One of Belgium’s biggest pension funds, the fund for employees of KBC, Belgium’s banking and insurance group, has recently increased its allocation to real assets and switched more of its equity allocation to alternative beta.
Impact investment and its combination of financial returns and social or environmental purpose is beginning to move from fringe to the financial mainstream in part because the long-held concept that investment should only maximise shareholder value is beginning to fade.
Air Canada, the pension fund for Canada’s flagship carrier, is preparing to manage external assets in a bid to let other pension funds and institutions tap into its top decile performance and 65-strong expert internal team.
Investment in the 17 SDGs is growing, but SDG 16, and its call to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, gets the least investor attention. Yet the idea that investors can mobilise their capital to nurture peace is wholly possible.
Norway’s fund for local government employees and healthcare workers, KLP, abides by strict internal ESG principles. Sarah Rundell looks at how this translates to investments in emerging markets, its view of indexes and a concentration of manager relationships.
Startlingly few institutional investors have allocations to life sciences. An informal poll of 85 asset owners from 20 countries responsible for a combined $9 trillion assets under management gathered at the Fiduciary Investors’ Symposium at Harvard University, found only a tiny handful active in the sector. Yet allocating to biotech makes an important contribution to society - investing in the sector can help change lives.
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