More than 1000 asset owners and service providers have signed up to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, and yet the question on everyone’s lips remains how to actually integrate sustainability into the investment process and ultimately add alpha. Bill Mills, managing partner of Highland Good Steward Management, has an idea and a platform
Institutional investors are clearly behind in risk management compared to the innovative techniques implemented in treasury departments of corporate America, chief investment officer of Wurts and Associates, Jeff Scott says. Scott, who spent his career managing the balance sheet at Microsoft, Dow Chemical, the Alaska Permanent Fund and now investment consultant Wurts, says institutional investors
US companies are failing to meet a 10-year roadmap to sustainability and some sectors globally are ‘inherently unsustainable’ requiring a drastic refocus, according to two separate reports released this week by leading sustainability research firms Ceres and EIRIS. A report on the progress that some of the world’s biggest companies are making towards achieving sustainability
The angst in Europe has calmed down, relatively speaking, but according to Mercer, it will be a long haul, with deleveraging there and in the US taking many years. Investors need to act accordingly. Part of the problem is that conventionally safe assets, such as US Treasuries, are expensive. “That will take years to work
Jim Keohane’s first annual results as chief executive of HOOPP have been satisfying. The fund returned 12.19 per cent in 2011, a result well above its peers. It is 103-per-cent funded, and has reached assets of more than $40 billion for the first time. However, he says the unique investment approach and structure that has
A defining characteristic of leading pension funds globally is the cost savings garnered from in-house investment management. An organisational design study by CEM Benchmarking has revealed that “leading” funds have an average of 49 per cent of assets managed in-house, and yet the internal staff and non-manager third-party costs make up only 15 per cent
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