Insidern zufolge plant IBM Global Services in den USA bis zu 100’000 Arbeitsplätze durch Entlassungen und Ausgliederung abzuschaffen. Durch die Massnahmen soll sich IBMs Kapitalstruktur aus Sicht der Anleger verbessern, da langfristig weitaus geringere Beiträge in den Pensionskassen für die US-Mitarbeitenden gebunden wären. Ab 2008 will IBM zudem keine weiteren Zahlungen in die Pensionskassen seiner Beschäftigten fliessen lassen. Mit einem Lohnzuschlag sollen diese künftig privat in ihre Rentenversicherung investieren.
International
Selling oil is easier than investing ethically, Norway finds
Norway’s investment choices have grown more controversial in the past nine months over the exclusion of Wal-Mart, the American retailer whose big-box stores do not exist in this pristine country. Public pension funds on both sides of the Atlantic commonly avoid investing in certain companies on social or ethical grounds. But it is extremely rare for a sovereign state to make such judgments, and rarer still for one to do it in the pointed, public way that Norway has.
Cornelius Poppe/Scanpix
The American ambassador to Norway, Benson K. Whitney, accused the administrators of Norway’s Government Pension Fund of a sloppy screening process that unfairly excluded United States companies.
Sarkozy critique la Suisse à tort
C’était jeudi dernier sur France 2. Nicolas Sarkozy évoquait le cas du fabriquant de maillots de bain Arena qui vient de biffer 180 emplois après la délocalisation de son usine de Libourne (33) en Asie. Le candidat à la présidentielle française a précisé que l’entreprise «appartient à un fonds de pension italien localisé en Suisse», avant de critiquer ces actionnaires qui délocalisent du jour au lendemain et en «se moquant du tiers comme du quart de l’avenir des salariés». Après vérification, le propriétaire d’Arena depuis février 2006 est BS Private Equity, une firme domiciliée à Milan et non en Suisse. Accessoirement, il ne s’agit pas d’un fonds de pension, mais d’un fonds d’investissement.
Source: Le Temps – économie
Ségolène Royal veut pénaliser les fonds de pension spéculant sur l’immobilier
Ségolène Royal a critiqué «la spéculation immobilière des fonds de pension qui bénéficient d’avantages fiscaux» et «chassent les familles à revenus modestes ou moyens», lors d’une visite dans un immeuble rue de Montreuil, dans l’est de Paris, qui a échappé à la vente à la découpe grâce à la mobilisation de ses locataires et à l’intervention de la ville.
Li: Fast alle Pensionskassen im Soll
Per Ende 2005 (neuere Daten liegen noch nicht vor) wies gemäss der Finanmarktaufsicht Liechtenstein nur noch eine Vorsorgeeinrichtung einen Dekungsgrad von unter 100 Prozent auf. Im Jahr zuvor waren es noch sechs gewesen. Verbessert habe sich auch die Führung der Pensionskassen, unter anderem dank einer Ausbildungsinitiative der FMA. Letztes Jahr hatte sie bemängelt, dass bei einigen PKs «im Bereich der Organisation und der Vermögensverwaltung beträchtliche Defizite» zum Vorschein kamen.
Link to Liechtensteiner Vaterland
Medienmitteilung FMA Liechtenstein
Erleichterung in Liechtenstein
Aufatmen bei der Liechtensteiner Regierung und den Pensionskassen. Der am 1. Januar vorzeitig in Kraft getretene Anschluss der Liechtensteiner Pensionskassen an den Schweizer Sicherheitsfonds dürfte in Bern keinen Staub mehr aufwirbeln. Daraufhin deutet zumindest die Abstimmung in der vorberatenden Ständeratskommission, welche dem Abkommen mit nur einer Enthaltung zustimmte. «Es gab nur eine kurze Diskussion zu diesem Thema, aber keine negativen Bemerkungen», sagt Kommissionspräsidentin Erika Forster
Link to Wirtschaftszeitung für Liechtenstein-Rheintal-Sargans
McKinsey Quarterly: The wealth of aging nations
Most discussion of aging focuses on the rapidly escalating cost of pensions and health care, not the potentially far more damaging effects on wealth, savings, and economic well-being. A McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) study of Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States shows that as more and more people retire, lower savings rates will hold back growth in household financial wealth. By 2024, it will be 36 percent—$31 trillion—less than it would have been if historical rates of expansion had persisted. This reality will depress investment, growth, and living standards in the largest, wealthiest economies and threaten the future development of poor ones.
US: Pension schemes poised to pile into hedge funds
More than 42% of US public pension schemes expect to significantly increase hedge fund allocations in the next two years in the latest sign retirement plans are prepared to invest in riskier assets to achieve higher returns, according to a survey by Greenwich Associates.
Mercer IC: 2007 European asset allocation
The average asset allocation of funds adopting their own specific benchmark
Mercer Investment Consulting
European pension funds are increasingly directing their attention to controlling investment risk and managing it more efficiently, according to a new survey by Mercer Investment Consulting (Mercer IC). The survey of over 650 European pension funds, with assets of €423 billion, found that a wider range of asset strategies is being used to capture the benefits of diversification, and more emphasis is being placed on active management (alpha) to enhance returns and reduce emphasis on capturing market return (beta).
The UK and Ireland continue to have the highest exposure to equities, at 61% and 60% respectively. However, UK funds have reduced their allocations from 62% last year and from 68% in 2003. In contrast, Germany and France have the lowest exposure to equities, at 24% and 26% respectively, followed by the Netherlands and Switzerland with allocations of 35% and Spain at 36%. Funds in these countries have correspondingly higher allocations to bonds.
Results showed that, on average, Continental European funds increased their allocations to equities from 40% to 42% over the last year. But, Ralph Frank, European director of consulting at Mercer IC, explained: “While it appears that allocations to equities increased in Continental Europe, the difference can be explained by their strong performance rather than by positive decisions to allocate more to this asset class.”
NL: ABP drops investments in land mine industry
In a victory for advocates of «socially responsible» investment, one of the world’s largest pension funds said it has dumped its stock holdings in companies that make land mines. In addition, the Netherlands‘ ABP (assets €209 billion) said in a statement it will reveal its entire stock portfolio of around 3,000 public companies when it publishes its annual report April 12. «We had already decided to go this route,» ABP spokesman Thijs Steger said. «That plan has been a little accelerated now.» Unlike in the United States, where large mutual and pension funds have been required to publicly disclose their investments since the 1970s, European funds have no such obligation, and few do.
US: Pension Funds Take Manhattan
With commercial real estate selling at all-time highs, public pension funds are among the major beneficiaries, earning exceptional returns and wielding large amounts of liquid capital.
B: une année faste pour les fonds de pension belges
Les fonds de pension belges ont enregistré un rendement de 8,4 pc en 2006. Cette progression est due à la bonne tenue de leurs positions en actions européennes (+22,6 pc) et à la hausse du marché immobilier (+48,5 pc), selon une étude de Mercer Human Resource Consulting portant sur 97 fonds de pension belge.
IPE: New pan-European vehicle proposed
Dutch pension schemes could reform themselves to become Europe-wide financial services providers, according to government-sponsored research.
UK: A big missed stake
How did Gordon Brown whack pension funds 10 years ago and did it wreck the whole pension system? It’s a question that almost seems out of date now that the debate has moved on to an examination of Mr Brown’s integrity after his mis-handling of the ensuing political row. But as claim and counter-claim fill the pages of newspapers it is still a question worth asking.
Auszahlung von Altersguthaben bei Verlegung des Wohnsitzes ins Ausland
Auf der Website von «Angestellte Schweiz» werden die neu ab Juni geltenden Regelungen bezüglich Auszahlung der Freizügigkeit bei der Verlegung des Wohnsitzes in ein EU-Land erläutert.