Academics from Columbia and Yale Universities examine the expected and actual returns of US university endowment portfolios and the role of alternatives in generating alpha. To access the paper Investment beliefs of endowments
As an outsourced provider, fund managers make a series of promises to investors. Anything that tempts the promise to be broken is a conflict of interest, according to chief executive of Carne Group, John Donohoe, whose organisation has conducted a survey of institutional investors’ attitudes to conflicts of interest. In a survey of global allocators
What would the financial services industry look like if it was structured to service the non-financial services sector, rather than itself? Economist John Kay, author of the Kay Review into short termism in UK equity markets, aims to find out. In an ideal world there would be one, maybe two, intermediaries between the saver
When Eugene Fama enrolled at Chicago Booth School of Business in 1960, “finance was a joke”, he says in a candid and fascinating insight into his more than 50 years as a student, academic and teacher at the university. The essay, published by Chicago Booth’s Capital Ideas, details Fama’s own history but also a short
I’ve always been frustrated by interviewing consultants and the lack of conviction they have about their decisions. “What would your ideal model portfolio look like?” I constantly ask. “It depends on the client” is the predictable and consistent answer. That may be valid, even true, but it speaks to a wider problem. Consultants are hired
Roger Urwin, global head of content at Towers Watson and governance specialist, says most organisations don’t spend enough time on it, but transformational change is all about giving time to investment governance. Culture and leadership, for example is so self-evidently important in people organisations and yet it is understated in asset owners, he says. “The soft
Top1000funds.com is the market leading news and analysis site for the world’s largest institutional investors. It focuses on leading the global investment industry to continuous improvement through case studies of best practice in governance and decision making, portfolio construction and efficient portfolio management, fees and costs, and sustainable investing.
The publication pushes the industry to question whether status quo processes and behaviours to tackle risks and opportunities will be sufficient in the future, and actively campaigns for diversity, sustainability, transparency, innovation and better alignment of fees in the investment industry.
Top1000funds.com is read by investment professionals in more than 40 countries.
Research