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Investor Profile

Harvard’s sustainability plan

Last month Harvard Management Company was the first US university endowment to sign the PRI. It has also appointed its first vice president of sustainable investing as it seeks to incorporate ESG considerations in its decision making. So how is HMC integrating ESG in its portfolio?   Harvard University has taken a stand for sustainability. […]
Amanda WhiteMay 2, 2014
Research

Australian industry degraded by inflated fees

The Australian superannuation industry is often quoted as among the world’s best. However a new report by the Grattan Institute reveals Australian funds charge on average three times the OECD median rate. The report says that superannuation fee reform is the biggest opportunity for micro-economic reform in that country’s economy. The report, Super sting: how […]
Amanda WhiteMay 2, 2014
Uncategorised posts

Investors ignore liability matching at their peril

Two high profile pension funds, ATP of Denmark and HOOPP of Canada, have been very successful in managing their assets in two distinct portfolios. But the practice of fund separation, a portion of the portfolio for liability hedging and another for alpha generation, is not common in pension management. It should be. For these two […]
Amanda WhiteApril 30, 2014
Uncategorised posts

Home bias in corporate engagement revealed

Investors should take care in selecting corporate engagement firms to ensure the engagement reflects their portfolio holdings, warn academics at Oxford and Maastricht Universities following a new study which reveals a home bias in such activity. As the investment portfolios of large institutional investors become increasingly global, it is particularly important that they carefully select […]
Amanda WhiteApril 24, 2014
Research

Cost shifting and the freezing of corporate pension plans

This paper, which examines the impact of the trend in the US of corporate funds freezing their defined benefit funds and offering defined contribution plans, shows that net of the increase in total DC contributions, firms save 2.7-3.6 per cent of payroll per year, and over a 10-year horizon they save 3.1 per cent of […]
Amanda WhiteApril 24, 2014
Research

The arithmetic of “all-in” investment expenses

In the January/February issue of the Financial Analysts Journal, Jack Bogle, founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard Group, looks at the “all-in” investment expenses including not only expense ratios byt transaction costs, sales loads and cash drag. He highlights, in particular, how damaging these costs can be over the long run, and reaffirms […]
Amanda WhiteApril 23, 2014
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