Denmark's ATP is awaiting a review that will report on the strength of its investment strategy, and suggest how to simplify reporting. But additional transparency must not hurt the future returns for members, warns Allan Japhetson, head of investment strategy at ATP.
Harvard Management Company, with responsibility for managing the $26 billion Harvard endowment fund, has hired a number of senior investment staff and reorganised its internal structure as it positions itself to bring more asset management in-house.
The experience of the C$26.7 billion ($25 billion) Hospitals of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) is testament to the success of asset-liability driven investing. Amanda White spoke with chief executive, John Crocker, about how matching assets with liabilities led to an underweighting in equities and a subsequent (relative) survival of the global economic crisis.
The £2.3 billion ($3.7 billion) Lothian Pension Fund, part of the Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme, has overhauled its investment strategy, increasing its alternatives weighting to more than one third of the total fund, after poor performance in financial year 2008-09 wiped 17 per cent off the fund’s value.
The $32 billion Alaska Permanent Fund has taken a unique approach to asset allocation, re-organising the fund according to how investments respond to economic conditions and their purpose in the portfolio. Chief executive, Mike Burns spoke to Amanda White about the new approach, which also includes a search for four ‘external CIO’ mandates. Alaska Permanent
The five New York City pension funds selling shares worth $10.8 million in two companies with business ties to Iran have been asked to adopt resolutions for the phased divestment of holdings in eight more companies with ties to the country which, in total, have a market value of more than $141 million.
The board of CalSTRS, the second biggest fund in the US, has three broad research initiatives for the investment team this year: rethinking active versus passive and the mix of internal and external management; commodities; and liability – driven investments. Chief investment officer, Chris Ailman, spoke to Amanda White.
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