The idea of referendums setting the agenda for institutional investors may be a frightening pipe dream in much of the world, but Switzerland’s unique brand of direct democracy is set to revolutionise its funds’ priorities. Swiss funds are due to be anointed as no less than the country’s official guardians against “rip-off” executive salaries. That
As the world and companies globalise, George Siguler, managing director and founding partner of private equity firm, Siguler Guff, has a simple recommendation for investors. “My recommendation for stock investors is to look at great global companies,” he says. “Look at companies like Johnson and Johnson, Unilever or Boeing. They all have great balance sheets
It is easy for long-term investors to avoid short termism, and the solution lies in avoiding momentum and conducting risk analysis using cash flows – not market pricing. “Diversification is a joke. Diversification and risk analysis relies on pricing, but pricing is distorted because it’s driven by momentum,” says Paul Woolley, chairman of the Paul
“ShareAction has become the premier organisation to give voice to those who wish to invest their values as well as their assets,” enthused former vice president of the United States Al Gore, speaking to a packed audience at ShareAction’s annual lecture in London’s Guildhall last week. ShareAction is only a tiny pressure group but Gore’s
As almost every market in the world looks to move from defined benefit to some sort of defined contribution model, academics at the Pensions Institute of the Cass Business School, City University London have developed a set of 15 principles for designing a defined contribution model. The principles, consistent with the recently published OECD guidelines, are based
When the European Commission announced plans on February 14 to introduce a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) by the start of 2014, it planted a bomb under Europe’s pension funds. That is not, of course, the view of Algirdas Šemeta (pictured below right), the EU’s commissioner for taxation. He says the proposed tax is “unquestionably fair
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