In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White speaks to Simon Pilcher the chief executive of USS Investment Management, which manages assets for USS, the largest private pension scheme in the UK about the complexity of a sustainable strategy – including divestment and manager expectations – as well as the opportunistic investments the fund has made in private assets and credit.
The reallocation of capital towards sustainable companies is happening in real time and will accelerate, according to Larry Fink who is investing in technology and people to develop systems that can prove “climate risk is investment risk”.
An LDI approach, which included a large allocation to bonds and a lot of internal investment management, helped HOOPP survive the GFC and has served it well for the past 13 years. But now – with the COVID crisis and a very low interest rate environment – that approach is being revisited and the fund is looking to invest more in alpha generating assets, and external management.
As impact investing gains momentum, the winning entries of a McGill University international investment challenge have shown the pension industry a thing or two about how to holistically tackle a triple mandate that includes impact.
A U-shaped recovery is the most likely economic outcome in the US for the next two years, but stagflation has a higher than anticipated chance of occurring according to a new paper about scenario analysis co-authored by State Street and GIC researchers. The study revolutionises scenario analysis by reorienting it towards a path.
An erosion in social cohesion, lack of trust in institutions and lack of social mobility have weakened the fabric of society in the US; and it is these issues that are on trial as the country goes to the polls not who wins or loses, according to Stephen Kotkin, the John P Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University.
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Fiduciary Investors Series