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Featured Story
Europe rearms, defence returns surge, asset owners rethink exposure
Years of hard-line exclusions of the defence industry kept many asset owners out of one of the strongest-performing sectors. Now, as Europe rearms, investors are reworking defence policies – cautiously and under intense scrutiny.
InFocus
How data is dragging infrastructure debt out of the shadows
Infrastructure debt offers asset owners attractive yields and valuable diversification, but it has also been a market long starved of reliable data that is crucial to manage risk.
Featured Story
Alaska’s APFC: Why any nudge lower in private equity will be slow progress
As Alaska's APFC mulls trimming its 18 per cent private equity allocation, the reality of getting legacy managers off the books is proving more challenging, according to deputy CIO, private markets Allen Waldrop. In an interview with Top1000funds.com, he also shares his view on secondaries and manager selection.
Podcasts
CalPERS’ Stephen Gilmore on the total portfolio approach
Listen to the detailed interview between Top1000funds.com editor Amanda White and CalPERS' CIO Stephen Gilmore to gain insights into how a TPA mindset has the potential, through a shared focus on the total portfolio, to add value, simplify accountability and open new opportunities for investments.
Investor Profile
How CalPERS aims to add 50-60 bps using TPA
Stephen Gilmore says he can add 50 to 60 basis points to portfolio returns by using a total portfolio approach. In a long interview, Amanda White spoke to the CIO of CalPERS about why a TPA mindset can add value, simplify accountability and open new opportunities for investments.
Investor Profile
Why West Virginia’s CIO is worried about its China divestment directive
The $28 billion West Virginia Investment Management Board will divest from Chinese state-owned companies and CIO Craig Slaughter has reservations about the decision. He outlines in an interview with Top1000funds.com about why the directive is an extension of a big threat facing investors: a decline in liberal democracy.
Sustainability
USS paper urges governments to do more to support climate policy
A new report from USS and the University of Exeter, argues that investors who focus on decarbonising their portfolios won't change real-world decarbonisation and would have more impact on climate change by buying transition investments.
Asset Allocation
TRS strikes gold: Tiny allocation crushes its benchmark
This year, TRS doubled its tiny allocation to gold via a special fund that buys gold ETFs and mining companies. The strategy returned nearly 60 per cent, thanks to market conditions including inflation, geopolitics, government debt levels and de-dollarisation pushing gold higher.
Investor Profile
CalPERS bets on outperformance from growing climate allocation
CalPERS' Peter Cashion tells Top1000funds.com how the pension fund's strategy to allocate to climate mitigation, transition and adaptation strategies is allowing it to access an untapped corner of the US market where many investors have retreated because of the policy environment.
Sustainability
PRI slashes reporting burden to preserve code relevance among signatories
The Principles for Responsible Investment will reduce signatories’ responsibilities in their annual mandatory reporting from 240 questions to just 40 next year. The outgoing PRI chief David Atkin explains the move and why asset owners have a big role in stabilising the discussion around responsible investment.
Sustainability
Climate politics: BlackRock hits back at NYC Comptroller
The skirmish between the New York City Comptroller and BlackRock over climate alignment of the city’s public pension funds – a fight worth a $42 billion mandate to BlackRock – highlights the complexity and impracticality of aligning climate expectations, reporting requirements and business imperatives.
Opinion
Resilience: Abdicating from transformational change?
Will the relentless pursuit of efficiency undermine our ability to build a resilient and sustainable future? Andrea Caloisi, a researcher at the Thinking Ahead Institute at WTW, explores how complex systems, driven by short-term optimisation, may be fuelling long-term fragility.
Opinion
Wisdom: The jewel in the dirt-pile of intelligence
In his regular column for Top1000funds.com, Tim Hodgson, co-founder of the Thinking Ahead Institute at WTW, reflects on the dangers of unconstrained action, the limits of efficiency, and why long-term sustainability may depend on knowing when not to act.
Infrastructure
APG’s answer to aligning government and investment goals in infrastructure
An increasing push to invest in home markets means asset owners need better frameworks for aligning government expectations with investment goals. APG’s three-pronged approach for public infrastructure investments could act as a guide for other investors looking to balance fiduciary duty with political demands.
Fixed Income
CalPERS touts fixed income wins, gears up for TPA
At the annual review of its fixed income portfolio, CalPERS staff explain how active management, value-add strategies and the hunt for alpha are paying off, with ESG integration giving it a valuable edge and informing it to invest in companies under pressure like Boeing at the right time.
FIS Stanford 2025
Real asset opportunities ‘are coming from everywhere’: Macquarie
While the US remains the most entrepreneurial economy, China might now be challenging its technology leadership, while demographics, deglobalisation, decarbonisation, and digitalisation are creating “massive opportunities” in almost every market, according to Macquarie Asset Management.
FIS Stanford 2025
Public-private partnerships key to fixing US infrastructure
The size of the current infrastructure investment gap and the speed at which it is widening mean there is both a desire and a need for more public-private partnerships to unlock funding. Investors say that collaboration with local governments and raising public awareness of private investment benefits are crucial.
FIS Stanford 2018
FIS Stanford Photo Gallery
View photos from the 2018 Fiduciary Investors Symposium, held at Stanford University, United States.
FIS Stanford 2018
China’s enticing, challenging market
Inefficient markets and an explosion of technological innovation fuelled by Millennial consumers make China a tantalising prospect but accessing strong returns there isn’t as simple as it looks.
FIS Stanford 2018
Protecting human capital helps everyone
Investors have plenty to gain from helping to protect human rights in supply chains and managing the human costs during technological disruption and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
FIS Stanford 2018
How to follow megatrends to success
The big themes that will fuel growth in coming decades are interconnected and subject to change. An expert panel gave advice on riding societal change to outperformance.
FIS Stanford 2018
How the active complements the passive
Investors discuss the various ways that two styles often presented as if they are enemies in fact work hand in hand across portfolios to produce returns.
News
Limited alternatives keep global capital anchored to the US
Singapore’s Temasek said while US exceptionalism may be “fraying”, there aren’t many alternative markets that can handle the same volume of global capital. Meanwhile, fellow sovereign fund GIC believes the greenback’s reserve currency status remains solid even though currency swings could spell trouble for foreign investors.
FIS Oxford 2025
LP demands for bespoke solutions define new era for private managers
Private asset managers can expect to work harder for LP capital as allocators increasingly look for more bespoke, flexible structures that meet their changing needs around liquidity, fee and types of exposures. Investors at FIS Oxford unpack how they approach manager relationships in the new era of private investments.
Asset Allocation
Fordham University dials up growth equity, cools on private credit
Fordham University CIO Geeta Kapadia is cutting back on private credit, calling it an asset class “less able to financially engineer returns” in a higher-rate world. She’s instead redirecting the $1.1 billion endowment to venture and growth equity and entrusting larger mandates to a smaller roster of high-conviction managers.
Asset Allocation
South Carolina lifts private equity and credit as cashflow turns positive
The South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission's improved liquidity position has allowed the plan to tilt its portfolio towards unlisted asset classes, including private equity and private credit. The fund grew fast thanks to funding reform, improved salaries, and positive investment returns and is now looking to boost long-term performance.
News
KIC eyes pivot to total portfolio approach in latest review
The $206.5 billion Korea Investment Corporation has become the latest asset owner weighing a shift into the total portfolio approach in an attempt to boost investment returns. After putting out an RFP for a consulting partner in May, it will conduct a review into early next year about TPA's feasibility.
InFocus
TAA critical to adding value over the next six to 18 months
After several painful years, geographical diversification is finally working and will continue to work, at least in the short term, with increasing signs of a valuation advantage for non-US stocks and bonds, according to T. Rowe Price’s Sébastien Page. He says it's time to make use of tactical asset allocation.
Investor Profile
USS swings into surplus but flags re-think after Thames losses
USS says losses in Thames Water have led to deep reflection on how it will invest in regulated assets in the future, flagging the need for consistent regulation to support pension fund investment. As the fund celebrates its 50th year it records a surplus for the first time since 2008.
Strategy
UK’s transition-focused SWF gets green light
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves didn’t waste any time approving the UK’s new SWF aimed at funding the energy transition. As it begins to lay down structure and governance frameworks critics point to the challenges of bringing projects to a level where they are investable.