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Asset Allocation

Challenges for Germany’s pension funds

Opportunities exist to improve portfolio efficiency among Germany’s pension funds, but it will create additional governance requirements. The conservatism of the portfolios is seemingly more difficult to move and reflects the higher degree of comfort required by German investors. Head of investments in Germany for Willis Towers Watson argues it is important to note that the short-term comfort this may provide may well come at a long-term cost.
Nigel CresswellFebruary 10, 2020
Uncategorised posts

Frozen by the entanglement of risk

Equity prices in continental Europe and emerging markets, including China, are below fair value, and present an opportunity for investors, but the ‘entanglement of risk’ in current markets is making Brian Singer, partner and head of dynamical allocation strategies team, William Blair cautious. William Blair typically targets around 10 per cent volatility in its portfolios, […]
Amanda WhiteSeptember 4, 2015
Uncategorised posts

Pension funds reject EU financial transaction tax

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 […]
Richard TomlinsonMarch 8, 2013
Investor Profile

Sustainability sets solid base at Germany’s MetallRente

Germany’s MetallRente has made quick progress since its foundation by trade unions in 2001. It has grown into Germany’s biggest multi-employer pension provider, boasting €3 billion ($3.87 billion) in assets, and counts a mammoth 21,000 companies as customers, from within the metal industry it was set up to serve and beyond. In the past two […]
Dan BillinghamDecember 12, 2012