January 2020

09Jan

Nationwide protest in France over pensions as talks continue

Rail workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers and others joined a nationwide day of protests and strikes Thursday to denounce French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul the pension system. As the government and unions pushed on with crucial negotiations about the changes, street protests were staged in Paris and other French cities, with railway strikes entering their sixth week. Read Also Critical week in frances pension reform protests The Eiffel Tower was shut as employees joined the protest movement. Paris metro traffic was...

January 9, 2020
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09Jan

FRR names supervisory board chair

FRR, Franklin Templeton, Mercer, HSBC Global Asset Management, Veritas, AllianceBernstein, Arabesque S-Ray, Eumedion, De Nationale APF, ASR, PGB, Hermes, Netspar, Sampension, Rabobank, Kempen, UBS, Aegon, LOIM Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR) – The €32.6bn French sovereign investor has a new chair of the supervisory board, with Sandrine Lemery having been appointed to the position by government decree. She was the first deputy secretary general of ACPR, the prudential authority for banks and insurers, from 2013 until the beginning of January 2019. She...

January 9, 2020
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08Jan

UK. Pension reform: Reckless bosses who plunder staff pensions to face seven years in jail

Reckless company bosses who plunder staff pension schemes will be jailed for up to seven years under proposed new laws introduced in Parliament last night. The Pension Schemes Bill will also trigger major reforms revolutionising retirement planning and boosting incomes by up to seven percent a year. Ministers said the package of measures would make Britain the “best place in the world” to retire. “With this Bill, we’re pushing ahead with our revolutionary pensions agenda and delivering for the millions of...

January 8, 2020
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08Jan

Germany needs 500,000 new immigrants every year

Germany is grappling with a ticking demographic time bomb. The Local spoke with FDP politician Christian Dürr who says immigration is the key to the country's future. As a society, we are living longer – and that's a good thing. But there is a lot of debate over how to stop Germany's welfare system buckling under the pressure of an ageing population. The Local spoke with Christian Dürr, deputy chairman of the pro-business Free Democrats' (FDP) parliamentary group, who recently wrote a guest...

January 8, 2020
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07Jan

French pension talks resume as govt seeks to end standoff

French officials prepared to restart talks with unions Tuesday over a pension overhaul that has sparked the country's longest transport strikes in decades, which labour leaders say could force millions of people to retire later than they thought. Public support appears to be shifting in the government's favour, with just 44 percent backing the strike in an Ifop poll released Sunday, down seven points from the previous survey on December 19-20. The reform would eliminate 42 separate pension schemes...

January 7, 2020
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07Jan

ESG future-proofing can help to defy market risks

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) found in its most recent stress tests of European pension funds that sustainable investments would help them to withstand an adverse scenario. The 2019 occupational pensions stress test assessed the resilience of the European pension sector to identify areas of weakness and discuss possible preventive measures. Eiopa is part of the European System of Financial Supervision and supports the stability of the financial system, the transparency of markets and financial products...

January 7, 2020
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07Jan

Beyond green ambitions

By Liam Kennedy Europe has lofty ambitions as it positions the European Green Deal as Europe’s growth plan for the coming decade and beyond. There is much to do to promote sustainability in Europe and the EU can undoubtedly blaze a trail. But the incoming Commission will also need to maintain its focus on the Capital Markets Union (CMU), the flagship economic policy of the previous Commission. One element of the CMU as announced in 2014 was indeed to foster...

January 7, 2020
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06Jan

Critical week in France’s pension reform protests

The month-long stand-off between the government and France's striking transport workers has entered a critical week, with talks set to resume on Tuesday, and further national protests in store. The first Council of Ministers' meeting was taking place on Monday, as commuters braced for a difficult return to work after the Christmas break. The ongoing pension reform protests are certain to top the agenda, with strike calls launched on Monday by nurses and physiotherapists' unions. An Air France pilots...

January 6, 2020
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03Jan

Impact Investing

By Brad M. Barber, Adair Morse, Ayako Yasuda We document that investors derive nonpecuniary utility from investing in dual-objective VC funds, thus sacrificing returns. Impact funds earn 4.7 percentage points (ppts) lower IRRs ex post than traditional VC funds. In random utility/willingness-to-pay (WTP) models investors accept 2.5-3.7 ppts lower IRRs ex ante for impact funds. The positive WTP result is robust to fund access rationing and investor heterogeneity in fund expected returns. Development organizations, foundations, financial institutions, public pensions,...

January 3, 2020
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03Jan

On Day 29, French rail strike makes history

A labour walkout that has frustrated Paris commuters and marooned thousands of holiday travellers in France dragged into its 29th day on Thursday, becoming the country's longest continuous railway strike with no end in sight. The standoff over the government's plan to merge 42 pension schemes into a single, points-based system has seen workers at the state-owned SNCF railway company and Paris' RATP public transport operator down tools since December 5. Hundreds of thousands of strikers and their supporters...

January 3, 2020
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