The severe impact of the European debt crisis on financial markets has spurred EDHEC-Risk Institute to investigate whether equity investors can earn a premium through sovereign risk. Professor Nöel Amenc, EDHEC-Risk Institute director, speaks about the emergence of what could be a new risk factor and other research focusing on Asia.

Russia’s central bank, which has $558.4 billion in foreign exchange reserves, has appointed National Australia Bank to manage up to 1 per cent, or $5.58 billion, of its assets in Australian cash instruments.

The manager of Timor-Leste’s $8.3 billion sovereign wealth fund, the Banking and Payments Authority (BPA), was inaugurated as the island nation’s central bank on Monday.

Like most asset allocation strategies, the ‘endowment model’ for investing was challenged by the financial crisis and its practitioners have learnt lessons from the episode, according to Sandra Urie, CEO at Cambridge Associates, an asset consultant with deep experience in the field.

The South Korean Government has teamed with Abu Dhabi’s largest sovereign wealth fund, the $627 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), to jointly pursue future investment opportunities.

The institutional foray into hedge fund strategies is changing the way these managers invest. In turn, the hedge fund industry is being shaped by this now dominant investor base.

As investors faced a “multi-speed world” in which uncertainty about the US and European economies contrasted with emerging markets’ rapid growth, they should not be misled by short-term signals from the markets, said Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and co-CIO at PIMCO.

Funds managers should get back to their roots, says Saker Nusseibeh (pictured), the investments chief of the £32 billion ($50.3 billion) BT Pensions Scheme’s funds management arm, and renew their long-term aim of delivering risk-adjusted alpha and stop being “investment banker wannabes”.

Australian institutions’ prevailing home-country equity bias was based on a series of lucky breaks for the domestic market and was not worth the concentration risks to which it exposed investors, said Roger Urwin, Towers Watson’s global head of investment content.

Australia’s financial sector would be strengthened if the proposed merger between its national stock exchange and the Singapore Exchange gained political approval, the Australian Centre for Financial Studies (ACFS) has argued.

As MSCI moves to expand its sustainability research capability to emerging markets, its global head of index and ESG research, Remy Briand, has urged investors to dramatically improve their reporting standards to make good on their ESG cause.

The superannuation industry’s promise to deliver steady investment returns over the long-term is unnecessarily compromised by funds’ need to maintain a high level of liquidity.