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Lepelmeier: interest rates ruin German strategy

German institutional investors face an urgent need to reconsider their bond-heavy investment strategies, argues Dirk Lepelmeier, a former investment head at one of the country’s largest pension funds. Herr Prof Dr Dirk Lepelmeier, to use his appropriate German titles, would rather be addressed as Dirk. That might be of no surprise to many, but it

2013 Nobel Prize in economics split three ways

There is no way to predict whether the price of stocks and bonds will go up or down over the next few days or weeks. However, it is quite possible to foresee the broad course of the prices of these assets over longer time periods, such as the next three-to-five years. These findings, which may

ATP: experiments with alpha and beta

“There is very little pure alpha” said Henrik Jepsen, chief investment officer of ATP, at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Amsterdam when reflecting on the giant Danish fund’s experiences with the return class. The DKK 624-billion ($114-billion) ATP decided to merge the alpha and beta platforms of its investment portfolio earlier this year. This wound

New NAPF chair to build trust in UK pensions

New chairman Ruston Smith’s inaugural speech at the United Kingdom’s National Association of Pension Fund annual conference in Manchester focused on building trust in the pensions industry. Talking about the need to create “pensions people trust to deliver a decent income, pensions people trust to be there when they retire and pensions people trust not

The Fama of modern finance

When Eugene Fama enrolled at Chicago Booth School of Business in 1960, “finance was a joke”, he says in a candid and fascinating insight into his more than 50 years as a student, academic and teacher at the university. The essay, published by Chicago Booth’s Capital Ideas, details Fama’s own history but also a short

Walmart takes divestment blows to the body

Two more high profile investors have punished US retailer Walmart for its anti-union stance and poor labour practices by divesting their holdings in the company. AP Funds, Sweden’s cluster of state pension funds named AP1 through to AP4 and AP6 (there is no AP5) worth a combined $140 billion, sold its equity and corporate bond