Scott Chan is shocked the market hasn't reacted more to the crisis emulating from the US-Israel-Iran conflict. But the CalSTRS CIO is confident its one fund approach allows it to position dynamically and ensure diversification no matter what is presented.
The idea of referendums setting the agenda for institutional investors may be a frightening pipe dream in much of the world, but Switzerland’s unique brand of direct democracy is set to revolutionise its funds’ priorities. Swiss funds are due to be anointed as no less than the country’s official guardians against “rip-off” executive salaries. That
The area surrounding the British city of Wolverhampton, near Birmingham, is still called the Black Country although the polluting coal mines and steel mills that sprung up during England’s nineteenth-century explosion of wealth have long gone. Today there is little evidence that Wolverhampton was the cradle of an industrial revolution and the 300-odd public sector
“ShareAction has become the premier organisation to give voice to those who wish to invest their values as well as their assets,” enthused former vice president of the United States Al Gore, speaking to a packed audience at ShareAction’s annual lecture in London’s Guildhall last week. ShareAction is only a tiny pressure group but Gore’s
Some pension funds have hit on a lucrative strategy to extract more value from their private equity portfolios. The £34-billion ($51.6-billion) Universities Superannuation Scheme, the United Kingdom’s second biggest pension fund for university and higher education staff, is expanding a private equity co-investment strategy begun in 2008. It’s a model whereby schemes portion some investment
One year on and the job of trustees gathered at the United Kingdom’s National Association of Pension Funds, NAPF, annual investment conference in Edinburgh hasn’t got any easier. As the search for optimism in a low-return world endures, the conference seems to be caught in a time loop. Compared to last year, deciding on the
For a pension fund that describes itself as “ponderous”, the $154-billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, CalSTRS, has moved uncharacteristically swiftly in recent months. The second largest public pension fund in the United States, the plan for teachers and faculty is in the process of divesting its holdings in gun manufacturers following the massacre at
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