The latest
FIS Santa Monica 2012

Klinck: we don’t need any more product

The investment and pension industry has created too much complexity and added too many costs, and must move towards more simplicity, executive vice president and member of the management committee of State Street, Jack Klinck, told delegates in an opening address at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Santa Monica. Klinck observed four mega trends in […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 24, 2012
Uncategorised posts

Aligning asset owners and managers

Delegation is a fundamental obstacle to the alignment of asset-owner and asset-manager goals. However, Sebastien Pouget, professor of finance at the University of Toulouse, believes a combination of customised performance benchmarks and a dual short and long-term fee incentive can help overcome the problems of the principal/agent relationship. Pouget, who spoke at the recent United […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 17, 2012
Uncategorised posts

Danish pension is gold

Denmark has blitzed the pension-system competition, being awarded the first Mercer Global Pension Index A grading. In the process, it has relegated the Dutch and Australian systems to second and third places, respectively, after four years. Mercer senior partner and report author, David Knox, says the reasons for awarding Denmark the top grade were clear. […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 17, 2012
Investor Profile

Postcard from Japan

For many years Japan has been an insurance-market behemoth and Japan Post Insurance Company is one of the giants with $1.13 trillion. But the industry has not been immune to change. Between 1997 and 2001 seven life insurance companies became insolvent, and there is a question mark over whether it was a low interest-rate environment […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 12, 2012
Uncategorised posts

Taking the future into account

At the International Centre for Pension Management’s biannual meeting in London, Jack Gray and Generation’s David Blood had a tête à tête on sustainability. An academic at the Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Market Dysfunctionality at the University of Technology Sydney, Gray has written a paper, Misadventures of an Irresponsible Investor, that at its core […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 10, 2012
Investor Profile

Feathering the NEST

In the United Kingdom there are around 1.5 million employers, and it is estimated more than half of them do not offer a pension to their employees. The pension system in the UK is fragmented. There are more than 10,000 mostly defined-benefit plans and, unless you are a government employee or in the high-income bracket, […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 10, 2012
<137of254>