epn: European Pensions & Investment News back issues from July 2006:
News: Mn and Cordares alliance to target European expansion.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Bram van den Oever Mn Services and Cordares, the Dutch pension asset management companies, are to enter into a strategic alliance to create a single product range and administrative abilities. The move comes two years after a failed merger between the firms, which ...
News: Sixth Dutch fiduciary mandate puts GSAM out in front.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) has won its sixth big fiduciary management outsourcing deal in the Netherlands. The mandate, E750m from the Oce company pension fund, follows May's E5.4bn award from the Vervoer transport industry fund and a 2001 win of ...
News: CEIOPS chairman launches defence of solvency II rules.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy The chairman of the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) has advocated the application of solvency II-type rules for pension funds. [] He used the twenty fifth anniversary conference of the European Federation for ...
News: PPF aims to reduce risk and boost trust.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) in the UK will help schemes reduce risk by focusing on risk management and increasing overall confidence, it has claimed. [] In its medium term strategic plan, published earlier this month, the PPF said it would ...
News: UK plc ups contributions in bid to plug scheme deficits.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Sixty per cent of UK firms made pension contributions over and above normal statutory requirements in order to plug their scheme deficits last year, according to a survey of more than 100 CFOs and treasurers by Mercer Human Resource Consulting and The ...
News: Aberdeen AM unveils plans to open Tokyo research office with two new appointments.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Aberdeen Asset Management is planning to open a research office in Tokyo and apply for a licence so that it can manage money out of Japan. [] Andrew Gillan, investment manager, Asian equities, at Aberdeen told epn that the office will be headed up by ...
News in Brief: Stroud set to retire from Pensions Trust after 28 years.
Jul 03, 2006 ... UK's GBP3bn (e4.3bn) Pensions Trust has announced that its chief executive Richard Stroud will retire at the end of April 2007 after 28 years of service at the ...
News in Brief: Ilmarinen targets small and mid-sized Finnish funds.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Ilmarinen, the e21bn Finnish mutual pension insurance company, is launching a new fund investing in private equity at small and mid- sized Finnish companies. OKO ...
News in Brief: Threedneedle eyes JPMorgan for outsourced services.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Threadneedle Investments has entered into exclusive negotiations with JPMorgan Chase Bank with a view to appointing JPMorgan as its chosen provider of outsourced investment ...
News in Brief: Axa IM builds currency team.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Axa Investment Managers has created a currency management team, appointing Andrew Dales as head of currency management from Barclays Global Investors (BGI), where he was an investment ...
News in Brief: Dexion teams up with Deutsche for distribution initiative.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Dexion Capital, the manager of exchange-traded funds of hedge funds, has announced a new distribution initiative with Deutsche Bank to broaden the global reach of its ...
News: Van Aken appointment leads Fortis charge towards LDI.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior Fortis Investments is looking to market its liability driven investment (LDI) product in Germany following the appointment of Alexander van Aken to the new positon of head of LDI. [] Fortis plans to expand its LDI team further over time, but will also ...
News: Three boost LGIM structured solutions team.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has made three new appointments to its structured solutions team. [] Anton Eser joins from Aegon Asset Management where he was head of structured products; Kerrigan Procter joins from the Royal Bank of Scotland, where has worked since 1999, most ...
People on the Move: Fulwood and Agnew join the ranks at Henderson.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Henderson Global Investors has appointed Mark Fulwood as associate director of institutional business. Mr Fulwood joins from Deutsche Asset Management where he spent the last four years as a global and EAFE portfolio analyst. At ...
People on the Move: Vose targets global developed markets for SWIP.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) has appointed Ian Vose as head of global developed markets. Mr Vose joins SWIP following five years at Allianz Global Investors, initially as global ...
People on the Move: Van der Wal appointed for managing director post at ING.
Jul 03, 2006 ... ING Investment Management has appointed Arthur van der Wal as managing director, institutional clients. Mr Van der Wal is currently the head of the ...
People on the Move: Dalgliesh takes on pacific equities director role at F&C.
Jul 03, 2006 ... F&C has appointed Peter Dalgliesh as director, pacific equities. Mr Dalgliesh joins F&C from Gartmore Investment Management, where he has worked as a fund manager since 2002. At F&C he ...
People on the Move: SGAM builds real estate team.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Societe Generale Asset Management Alternative Investments (SGAM AI) has made several new appointments in its real estate area. Jean- Christophe Ginet, previously managing director strategy and development, becomes global head of SGAM AI Real Estate ...
People on the Move: Heskett moves on from Barings for EPIC job.
Jul 03, 2006 ... EPIC Investment Advisers in London has appointed John Heskett as an associate member. Most recently, Mr Heskett was group head of sales, business development and client services at ...
People on the Move: Benz moves up at Pimco to head European accounts.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Pimco has appointed Bill Benz as the head of account management for the firm's clients in Europe. Mr Benz has been working at ...
People on the Move: Short makes leap to replace Armstrong at Axa Framlington.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Axa Framlington has appointed Tim Short as fund manager on its European desk. Mr Short joins Axa from Societe Generale Asset Management (SGAM), London, where he ...
News: F&C readies sterling version of Dutch euro LDI product.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy F&C intends to launch a sterling-denominated version of its euro LDI product launched for the Dutch market in February this year. [] Richard Watts, co-head of asset liability management and insurance at F&C Asset Management, said that the UK launch was ...
News: Private equity joint venture with US boutique aims to bolster BIAM offering.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior Bank of Ireland Asset Management is expanding into private equity with the establishment of a joint venture with US private equity firm Paul Capital Partners. The company has renewed its commitment to fix recent poor investment performance. [] The ...
News: ATP halts plans to offer Folkeborsen to funds.
Jul 03, 2006 ... ATP, the E49bn Danish labour market supplementary pension scheme, has withdrawn plans to offer Folkeborsen, the electronic pension savings platform, as an investment option to Danish pension funds. [] Ellen Dalsgaard Zdravkovic, director at ATP, which manages the DKr50bn (E6.7bn) scheme, ...
News: Oyak cuts foreign assets favour of bonds.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Oyak, the $2.5bn (E2bn) Turkish army pension fund, is cutting back on its foreign currency portfolio and expanding its fixed income holdings. [] Dr Caner (tm)ner, executive vice president of investments and information systems at Oyak, told epn that the fund decided to reshuffle part of ...
News: Managers driven by client concerns on engagement.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior Engagement is increasingly a factor in manager selection, according to a new survey from the Investment Management Association (IMA). [] In the IMA's third survey of fund manager engagement with companies, 13 managers considered it was a key factor in ...
News: Univest advice seals Unilever scheme deal for Mercer.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Unilever's UK Pension Scheme has appointed Mercer Investment Consulting to advise on the GBP4.5bn (e6.5bn) scheme. [] The appointment follows Mercer's advice to the scheme in setting up an asset pooling vehicle, Univest, for the company's pension plans worldwide, which broke new ground ...
News: Balanced pooled funds come back to earth after April rise.
Jul 03, 2006 ... The latest UK CAPS pooled pension fund update shows that balanced pooled funds showed a return of -5.3 per cent in May, compared with April's 0.2 per cent rise. [] Figures covering one, three and five years to the end of May show balanced pooled funds returned 18.2 per cent, 14.8 per cent ...
News: ABN Amro adds to SRI range with credit fund.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior ABN Amro Asset Management has launched a low risk fixed income investment fund, the Sustainable Global Credit Fund. [] Fund manager Dirk Frikkee, along with a team of more than 10 investment professionals in the US and Europe, assesses companies on their ...
News Analysis: UK funds play away from home.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands UK pension funds have increased their exposure to overseas equities and decreased their domestic stock holdings, according to UBS Global Asset Management's latest annual report: Pension Fund Indicators 2006. [] The study finds that UK funds have raised ...
Comment: Leader - EFRP party leaves pensions with solvency headache.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy The champagne flowed at June's twenty fifth anniversary celebrations for the European Federation for Retirement Provision. But there were more than a few guests scratching their heads following the remarks of the chair of CEIOPS, the Committee of European ...
Comment: World View - Are we in the eye of a correction storm?
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk Following the equity market peak in 2000, it took a while for investors and markets to come to grips with the new situation of constantly falling equity markets in developed countries. However, the emerging markets were able to decouple, showing a ...
Comment: Industry Voice - Setting up the skills to get shorting right.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Alistair Sayer As investors continue to search for additional sources of alpha, there has been growing interest in strategies that implement both long and short positions to increase the opportunity set for generating returns. [] Allowing fund managers to short stocks in ...
Comment: How can we avoid regulatory slip-ups?
Jul 03, 2006 ... Wry smiles were seen on a number of pension fund managers' faces when, for the second year in a row, regulatory overkill was identified as the greatest risk facing the financial sector in PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation's (CSFI) 2006 Banana Skins ...
Interview: EFRP at 25 - Thinking for the long-term.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy Celebrating 25 years of the European Federation for Retirement (EFRP) provision is clearly an auspicious occasion. But prior to the federation's celebratory conference and reception last month, both secretary general Chris Verhaegen and chairman Jaap Maassen ...
Focus: Nordic Region - Market correction sends windfall for Icelandic funds.
Jul 03, 2006 ... "Market chaos in Iceland," proclaimed one section of London's business press last month. With near-morbid fascination, another chronicled the Nordic island lurching "into its third week of crisis". [] But the siren voices started long before that. In February, Fitch downgraded its outlook ...
Focus: Nordic Region - Saving the blushes of red-light funds?
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Seven months on from the introduction of Finansinspektionen's (FI) traffic light supervisory system in Sweden and almost 1 per cent of life and pension investors - in terms of assets under management - have slipped into the supervisory authority's red ...
Focus: Nordic Region - Roundtable: EPN spoke to four Swedish investors about their current and future concerns.(Discussion)
Jul 03, 2006 ... The Questions [] 1. How has its adoption of the traffic light system affected your fund? [] 2. What challenges are you currently facing in trying to generate sufficient returns for your fund members? [] 3. Are there any particular asset classes that you do not invest in but find ...
LDI and Buy-outs: Getting the best of both worlds with hybrids.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Byline: Mark Duffy and Guy Coughlan Both liability driven investment (LDI) and the buy-out of pension funds are hot topics for pension schemes at the moment. Each of these approaches has its merits but both fall short of an optimum solution for sponsoring companies and ...
Fund Profile: Vital - The four ingredients to ensure vitality.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Tom Rathke, CFO of Vital, the E27.24bn Norwegian pension insurance company, says the firm's investment strategy is based on four main principles: risk taking, diversification, monitoring of managers and thorough analysis. "Our goal and ambition is to maximise our returns and provide our ...
Pensions Snapshot: Poland.
Jul 03, 2006 ... Since a three-pillar pension system was established in Poland in 1999, local pension funds have been criticising the inflexibility of the existing investment regime. [] Present regulations place a limit of 5 per cent on foreign assets and 40 per cent on equity holdings, and also prevent ...
News: Should European investors grow forestry allocations?
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy Unlike their north American counterparts, European institutional investors are not known for their allocations to forestry land and timber. However, they should consider the asset class, according to a paper just published by the consultancy ...
News: UK increases assets as IMA highlights shift into bonds.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Assets managed by members of the UK Investment Management Association rose by over 29 per cent in 2005 according to the IMA's latest annual asset management survey, up from GBP2.16trn to GBP2.8trn (E3.12trn to E4trn). The survey also suggests that liability led investments are ...
News: Stalwart funds keep faith in equities.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Some 20 per cent of European pension and insurance funds polled in epn's latest quarterly investment survey plan to increase their exposure to equities despite recent equity market falls. The survey, which polled 20 pension and insurance funds ...
News: Deutsche beefs up investment division after Aberdeen sale.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior Deutsche Asset Management has made several senior appointments in the wake of the sale of its UK investment business to Aberdeen. Two further senior appointments are Klaus Kaldemorgen, as global head of equities, and Heinz Fesser, as global ...
News: Morgan Stanley considers the merits of Dutch and German launches for LDI funds.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) has launched two UK liability driven investment (LDI) funds and is also examining the possibility of introducing funds for Dutch and German institutional investors. "It is safe to say that we are ...
News: F&C calls on Dutch to publish voting records.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Asset managers should be responsible for disclosing Dutch pension funds' share voting records, according to F&C. The suggestion comes as the Dutch parliament is about to discuss compulsory vote disclosure for domestic pension institutions. Rob Kamphuis, director for business ...
News in Brief: Dutch government resignation makes FTK uncertain.
Jul 17, 2006 ... The Dutch government's resignation last month means that the implementation date of the FTK, slated for 1 January, is now in question. The government is currently discussing which important issues should be passed on to the next government and which lesser topics will be dealt with by the ...
News in Brief: Man adds close to 10 per cent to assets in second quarter.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Man Group, the UK-listed hedge fund house, increased its assets under management by $4.1bn to $54bn in the three months to the end of June. The firm's institutional assets under ...
News in Brief: Putnam turns to Dublin for double fund launch.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Putnam Investments has launched two new Dublin-domiciled products: the Total Return and Global Equity Multi-Alpha funds. The Total Return fund will invest its net assets in a diversified portfolio, which ...
News in Brief: Indexchange starts first non-Japan based Nikkei 225 ETF.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Indexchange has launched the first exchange traded fund based on the Nikkei 225 outside Japan. The ETF Nikkei 225EX can be traded via Xetra on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The ETF carries a low management fee and conforms to the Ucits III directive ....
News: Axa Framlington to shelter multi-manager investments.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Chris Newlands Axa Framlington is to assume management of the firm's UK multi- management business from Axa Investment Managers. The UK business will continue to be known as Axa MM, although the intention is to bring it under the Axa Framlington brand by the end of the ...
People on the Move: Murray assumes Baxter role as chief investment officer.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Old Mutual Asset Managers (UK) has appointed Eoin Murray, current head of quantitative strategies, as its chief investment officer. Mr Murray takes over the role from Peter Baxter who has been chief investment officer since September ...
News: People on the Move - Investec hires Goldman's George as investment analyst.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Investec Asset Management has poached Bradley George from Goldman Sachs to become an investment analyst within its investment team. Based in London, Mr George will report to Domenico Ferrini, the firm's investments director. At Goldman Mr George ...
News: People on the Move - Shake-up at CAAM sees Zaouati take on marketing role.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Philippe Zaouati has been appointed head of marketing at Credit Agricole Asset Management. Mr Zaouati moves internally from his previous role of head of client servicing. Prior to joining the firm, Mr Zaouati spent four years as head of product offers at Sogeposte and was a financial ...
News: People on the Move - Deutsche loses client director as MPC approaches Lancaster.
Jul 17, 2006 ... MPC Investors has added to its institutional client service team with the appointment of Joanna Lancaster (pictured) from Deutsche Asset Management. Ms Lancaster becomes head ...
News: People on the Move - ABN Amro appoints Brown to newly created research post.
Jul 17, 2006 ... ABN Amro Asset Management has appointed Ella Brown as global head of equity research. Ms Brown, who will be responsible for the day- to-day management of firm's equity research, joins from Credit Suisse Asset Management where she headed up the European equity research team. Kevin Smith, ...
News: People on the Move - Lehman structured assets hire sees Rougier quit BNP.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Lehman Brothers has added Stephane Rougier as a managing director and global head of its structured asset management business. He will report to Omar Abukhadra, ...
News: People on the Move - Scattergood takes on products at Northern Trust.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Northern Trust Global Investments has hired Judith Scattergood as funds product manager in London. In this newly created role, Ms Scattergood is responsible for the management and ...
News: Department for work and pensions accused of failing to understand transfer issues.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Kalpana Fitzpatrick The UK government has come under fire for failing to establish an appropriate solution for transfer values for members moving their benefits from one scheme to another. The government's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was asked to ...
News: European alternative investment experts call for simplification of cross-border regulation.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Christine Senior The European private equity industry suffers from an overly complex fund structuring environment says a report from the European Commission's alternative investment expert Group. The report, Developing European Private Equity, describes the ...
News Analysis: Consultants under the spotlight.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Liam Kennedy How well do consultants really perform in manager selections? And to what degree are they influenced by past performance? When Blacket Research, the Edinbugh-based pension fund monitoring and assessment company, set out to measure the ...
Comment: World View - Fed could finally be loosening its belt.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Klaudius Sobczyk Interest rates continue to rise in US, global equity markets sell off, and bond prices have already been falling for some time, so market participants are starting to ponder whether the latest rate increase was the last one or just another step on the ...
Comment: Industry Voice - No grace in the Spanish inquisition.
Jul 17, 2006 ... Byline: Leonardo Sforza In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes, wrote a resigned Benjamin Franklin. Although there is no 'scoop' that we can make on the possibility of reversing both certainties, recent EU initiatives are nurturing new hopes. I am not alluding to ...
Comment: Cum grano salis?
Jul 17, 2006 ... Mephisto notes with interest the decision of the current Finnish presidency of the European Council to issue a newsletter in Latin. He spots a trend: Jaap Maassen, the chairman of the European Federation for Retirement Provision, recently told epn that Latin might not be a bad choice as a ...