epn: European Pensions & Investment News articles from October 2008

epn: European Pensions & Investment News archives from October 2008

News: APG eyes Latin America and southern Europe.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson APG, the investment arm of the ABP pension fund, is planning to add schemes in Latin America and southern Europe. Roderick Munsters, chief investment officer at APG, speaking at a conference in The Hague,...

News: RAFP hopes to cultivate forestry.
October 6, 2008... France The 5.5bn Retraite Additionnelle de la Fonction Publique (RAFP) is seeking new sectors for sustainable development investments. Philippe Desfosses, chief executive officer at RAFP, told epn that the fund saw many possibilities...

News: Amnesty tarnishes Norway's 'gold standard' fund.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Norway Amnesty International Norway is calling for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global to get tougher on its bond investments and exclude government bond holdings in countries that are breaching...

News: F&C chalks up debut Nordic deal with Danish teachers' fund.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Denmark In its first mandate win in the Nordic region, F&C Investments has been appointed to provide active engagement services for the P'dagogernes Pensionskasse (PBU), the DKr29.8bn (4bn) Danish pension fund for...

News: Heineken fund's spirits down after poor results.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson The 2bn Stichting Heineken pension fund is unhappy with the performance of its managers. Frank de Waardt, director of the fund, told epn that poor returns over the past few years were becoming a cause for...

News in brief.
October 6, 2008... Belgium, the UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland all issued temporary bans on short trading, which have been widely blamed for market turbulence. The countries' moves differed individually,...

News: De Eendragt preps emerging market debt mandate.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Netherlands De Eendragt Pensioen, the 1bn Dutch pension insurance company, will unveil a new emerging market mandate in the beginning of October. "We're thinking of starting with an emerging market debt...

News: French actuarial association blasts Solvency II 'nonsense'.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson France Add the French actuarial association to the growing list of Europeans against Solvency II. Emmanuel Tassin, vice-president of the Institut des Actuaires, said the notion of a uniform set of...

News: Private equity remains top asset class of the Nordics.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Nordic pension funds are set to continue investing money into private equity, which remains one of the most interesting asset classes for Nordic funds. The results of epn sister publication nrpn's quarterly...

People News: SAM to sustain European drive despite Ringger exit.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Reto Ringger has resigned as chief executive officer at Sustainable Asset Management (SAM), but said his firm would continue to expand in Europe. Mr Ringger founded the company in 1995 and has served as its CEO...

People News: Beccar to head up ING South America drive in new role.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Florencio Beccar has been made managing director of the newly opened ING Real Estate office in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The move, which involves an initial investment programme in the country of around $600m (420m),...

People News: People on the move.
October 6, 2008... Mirjam van Praag has been appointed to the APG Group board of directors for a four-year term, effective October 1. Ms van Praag is a professor of economics and business administration at the University of Amsterdam and director at the Amsterdam...

News Analysis: Lehman disaster impacts over-eager European funds.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson and Caroline Liinanki Some of Europe's largest pension funds appear to have been the biggest victims in the Lehman collapse. As the share price of the investment bank fell to catastrophic levels, some schemes...

Comment: Leader - Hedge funds caught short with prohibition.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson - Editor What times we live in. Markets are in chaos, confidence has been eroded and volatility is king. Governments made bold moves to stop the bleeding, with several multi-billion-dollar bail-outs preceding the...

Comment: Industry voice - Necessary or just evil?
October 6, 2008... Byline: Stephen Oxley Short selling enables one investor to profit from another's loss. The practice has been getting some bad press recently and the global financial crisis has once again brought it into focus. Shorting is central to...

Comment: Mephisto - Mephisto's hail mary - the short version.
October 6, 2008... Mephisto is going to borrow the introduction from Joseph Heller's Catch-22. It was love at first sight. AIG for a buck 25 a share - this was one of the biggest and most powerful financial institutions and it was going under unless someone...

Fund Profile: Iceland - Gildi - Portfolio construction key to Gildi's moderate success.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki While there may be little to smile about in the current financial climate, the Gildi pension fund probably has less reason to worry than most. The fund has had the best long-term results out of all its Icelandic...

Country Profile: Belgium.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Like most pension markets, Belgium has taken a knock from the global downturn. Figures from the Belgian Association of Pension Institutions (ABIP/BVPI) reveal an average return of -7.8 per cent in the first half of...

Features: Credit - Investment-grade strategies - The light at the end of the new Great Depression.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth With so much chaos on the global financial markets, pension fund investors could be forgiven for abandoning all hope of ever again enjoying a period of stability. However, there are some positive prospects on the...

Market cycles: Predicting the bottom - Calling the bottom without a crystal ball.
October 6, 2008... In the opening line of his 1922 poem The Waste Land, TS Eliot wrote, "April is the cruellest month". The irony is that Eliot was working at Lloyds bank at the time. Had he been able to peer into a crystal ball, he would have seen that in...

The Specialist: US equities - Europeans plan for elevation of US economy.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Helen Ford European investors have been underweight in US equities for some time, as scepticism about the sustainability of above-trend GDP growth and a weakening US dollar made potential returns look unattractive. However, more...

The Interview: AK Asset Management - Cem Yalcinkaya and Ertunc Tumen.
October 6, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Is your client base predominantly domestic? Cem Yalcinkaya: Most of our clients are domestic, but just three months ago we launched a Sicav fund in Luxembourg and we would like to distribute it with two...

News: Icelandic pensions industry in chaos.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Iceland The Icelandic pensions market is in disarray because many of its funds are unsure of how to safeguard their assets during the ongoing financial crisis. "We have been discussing the current market...

News: Swiss funds unaffected by mortgage exposure.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan Switzerland Despite a sizeable allocation to mortgages, Swiss pension funds are holding up relatively well during the ongoing financial crisis. Christoph Ryter, pension fund manager at the 850m Alcan pension...

News: Varma buys up Icelandic stakes in Finnish firms.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki Finland Varma, the Finnish pension insurance company, is taking advantage of the Icelandic financial crisis by acquiring Icelandic stakes in Finnish firms. The 28.6bn pension firm has bought 10.4 per cent...

News: Belgian and Dutch pensions cautious about state bail-outs.
October 20, 2008... Hjalmar Tjan Both the Belgian and Dutch pensions associations have welcomed state- sponsored bail-outs of banks, but warned that a more co-ordinated effort would be required over the long term. "I don't think any state aims for the...

News: Spanish fund keeps up inflation fight.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Spain Spain's 2.4bn Endesa pension fund is actively searching for 'inflation- fighting' assets, but ruled out an investment in commodities. While commodities are frequently seen as the best asset for...

News in brief.
October 20, 2008... Glitnir Finland has been taken over by the company's management and will once again be named FIM. Its Icelandic parent company, which was nationalised three weeks ago, acquired the Finnish business as late as last year. Johannes Schulman, chief...

News: Europeans mirror Nordic funds by cutting commodity allocations.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan European pension funds, like their counterparts in the Nordic region, appear to be heading out of commodities. A quarter of the respondents to epn's quarterly investment survey for September indicated that they...

News: Dow Chemical Spain commits to absolute return strategies.
October 20, 2008... Spain Dow Chemical Spain's pension fund is to allocate up to 8m of its assets to private equity and real estate in the coming months. Jose Ochoa de Eribe, a trustee for the fund, told epn that the allocation would likely come at the...

News: Italian hedge fund ban would have no effect on pensions.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Italy A ban on hedge funds is unlikely to affect the Italian institutional market, according to experts. Recent comments from Italian economy minister Giulio Tremonti indicated that he would like hedge...

People News: East Capital prepares 'logical' move to Ukraine.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson and Caroline Liinanki Ukraine East Capital, the Swedish eastern Europe specialist, is set to open an office in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. Marcus Svedberg, chief economist at the firm told epn there was a...

People News: Man to grow into Scandinavia and eastern Europe.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson Man Investments will expand its presence in Scandinavia, eastern Europe and South Africa, according to Tomi Larsson, head of Nordic and emerging markets. Mr Larsson explained that the team covering this area...

People News: People on the move.
October 20, 2008... Griffin Capital Management has named Nina Hook-Zurlino as its marketing director. The European investment boutique has made several appointments to its investment fund business in recent weeks in an effort to develop the business in emerging...

News Analysis: Finns rethink hedge funds and search for new managers.
October 20, 2008... Finland Spencer Anderson Finnish pension funds and companies are well known for their high allocations to hedge funds. Varma leads the pack with a 14 per cent allocation, Fennia has 13 per cent, while Etera and Ilmarinen have lower...

Comment: Leader - Financial times moving faster than the ink dries.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson - Editor By the time you read this, these words will probably be obsolete. This is not to say that I am incompetent, it is just how things are currently working. Over the past few weeks, the credit crunch has...

Comment: Industry voice - Betting on a second-round KO.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Richard Batty The pick-up in inflation around the globe in recent months has certainly worried investors, both in bond and equity markets. The good news is that so far most of the upturn has been due to the rise in energy and food...

Comment: Mephisto - Mephisto's safest bet: put it in the vault.
October 20, 2008... How safe is anything anymore? People can pretend that things are 'business as usual' as much as they like, but Mephisto doesn't buy it. In fact, Mephisto wouldn't buy much of anything right now. However, he would pay quite a lot of money...

Fund Profile: Netherlands - PME - Dutch PME fund proves mettle in tough times.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Hjalmar Tjan It should come as no surprise that the current economic climate has left - and continues to leave - its mark on pension funds. It is no different for the 22bn Amsterdam-based pension fund Metalektro (PME), the...

Country Profile: Iceland.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Caroline Liinanki While pension funds worldwide have felt the adverse effects of the financial crisis, no other financial market has been hit as severely as Iceland's. The nationalisation of the country's three largest banks, the...

Features: Currency - The fluctuation factor - The highs and lows of currency markets.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Martin Fagan Currency fluctuations have always caused normally sanguine investors to go queasy in the stomach. Fund managers of international portfolios are also familiar with their sting. No matter how effective the stock-picker,...

Emerging markets: A risky business - The pangs of emerging market currencies.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Gill Wadsworth Sharp falls for emerging markets in the past few months have served as a timely reminder that foreign investment brings with it a set of risks as well as opportunities. In the last month, the MSCI Emerging Market...

The Specialist: IORP compliance - A question of conformity.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Herman Kappelle The General Pension Institution (API) is based on the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) directive. However, the API as such is not defined in the directive, which describes an IORP as "an...

The Interview: East Capital.
October 20, 2008... Byline: Spencer Anderson When and why did you start investing in Ukraine? We are fairly large investors in Ukraine and have been for some time. We started investing here five years ago. It's still considered a frontier market and it's...