The latest
Fees

Understanding the cost of investment management

Across the institutional investment community, disclosure and transparency of costs continues to be evolving, but not fast enough. A paper by Commonfund Institute reveals only 18 per cent of respondents in an endowment survey reported incentive and performance fees paid to asset managers despite the fact that nearly 85 per cent of respondents reported having […]
Amanda WhiteNovember 6, 2015
FIS Chicago 2015

Empowering asset owners

Head of the global union movement, Sharan Burrow, has called on asset owners to “stop talking about constraints on fiduciary duty” and take the lead on the transition to a green economy. Burrow was part of a panel at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Chicago that told delegates the next wave of stewardship is not […]
Amanda WhiteNovember 4, 2015
FIS Chicago 2015

Why investors should de-carbonise

Regardless of moral and scientific arguments, the “risk of policy action” on climate change is enough reason for institutional investors to consider climate risk as having real impact on their portfolios. As an example investors at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Chicago Booth School of Business were told that investment-grade bonds in the coal sector […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 30, 2015
Research

Fund manager contracts and financial markets’ short-termism

This paper investigates the extent to which the delegation of funds management prevents long-term information acquisition, inducing short-termism in financial markets. The authors, Catherine Casamatta and Sebastien Pouget also study the design of long-term fund managers’ compensation contracts. Under moral hazard, fund managers’ compensation optimally depends on both short-term and long-term fund performance. Short-term performance […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 23, 2015
Research

Sovereign Development Funds: designing strategic investment institutions

The hunt for alpha is leading traditional investors toward more innovative strategies and operating models. And, significantly, one potential source of inspiration for long-term investors has come from an unconventional place: the community of sovereign development funds (SDFs). In this paper academics from Stanford University provide readers with analytical frameworks that can assist in the […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 9, 2015
Uncategorised posts

Do long-term mandates produce better results?

About 11 years ago, the Towers Watson’s Thinking Ahead Group came up with the concept of investors appointing managers for 10-year mandates. The consulting arm then started talking to clients about it in 2004/05 and the early mandates have now matured. So did it work? Do longer-term mandates produce outperformance, better behaviour and more security? […]
Amanda WhiteOctober 7, 2015
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