The concept of investment beliefs is the basis for strategic management and, while widely used in other parts of the world, is “innovative” from a US perspective, Allan Emkin, managing director of Pension Consulting Alliance, says. In a session at the Risk Summit, convened by World Pension Forum and Conexus Financial, publisher of conexust1f.flywheelstaging.com, Emkin
The funding levels of US public pension funds, falling from 100 per cent in 2001 to 77 per cent now, is the result of bad governance, according to David Villa, chief investment officer of the $91 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB). He says irrational governance and imprudent management has resulted in the funding
Continued use of quantitative easing is sowing the seeds of financial instability, according to Sheila Bair, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, who says that the 2008 crisis taught us a credit-driven economy is not sustainable. Bair has been an outspoken critic of quantitative easing and says there has been too much reliance
Moody’s recent downgrade of the City of Chicago was because of its pension liabilities, according to the city’s treasurer, Stephanie Neely, who says the current actions to fix the funding deficit problems are just “re-arranging the furniture”. “The benefits and contributions are the problem: we cannot invest our way out of this,” she says, adding
CalPERS has adopted 10 preliminary investment principles following a board offsite in July, but a number of topics, including the role of active management, are still under debate ahead of the September board meeting that is the deadline for the principles’ adoption. The $266-billion Californian fund began the process for establishing investment principles in January
The $46-billion Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) will launch PCIO, a private equity version of its successful external chief-investment-officer partnerships, and is looking for partners now. When the fund moved to a risk-based factor allocation a few years ago, it allocated mandates under its special opportunities bucket to five managers – PIMCO, GMO, Bridgewater, AQR
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WPF Risk Summit