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Wallach takes long view cross the Mersey

Peter Wallach, head of the United Kingdom’s Merseyside Pension Fund isn’t overly worried about the recent fall in equities. “Markets are being driven by liquidity from central banks; this is more about central banks just needing to reassure investors,” he says. “It is bonds, to our mind, that are over-valued in the medium to long

Diversification key for pioneer of fiduciary management

For someone whose ideas have revolutionised the Dutch pension industry and carried significant international clout, Anton van Nunen strikes a humble tone. Widely credited with pioneering fiduciary management from its infancy, Van Nunen confesses with a chuckle that it is “quite a surprise” that the concept has grown to win over a significant proportion of

Autumnal Danish fund shows spring growth

Innovation is associated more with bold new businesses than gently declining ones, but Denmark’s Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond (LD) is embracing change as it enters its final years. The pension fund’s inevitable disappearance has nothing to do with any lack of competitiveness or poor investment returns – the 9.9-per-cent net return it generated in 2012 is testament

Mid-life crisis at West Midlands Pension Fund

The area surrounding the British city of Wolverhampton, near Birmingham, is still called the Black Country although the polluting coal mines and steel mills that sprung up during England’s nineteenth-century explosion of wealth have long gone. Today there is little evidence that Wolverhampton was the cradle of an industrial revolution and the 300-odd public sector

Danica maneuvers towards infrastructure

Danish pension provider Danica is upping the alternatives portion in its roughly $57-billion portfolio as it looks to boost returns within the country’s strict solvency framework. Alternatives already make up over 4 per cent of the $33-billion Traditional Fund, Danica’s largest and most conventional pension pool, double the proportion the asset class took at the

The Pension Protection Fund: lifeboat in a storm

Crisis in the global economy may be knocking the value of most UK pension funds off course, but it is actually helping swell assets at the £12-billion ($19-billion) Pension Protection Fund (PPF). Established in 2005 along similar lines to America’s giant Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the PPF absorbs the assets of defined-benefit private sector schemes