There are an estimated 1,600 private equity firms around the world in capital-raising mode at the moment, offering fiduciary investors a smorgasbord of alternatives, split on regions, style, size, stage and sector categorisations. Some recent good news for investors is that, for private equity at least, there is now evidence of performance persistence.

Pension funds need to look at building a “new beta system”, according to Dr Henry Zhao (pictured), moving away from traditional global indexes in general and cap-weighted indexes in particular.

Investors need to build some hedges into their portfolios as uncertainties about the speed and shape of the western world’s economic recovery remain, according to Mercer Investments.

After one year in the job, State Street’s boss, Jay Hooley (pictured), surveys the post-crisis landscape and looks at the trends for investors and fund managers. He spoke with Greg Bright.

Everyone likes venture capital. It’s one of the feel-good asset types that fiduciary investors can believe makes a difference to society. Unfortunately, for the past 10 years it has also, on average, lost money.

Everyone is mesmerised by the Asian growth story. The emerging middle classes, hundreds of millions of new consumers and, not the least, high fees for funds management services.

Smaller hedge fund managers, which may well include some of the best performers, are struggling for inflows due to the institutionalisation of the hedge fund industry, new research from Preqin indicates.

Investment flows to and from emerging markets are notoriously volatile. From recently compiled figures, there also seems to be a big disconnect developing between what pension funds are doing and what mutual funds are doing.

Civil unrest in Egypt, in particular, and other Middle-eastern and some African countries has been blamed for causing further investor outflows from emerging markets in recent weeks.

It’s not really news but it’s comforting to have your observations confirmed when the annual Global Pension Asset Study is published. The Towers Watson report for 2010 shows a hiatus in the swing away from equities, stronger growth in Asia-Pacific than elsewhere, and a greater focus on risk by the major funds in the world’s top 13 pension markets.

Endowments are back, just. The annual survey of their returns by NACUBO-Commonfund showed an average return of 11.9 per cent for the 850 college and university endowments in the study for the year to June 2010.

Malaysia’s $130 billion Employees Provident Fund plans to expand its global Islamic bond program by about 50 per cent this year in a move which highlights some of the challenges faced by fiduciary investors at many of the world’s government-controlled funds.