Julius Baer Americas is now Artio Global Investors. The change took effect on June 15.
Artio Global Investors is now a subsidiary of Artio Global Management LLC (formerly Julius Baer Investment Management Inc). It provides investment management services and is best known for its international equities strategies.
Artio Global expects to rebrand its group of U.S.-registered mutual funds in October to align with the new corporate name. There will be no change in investment manager or mutual fund ticker symbols when the rebranding is complete.
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BCE Decision to Come Down Friday
The Supreme Court of Canada will rule on the $35-billion BCE Inc. takeover Friday at 4:30 p.m. (EDT).
The ruling with come four days after the high court heard from BCE and layers for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan ask for a Quebec Court of Appeal decision—which ruled that the privatization of BCE was unfair to bondholders—to be overturned.
If the Supreme Court overturns the Quebec Court of Appeal decision, Teachers’ can move forward with the $42.75 a share offer for the company. If not, the buyout plans with likely die.
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CPPIB Invests Down Under
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is making an investment in Australia.
It will buy 10% of the Transurban Group, an Australian toll-road owner, for A$659 million (C$634.9 million).
The sale to CPPIB is part of Transurban’s plans to raise as much as A$998 million to improve its balance sheet amid the global credit squeeze, the company says.
Last month, CPPIB partnered with Transurban and Goldman Sachs in an unsuccessful US$12.1 billion bid for Pennsylvania’s only toll road, the largest-such state asset sale in the U.S.
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Brickburn Selects RBC Dexia
RBC Dexia Investment Services will be providing global custody, fund valuations and unitholder recordkeeping for Brickburn Asset Management’s newly-launched mutual funds.
“Our management team determined that RBC Dexia was the best qualified company to handle these services for our new family of mutual funds,” says William Bonnar, president of Brickburn Asset Management. “RBC Dexia has a solid understanding and proven track record when it comes to working with start-up fund families.”
Calgary-based Brickburn Asset Management was funded in 1997.
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Pensions Outperformed 401(k)s During Last Bull Market
According to an analysis by Watson Wyatt, rates of return for defined benefit (DB) pension plans outpaced employee-directed 401(k) plans during the 2003 to 2006 bull market.
The comparison of investment rates of return between DB and defined contribution (DC) plans found that DB plans outperformed 401(k) plans by 1.7 percentage points in 2003, 2.0 percentage points in 2004, 1.1 percentage points in 2005 and 1.6 percentage points in 2006.
From 1995 through 2006, DB plans outperformed DC plans by an average of approximately 1 percentage point per year over this 12-year period. This would translate into a cumulative dollar difference of nearly 14% for money invested at the start of the period.
“Achieving consistently high investment returns in volatile financial markets is challenging, but it’s not surprising that, over time, DB plans have outperformed DC plans,” says Alan Glickstein, a senior retirement consultant with Watson Wyatt. “The professionals who manage pension funds have considerable financial education, experience and discipline as well as access to sophisticated investment tools. These advantages, coupled with a much longer investment time horizon, help DB plan sponsors maximize their returns and maintain well-diversified portfolios.”
The analysis is based on Form 5500 financial and pension disclosure data released by the U.S. Department of Labor. Only companies that sponsor one DB plan and one 401(k) plan, each with at least 100 participants, are included in the data reported.