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Investor Profile

Environment Agency fund: a natural progression

It’s hardly surprising that a pension fund for employees working for an organisation charged with reducing climate change and its consequences invests according to strict green criteria. Yet the investment strategy of the United Kingdom’s £2.1-billion ($3.29 billion) Environment Agency Pension Fund (EAPF) definitely has the capacity to surprise. The EAPF posted a total return […]
Sarah RundellFebruary 6, 2013
Investor Profile

South Africa’s GEPF to invest globally

In the South African city of Pretoria, 50km outside Johannesburg, the sense of history is pervasive. The city was the capital of the apartheid regime and the site of Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration. It’s also home to Africa’s biggest asset manager the R1.17 trillion ($0.12 trillion) Public Investment Corporation, a state-owned body founded in 1911 […]
Sarah RundellJanuary 25, 2013
Investor Profile

The Pension Protection Fund: lifeboat in a storm

Crisis in the global economy may be knocking the value of most UK pension funds off course, but it is actually helping swell assets at the £12-billion ($19-billion) Pension Protection Fund (PPF). Established in 2005 along similar lines to America’s giant Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the PPF absorbs the assets of defined-benefit private sector schemes […]
Sarah RundellJanuary 23, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Real estate the object of desire for UK funds

United Kingdom pension funds will increase their real estate allocations as bond and equity investments continue to disappoint, according to new research by property consultancy Jones Lang Lasalle. The funds typically hold around 5 per cent of their assets in real estate, but the recent findings predict the pendulum will swing in favour of much […]
Sarah RundellJanuary 16, 2013
Uncategorised posts

BFP to boost UK economy

In a policy to galvanise pension fund assets to help boost its ailing economy, the UK government wants funds to invest in small and medium-sized businesses. As part of its Business Finance Partnership (BFP), it has named four asset managers to run specialist funds backed by pooled government and private capital. The funds will invest […]
Sarah RundellJanuary 9, 2013
Investor Profile

Alternative benchmarks attractive for Strathclyde

For many trustees, fundamental indexing is still too much of a leap to risk any serious asset allocation. But the £11 billion Glasgow-based Strathclyde Pension Fund, one of the largest UK local authority schemes, plans to invest in the strategy. The idea is to track an equity index that weights companies according to their economic […]
Sarah RundellDecember 12, 2012
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