Three decades of investing have given Monte Tarbox sharp eyes for recognising risk and opportunities, and he’s putting it to use as the new permanent chief investment officer of the $306 billion NYC Bureau of Asset Management. In an interview with Top1000funds.com, Tarbox outlines his vision for the fund, why he’s bullish on infrastructure but “nervous” on PE, and why he hasn’t drunk the TPA “Kool-Aid”.
Impact investing has come a long way in the past two decades, going from a niche strategy to a $1.5 trillion industry, but there are still challenges for it to reach institutional scale due to the lack of products and insufficient evidence of outperformance in some parts of the market.
As opposing macroeconomic and geopolitical forces collide, chief investment officers at leading pension funds say that trying to predict the future is a “loser’s game”. The question today is no longer what comes next, but how to build a portfolio that holds together in any investment regime.
CalPERS chief investment officer Stephen Gilmore said the $650 billion fund’s upcoming shift to a total portfolio approach will sharpen investment accountability and help it focus capital allocation decisions on fund-level objectives.
In a fireside chat at FIS Harvard, Blue Owl co-founder Doug Ostrover said the fast-growing alternatives shop won’t expand “just for the sake of hubris” as it pursues market leadership through a tightly defined set of offerings. He also unpacked the recent redemption pressure the firm was under and how it plans to move past it.
Trustee of Massachusetts PRIM and state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said investing with a stewardship and sustainability-conscious approach remains “common sense” for the $116 billion fund, though she said it has been harder for the investor to access some ESG-related information from managers and companies.
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