News

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We are delighted to announce that Jenny Segal has joined Avida International as a Senior Advisor.

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Avida International sieht Lebenszyklusmodelle als internationalen Standard für
DC-Modelle, da die Kapitalanlage altersabhängig und nach Kohorten
differenziert erfolgt.

Dorothee Franzen, Geschäftsführerin Deutschland von Avida International: „Wir gehen davon aus, dass Lebenszyklusstrategien bis 2050 zur dominierenden Anlagestrategie für betriebliche Altersvorsorgepläne werden“.

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'Sustainability risks are gradually starting to be reflected in real estate valuations. How can investors avoid the risk of stranded assets and realise a sustainable and profitable real estate portfolio?'  

Dr. Dorothee Franzen, Head of Germany at Avida International recently co-hosted a webinar with Almazara Real Asset Advisory in conjunction with experts from Maastricht University and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The discussion revolved around the risks and opportunities for real estate portfolios by exploring strategies for successful implementation in a webinar.  

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IPE, May 2023

Bart Heenk, Managing Director at Avida International was featured in the May edition of IPE. 

'"What's that got to do with DC?' I hear you say. Plenty, I say..." - Ian McKinlay, Senior Advisor at Avida International divulges on the importance of building 'muscle memory' in order to combat crises.

We are delighted to announce that Phil Redding has joined Avida International as a Senior Advisor.

Dr. Dorothee Franzen, Geschäftsführerin von Avida International, hat kürzlich einen Beitrag im IPE D.A.C.H. ASSET MANAGEMENT GUIDE 2022 veröffentlicht. Der Artikel behandelt den weltweiten Trend von DB zu DC mit einem Fokus auf den aktuellen Entwicklungen in Großbritannien, den Niederlanden und Deutschland.

"There comes a time when an event occurs and one needs to speak out" – Bart Heenk at governance advisory Avida International shares his views on the proposed merger between two of the UK's largest pension firms."

Dr. Dorothee Franzen, Geschäftsführerin, und Prof. Dr. Christian Schmitt, Senior Adviser, Avida International

Please note this blog by Stuart Breyer is reproduced in full by kind permission of Mallowstreet. The original item can be found here. 

For this morning's digital roundtable we were joined by Bart, Sally and Paul from Avida International, who led a conversation and shared their insights as we explored what happens ‘next’. 

As we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, the changes we have been planning for business post-coronavirus will need to be implemented. What will our operating environment look like? What are the key changes we are making? What lessons have we learned, and are there any areas we feel uncomfortable about?

It was an excellent roundtable, and the time flew by. Some of the key questions raised were:

• By 2022, how much will the working world have changed?

• What will be the role of committees going forward?

• What are the aspects of effective chairing that can help pension funds have more efficient meetings?

• How do you build new relationships in a digital world?

• How do you onboard new joiners in a changed world?

• Is there a responsibility to open the office to help mentor and train newer members of the team?

It was a fascinating and thought-provoking discussion. 

Please note this blog by Stuart Breyer is reproduced in full by kind permission of Mallowstreet. The original item can be found here. 

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Bart Heenk from Avida International and his team on a webinar and immediately thought to myself: these folks need to speak to the Mallowstreet community.

So two or three weeks later, we were lucky enough to be joined by the experts from Avida and Strategia Worldwide for a discussion about good leadership.

The hour flew by, and it was a fascinating discussion that covered a number of points: 

• What do you need to have in place in order to lead effectively in a crisis?

• What do you wish you had done before and what can you learn from previous mistakes?

• Good leadership means having your house in order. Having ‘muscle memory’. Being resilient. Learning from this crisis to be better prepared for the next. Thinking strategically about the post-crisis situation.

 To help inform the discussion, we asked attendees in advance to submit their questions and top concerns. These included: 

• How to keep my team motivated/ effective

• Envisioning what the world would look like after the crisis

• Funding gap/ratio, sponsor covenant

• Liquidity (available collateral, cash, rebalancing, forced selling)

Discussions around the importance of each component of ‘ESG’ appeared. How are companies and organisations addressing the ‘E’, ‘S’, and ‘G’, and how is this impacting their reputation?

Thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions in advance and also during the discussion. 

Sally Bridgeland talks to Mallowstreet about how to keep working in this environment, why advisers' response to the crisis matters for trustees, and the value of walking the floors of a prospective asset manager. (Accessible to Mallowstreet users only.)

Bart Heenk talks about taking cues on disaster planning from the army in this Mallowstreet article (accessible by Mallowstreet users only).  

Herausforderung Digitalisierung - Vorstellung des neuen aba-Fachausschusses Digitalisierung und seiner Aktivitäten.

Sally Bridgeland comments on the trustee role in this Mallowstreet article (accessible by Mallowstreet users only). 

Patrick Woods has joined Avida International as Head of Commercial Development. This was also covered in Financial Investigator.

Dorothee Franzen co-wrote this chapter with John Ashcroft of JA Pension Consulting.

Military commanders face ambiguous and fast-moving circumstances, which can change in rapid and unexpected ways. In the latest edition of Pensions Aspects, Sir Richard Shirreff (Partner and Co Founder of Strategia Worldwide), Pascal Hogenboom (Partner at Avida International and Strategia Worldwide) and Paul Boerboom (Founding Partner of Avida International) consider how investors and pension funds can learn from the military’s approach to risk and crisis management.

Bart Heenk, Avida's Managing Director, on the power of "small data".

Dorothee Franzen writes on the successful provider search. 

Bart Heenk comments on industry-wide schemes in the Netherlands in this Mallowstreet article (accessible to Mallowstreet users only.)

How can scenario planning help trustee boards? Bart Heenk comments on crisis management and scenario planning in this article by Sandra Wolf on Mallowstreet (accessible to Mallowstreet owners only). 

Professor Christian Schmitt has joined Avida International as Senior Adviser. This was also covered in I&PE.

Karin Roeloffs chaired this roundtable on fiduciary business models.

Beatrice Herrmann joins Avida team.

This was also covered in Investment Europe, I&PE and I&PE Dach.

Sally Bridgeland comments on transparency.

Paul Boerboom and Tim Juling look back on the development of fiduciary management.

Paul Boerboom considers ESG and impact investing via a real life case study from Uganda.

Karin Roeloffs joins Avida team.

In this blog on Mallowstreet (restricted to Mallowstreet members only) Bart Heenk considers risk, crisis management and war gaming.

Pascal Hogenboom joins Avida team.

This story was also covered in Schade Magazine, I&PE, and Risk & Business & Claims.

In this article, published in Pensioen Bestuur & Management in September 2018, Peter Kolthof considers the changing role of fiduciary managers.

In this blog that originally appeared on Mallowstreet, Bart Heenk considers the challenges of investment decision-making for trustee boards.

Bart Heenk comments in this blog on Mallowstreet by Sandra Wolf. Please note access is restricted to Mallowstreet members only.

Sally Bridgeland was joint winner of the ‘Role Model of the Year’ award at the inaugural Women in Pensions Awards. You can watch a video of Sally talking about the award here.

Sally Bridgeland one of three appointed by Universities UK (UUK) to the Universities Superannuation Scheme’s (USS) joint expert panel, to examine the valuation of the USS.

This was also covered in I&PE.

Stan Beckers joins Avida International’s Advisory Board.

This was also covered in Financial Investigator, FondsNieuws and Investment Officer.

Bart Heenk and Sarah Smart consider the pros and cons of consolidating pension funds.

Sarah Smart appointed Senior Adviser at Avida International.

This was also covered in Financial Investigator and I&PE.

On 27 February 2018, Avida International organised a breakfast roundtable on running DB pensions from a CFO’s perspective. Annemarie Straathof talked about the governance changes she, as CFO Europe for Rabobank, helped effect during the last couple of years at their UK pension fund. This was followed by a roundtable discussion.

Sally Bridgeland is interviewed in this report in relation to ‘Timing is everything: when to transition to an outsourced investment partner’.

Dorothee Franzen considers the difficulty of obtaining figures on funded pensions in Germany.

Sally Bridgeland comments on mentoring.

Dorothee Franzen comments on governance under the new social partner model.

Bart Heenk comments on the FCA review.

Bart Heenk comments on the potential regulation of investment advice.

Bart Heenk explains why consultants should embrace scheme consolidation and how they can prepare for change.

Pension funds are consolidating. Bart Heenk considers the consequences for investment managers.

Dorothee Franzen, Paul Boerboom and Peter Kolthof give their ‘guest viewpoint’ on the state of play of fiduciary management.

Peter Kolthof, chaired two Financial Investigator roundtables on fiduciary management – one for providers and one for pension fund clients.

During the roundtables the importance of soft factors (match in culture) next to hard results was stressed, as well as the continuous and independent evaluation of a fiduciary manager.

Interesting Pensions Policy Institute Briefing Note on DB governance, exploring the role played by trustees, the benefits of good governance and examples of good practice, the current gap between good and poor governance, the relationship between scale and governance, and improving scheme governance.

Bart Heenk talks about need for pension funds to be able to ask the right questions and arm themselves with sufficient expertise in relation to the asset management and investment consultant industry.

The independent advisory firm has opened a representative office in Germany. Dorothee Franzen has been appointed head of the office, as managing director for Germany. She is also director of the Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference and honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Franzen was previously director at Allianz Global Investors, where she headed international pension research.

Regulating investment consultants will not solve the problem of ensuring pension investors are not losing out as a result of “murkiness and complexity” in the asset management and investment consultant industry, according to Bart Heenk.

In celebration of its 10 year anniversary and the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, Avida International hosted a seminar on ‘Crisis management for pension funds’.

Pension schemes should ensure they choose an independent adviser to assess their fiduciary manager’s performance, says Paul Boerboom.

Competition in the asset management sector is under scrutiny in the Financial Conduct Authority’s market study, but schemes can act now to get a better deal, says Paul Boerboom.

In celebration of its 10 year anniversary, Avida International hosted a seminar on ‘Confidence in uncertain times’.

Sally Bridgeland and Prof. Amin Rajan discuss bridging the gap between rhetoric and reality in governance practices in this 300 Club paper.

Sally Bridgeland explains what trustees and pension fund committees need to be mindful of if they decide to move their investments in-house.

European pension funds need to make a “fundamental” behavioural and cultural shift to close a “yawning gap between the rhetoric of governance improvements of recent years and their reality on the ground”, according to a paper from The 300 Club, a group of investment professionals seeking to challenge mainstream investment practice and thinking.

Fees and costs are controversial issues in the investment industry. Steven Charlton, Aisha Dudhia, and Bart Heenk break down the key challenges in the discourse in the Autumn issue of Professional Investor. Bart Heenk: “The average pension fund trustee has limited insight into management fees and no idea of the true costs. This is largely because there is no attempt by the industry to provide clear and complete reporting. In fact most costs are, and remain, hidden unless you specifically ask for them.”

Avida International has appointed Dorothee Franzen as a partner. She will take on a dual role of supporting the team in servicing multi-national companies on cross-border pension investment governance and expanding Avida’s footprint into Germany.

Previously, she was a director at Allianz Global Investors where she headed international pension research. Further to her role at Avida she is director of the ‘Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference’ and visiting research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

Sally Bridgeland: “Looking beyond the UK may provide lessons on how maturing pension funds can rework investment governance”

Rembrandt’s self-portraits show an honest, unflattering, self-awareness as he aged. At a recent discussion event in London, large and maturing UK pension funds were candid in challenging their limitations and knowing their weaknesses. While UK pension funds still have long-term time horizons, these will diminish and will have a bearing on whether it is worthwhile establishing in-house resources to manage long-term illiquid investments.

The UK is a divided market for pension funds and while many argue it is well-regulated, others say it is overly restrictive. In truth, both sides are right. The regulations put in place since Pensions Act 1995, the regulatory response to fraud at the Mirror Group pension fund following the death of Robert Maxwell in 1991, have succeeded in averting further scandals but have arguably hastened the demise of defined benefit (DB) schemes.

More and more pension funds are outsourcing part or all of their investment process to fiduciary managers or delegated CIOs, and in the Netherlands the majority of pension funds have already done so. Fiduciary management, solvency management, outsourced CI or delegated CIO, depending on how the various market participants label their service, can be very beneficial for defined benefit pension schemes that want or need a relatively sophisticated investment portfolio to meet their obligations.

The growing interest in fiduciary management in Europe has seen the rise of fiduciary management consultants. Their task is to identify pension funds’ core competencies and help them decide on the suitable organisational model, which functions they want to outsource and which they want to keep in-house. One such consultant is Amsterdam-based Avida International BV, a firm of independent advisers which has been at the elbow of a number of high-profile fiduciary management deals involving mainly Dutch pension funds.

The pension world has been subject to a high level of change. Mergers, pension buy-outs, fiduciary alliances, outsourcing and in-sourcing are becoming common aspects of the organisational design of pension funds. However, there is a risk that most alliances with external parties will fail to yield the desired results. Fortunately, the most common obstacles in building (fiduciary) alliances can be avoided.

The growing complexity and demanding requirements of pension funds are increasingly calling for sophisticated solutions. Paul Boerboom of Avida International explains how his company offers a holistic approach to client needs.