| The search for alpha |
Issue: 07 / 2004 |
| Faced with shortfalls after the longest bear market in history, pension fund managers are now considering all options in an attempt to regain the losses and return pension fund schemes back into the black. |
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| Why the Financial Conglomerates Directive is an opportunity for Ireland |
Issue: 07 / 2004 |
| Recent legislative changes at EU level with regards to the Financial Conglomerates Directive, should, together with the holding company regime introduced in the Finance Act 2004, put Ireland firmly in the short-list of jurisdictions being considered as a location for financial conglomerate holding companies, and indeed, holding companies generally, Kevin Allen writes. |
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| $1 trillion industry offers huge potential to Irish market |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| Hedge funds can play a much bigger role in Ireland’s investment funds industry, through the increasing allocation by pension fund managers of assets to hedge funds, the establishment of new managers, the use of hedge funds by private clients, and the continuing development of an Irish based servicing industry, delegates at the Irish Alternative Investment Forum were told. |
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| 2004 - the year of the IPO? |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| While one key trend in the Irish capital markets last year was companies going private, with eight stocks de-listing from the Irish Stock Exchange during the year, and another being the number of private placement transactions, with over €2 billion raised in this manner, five months into 2004 a new trend has taken over - the re-emergence of the IPO Sheila O'Donohue writes. |
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| A Day in the Life of a futures dealer |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| John Wallace is managing director of MKW Futures, a financial futures broker/dealer based on the Finex Europe Exchange in the IFSC. MKW Futures is also an ‘introducing broker’ of Refco LLC, the largest clearer of customer based futures business in the world. Its affiliation with Refco commenced in 2003 and has led to a significant increase in its business activity onto other futures exchanges as well as Finex. John has been a member of the board of the Exchange in New York since 1996. |
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| Asset allocation - the forgotten investment tool |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| With the only significant asset allocation change in Irish pension funds over the past number of years being a switch out of Irish equities into Eurozone equities, Pramit Ghose says it is time to change. He says that trustees will have to actively manage their asset and fund manager mix if they are to generate sufficient additional investment performance to persuade sponsoring employers that pensions can still be funded at an acceptable economic cost. |
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| Banking: Agreement reached at last on Basel Accord |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| Consensus has finally been agreed on the new international capital standard, Basel II, with the new accord to be published at the end of June, and the standardised and foundation approaches to be implemented as of 2006. |
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| Calling the property market |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| The state of the Irish property market continues to be a source of fascination for most, and as record prices are still being achieved, it seems that the warnings given by such bodies as the Central Bank and the OECD, in addition to the surveys by The Economist which predicted that the market would fall by 20 per cent, are just that - warnings - with no signs of becoming a reality. |
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| Careers: The tax implications of cross border employment |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| The Celtic Tiger has led to many non-Irish persons coming to Ireland to take up employment, and many Irish people who had emigrated, returning to employment. There are tax advantages and tax traps waiting for the newly arrived employee John Bradley says. |
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| Corporate governance overhaul on the way |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| A proposal to change existing structures in life assurance that would see a greater role for the external auditor, while retaining the statutory position of the appointed actuary, has been put forward by the Society of Actuaries in Ireland. |
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| Countdown to EU integration - the final stages |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| As the Financial Services Action Plan comes to an end, David Devlin reviews the stages left in creating a single European market for financial services, including the changeover to International Financial Reporting Standards, and the implementation of the Prospectus and Transparency Directives. |
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| Education - the next big thing |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| In the early days of NCB Stockbrokers, the typical way to train junior dealers was to, ‘let them loose on the market and hope that this learning process didn’t result in too many costly mistakes’, Dermot Desmond told attendees at a lecture given at the National College of Ireland. Unable to afford the losses this incurred Desmond looked to technology for an answer, and he says that today learning via technology has become more important than ever. |
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| Exchange-traded funds - a useful tool for institutional investors |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| In advance of the Irish Stock Exchange launching the first exchange-traded fund (ETF) of Irish stocks, Deborah Fuhr gives an overview of the development of the ETF market to date, and the role ETFs can play in institutional investors’ portfolios. |
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| FOREX trading in the new EU: When trading or investing in EU accession state currencies hedge to limit the risks |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| Irish investors and companies trading with the new EU accession states would be well-advised to consider hedging their exposure to movements in the exchange rates of the currencies, writes Aine McCleary. |
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| Funds and foreign taxes - is the tax refundable? |
Issue: 05 / 2004 |
| Recent media reports suggested that funds suffered billions of euros of withholding taxes on their income, which they could avoid or have refunded to them. However, the position is more complex than media headlines might suggest, Brian Daly writes, and in some cases this tax is unavoidable. |
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