors have all but abandoned their increasing allocation to equities, according to a recent survey. The average European equity allocation has fallen from 30% to 19% in two years, Connecticut-based Greenwich...

Scheme News: Engineers pause over Euro ETFs.
October 14, 2002... Inarcassa, the E2bn providence fund for Italian architects and engineers, is hoping to buy more exchange traded funds (ETFs). But it is shelving plans to invest in European ETFs because it does not consider them liquid enough. ETFs...

Scheme News: 200,000 Swedes to be spoilt for choice.
October 14, 2002... Employees of Sweden's central government will be able to choose from around 20 insurance companies to invest their pension from the beginning of next year. In a system along the same lines as the national Premium Pension Plan (PPM),...

Asset Management News: War stocks lose value.
October 14, 2002... War stocks have lost most of the value they made in the aftermath of 11 September, despite the increasing chances of American military strikes on Iraq. Once markets had settled after the terrorist attacks, the Dow Jones Aerospace World...

Asset Management News: Danish investors will hold 70% bonds by Jan 2003.
October 14, 2002... Danish pension funds and insurers are dumping equities in favour of bonds, according to the latest Investor Fokus survey from Nykredit Markets. Bonds have risen from 59.2% of assets under management last quarter to 66.7%. Allocation was...

People on the move: JPMorgan restructures European Equities team.
October 14, 2002... JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management has created a new structure for the management of its European Equities Team. William Meadon, James Elliot and Chris Complin have been appointed as head of European institutional funds, head of European retail...

People on the move: Gartmore puts Young to head global consulting.
October 14, 2002... Gartmore Investment Management has appointed Shamus Young to the position of head of global consulting group. Young, previously account director on the Gartmore Institutional Client Services team, will be responsible for managing all aspects of...

People on the move: Jackson moves to SEI from Citibank Global.
October 14, 2002... SEI has appointed Francis Jackson as director of business development for private banking and asset managers in Europe. He will be responsible for the development and implementation of SEI's outsourced service solutions to meet the needs of the...

Ratings & Regulation: Measure earnings surprise.
October 14, 2002... A new rating service of sell-side analysts promises investors more accurate forecasts of company earnings. US-based StarMine, which has already attracted 25 of the top 100 US-based fund management houses with its products, claims a success...

Ratings & Regulation: NAPF promotes 'Citizen's Pension'.
October 14, 2002... The UK's National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has come up with a number of radical proposals which promise to boost savings and slash red tape. In its wide-ranging policy paper, Pensions - Plain and Simple, the NAPF sets out many...

Ratings & Regulation: EU Watch.
October 14, 2002... While the establishment of a pan-European pension took another step in the right direction with the European Court of Justice's judgement in the Danner case, there is still much legal clarification needed. The court ruled that Finnish tax...

Comment & Analysis: A sensible framework for fair value.
October 14, 2002... The move towards fair value reporting has not bypassed the Netherlands. The PVK, the pensions and insurance regulator, is developing a revised financial regulatory framework, the FTK, that differs radically from the current approach, with...

Comment & Analysis: Tech sector's knock-on effect.
October 14, 2002... Heading into the third year of the bear market, some think it is time to assess the impact of falling markets on the pension liabilities of large corporations. While many US companies have acknowledged pension shortfalls, there have been fewer...

Leader: Digging around for the brightest stars.
October 14, 2002... The launch by San Francisco's StarMine of a European office could not come at a more opportune time. This growing US company offers investors new quantitative means to analyse and judge the efficacy of analysts' earnings predictions. In...

Survey: Small and Mid Caps - Good things come in small packages.
October 14, 2002... How well do small caps perform relatively? How long is a piece of string? If we stretch our figures back to the start of 1996, then we find that Europe's mid caps have, in the past six months, just crept into outperformance territory...

Survey: Small and Mid Caps - An underestimated asset class.
October 14, 2002... When talking about small and mid caps, one of the most difficult exercises is the definition of the asset class. A good attempt would be to define small and mid caps as "stocks that are not commonly found in most investors' typical portfolios"....

Survey: Small and Mid Caps - Opting for pricing power.
October 14, 2002... European smaller companies are unloved, under-researched and - we believe - predominantly undervalued. Given an inefficient market, smaller companies offer considerable advantages for those prepared to give them the attention they merit....

Research Update: A fate worse than work?
October 14, 2002... Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic decline in the average age of retirement in Europe. In Southern Europe, for example, the average individual spends almost twice as long in retirement as 40 years ago. Indeed, one of the major...

Fund Portrait: Robert Bosch - The right tools for the job.
October 14, 2002... The location of the headquarters of Robert Bosch, a remote hilltop outside Stuttgart, is rather in keeping with the firm's status as Germany's largest private company. The eponymous company founder arranged for his shareholding to be...

Pensions Snapshot: Portugal.
October 14, 2002... Can local elections have an impact on pension reform? While the proposition may sound ridiculous, the devastating defeat of the Portuguese socialist government in last year's local elections brought down the cabinet and led to the election of a...

Pensions Snapshot: Portugal - In brief.
October 14, 2002... - Portugal has 4 million workers and some 1.2 million pensioners. The state pensions system paid out around E6.9bn in 2001. - Only 7% of workers are included in occupational pension schemes. The sums managed by pension funds of all...