Investor Profile

Indepth interviews with CIOs about their investments, staff and external providers.

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Investor Profile

City of Austin looks to the future

The City of Austin Employees Retirement System has turned around its five-year performance with a focus on value in active management and deconstructing its bond portfolio. As it looks to the future CIO David Veal considers venture capital and crypto investments.

Amanda WhiteApril 22, 2021

Investor Profile

Debt concerns drive Ohio allocations

Farouki Majeed is worried about the future. His concerns are centred around the implications of the enormous US federal debt; the global competitiveness of the US and Chinese economies; inflation; and the potential erosion of the value of the US dollar.

Amanda WhiteApril 21, 2021

Investor Profile

Coal moves to holistic management

The COVID crisis and the volatility of 2020 has revealed some lessons for the investment team at Coal Pension Trustees (CPT). It has taken a more top down view of managing its portfolio looking at economic themes, risk exposures, cashflows and its manager roster holistically. Amanda White talks to CIO Mark Walker about where it sees return opportunities, the prospect of manager consolidation and how it has embraced technology for better investment practices.

Amanda WhiteApril 15, 2021

Investor Profile

Simplicity rules in South Carolina AA

Executives at the South Carolina Retirement System pulled off a previously unimaginable task in 2020, conducting a complete review of the fund’s asset allocation, simplifying its portfolio, negotiating with suppliers, and gaining approval from the commission, all while working entirely remotely. Amanda White speaks to executive director Michael Hitchcock about the new portfolio and the process of getting there.

Amanda WhiteApril 7, 2021

Investor Profile

Concern about hidden inflation risk: AP4

Driven by active return, AP4 produced a stellar 9.6 per cent in 2020. But its chief executive, Niklas Ekvall remains cautious about the economic outlook and its impact on the portfolio, especially with regard to inflation.

Amanda WhiteMarch 31, 2021

Investor Profile

NBIM prepares to up voting transparency

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund says that voting is one of the most important tools to safeguard the fund's assets. Ahead of the AGM season getting underway, NBIM - which is the largest single owner of global stock markets - plans to publish its voting decisions five days ahead of corporate meetings in a bid to increase transparency.

Sarah RundellMarch 2, 2021

Investor Profile

Old Mutual SuperFund on COVID and ESG

Hugh Hacking from South Africa's Old Mutual SuperFund refects on the impact of the pandemic on the fund and the importance of ESG integration in its externally managed portfolio.

Sarah RundellFebruary 25, 2021

Investor Profile

BpfBOUW: The importance of hedge funds

Hedge funds are getting a bad press again, but for Dutch fund BpfBOUW the latest skirmish simply underscores their importance in a portfolio as Erik Hulshof, trustee and chair of the investment committee explains.

Sarah RundellFebruary 15, 2021

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Investor Profile

Aware Super positions for growth

Aware Super, one of Australia's largest superannuation funds, engaged McKinsey as part of the development of its next five-year strategy which the fund presented to the board in March. As it develops its next five-year plan a key initiative is how to deal with growth as it plans for an organisation that could double in size.

Matthew SmithJune 22, 2021

Investor Profile

PSP expands total portfolio approach

In just 20 years the Canadian fund PSP Investments has grown from a standing start to more than C$200 billion. As it enters its next five year strategy, Amanda White spoke to CIO Eduard van Gelderen about the next phase of portfolio management and the development of its total portfolio approach including assessing and allocating investments on a sector basis.

Amanda WhiteJune 17, 2021

Investor Profile

Church of Sweden manages concentration risk

The SEK10 billion Church of Sweden fund invests all its assets through a sustainability lens. It’s had stellar performance driven largely by a chunk of the fund invested in the Generation Investment Management global equity fund, an investment that was diluted last year to manage concentration risk. Amanda White spoke to CIO, Anders Thorendal.

Amanda WhiteJune 15, 2021

Investor Profile

OPTrust leads on AI innovation

The C$23 billion Canadian fund OPTrust is using AI to reduce risk in a strategy it hopes to roll out to the wider portfolio. Wei Xie explains the benefits and challenges of machine learning including AI's ability to identify complex dimensional relationships.

Sarah RundellJune 10, 2021