Deutsche Bank’s carefully engineered fund

You would expect one of the biggest names in global finance to have a sophisticated pension fund, and on that measure the €7-billion ($9.2-billion) contractual trust arrangement (CTA) for Deutsche Bank’s German employees does not disappoint in the slightest. It has carefully engineered a diversified bond-led liability-driven investment (LDI) strategy that is supported by a … Read more

Retirement: a cause worth working on

There are two things that drive the newly appointed global chief operating officer of State Street Global Advisors, Greg Ehret, in his bid to improve the client experience: the retirement business is a cause worth working on and the clients are the reason the business exists. Ehret was appointed to the new position at SSgA, … Read more

The Co-op’s equally split strategy

The United Kingdom’s Co-operative Group, a chain of food, funeral and financial services outlets, markets itself on a popular loyalty scheme whereby customers earn points that are converted into a profit share, or dividend, directly linked to the group’s annual profits. It’s a founding philosophy that can trace its roots back a hundred years and … Read more

Pension funds, where banks no longer go?

There continues to be potential for pension capital appearing where bank lending no longer wants to go. Commentators in the UK and continental Europe have heightened expectations that pension funds will step in to help fill the continent’s bank financing gap. Societe Generale, for instance, recently predicted further “disintermediation” by investors sidestepping banks and looking … Read more

Building consensus for investment beliefs at CalPERS

An investment-beliefs workshop for the CalPERS board, held in April, revealed five areas, including active management, where the views of the board and staff lacked consensus. The contentious, or unsettled, topics for discussion were active management, private asset classes, sustainability (environmental, social and governance), investment performance targets and stakeholder considerations. At the board workshop, Janine … Read more

Pension funds and social housing: a perfect match?

Pension funds and social housing: it looks like a perfect match as schemes in the United Kingdom seek long-term, index-linked cash flows and housing associations, the not-for-profit providers of this type of affordable housing for low income households, hunt the long-term finance they can’t access via banks. Broad residential housing represents just 1 per cent … Read more