Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System says its allocation to digital assets has become the best-performing investment in the fund’s history. The $6.3 billion pension plan first invested in blockchain infrastructure and digital assets through venture funds in 2019, and early distributions are now beginning to arrive.
Just as some of the world’s largest pensions funds sell down their fixed income holdings in favour of equities and private assets, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has been buying more in 2019 as it seeks to rebalance the portfolio in the event of an economic downturn.
David Villa, CIO of the $110 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board is worried about the outlook for returns. As a result he’s significantly underweight sovereign bonds in favour of cash. But he’s also positioning the organisation to do better analytics for more complicated portfolios, another result of a low return environment. The fund is working on at least five data and technology projects and has hired a chief technology and operations officer.
Australia’s largest industry super fund has looked to India to boost returns, as it ramps up its allocation in offshore private markets to further diversify its portfolio.
CalPERS traded $55 billion in fixed income securites last financial year as it implemented its new internal structure apportioning fixed income assets across three groups: treasuries, spread and high yield. The asset class returned 9.6 per cent for the year.
Dmytro Sheludchenko, part of the internal quant team at AP1, underscores how leading pension funds are building internal young teams to embrace technology, look beyond short-term implementation to focus on long-term value, and draw expertise from the vast amounts of data in today’s new investment landscape.
The board of the $154 billion Teacher Retirement System of Texas has approved changes to its strategic asset allocation as a result of its latest five-year study, increasing its allocation to private markets, risk parity and introducing leverage.
Top1000funds.com is the market leading news and analysis site for the world’s largest institutional investors. It focuses on leading the global investment industry to continuous improvement through case studies of best practice in governance and decision making, portfolio construction and efficient portfolio management, fees and costs, and sustainable investing.
The publication pushes the industry to question whether status quo processes and behaviours to tackle risks and opportunities will be sufficient in the future, and actively campaigns for diversity, sustainability, transparency, innovation and better alignment of fees in the investment industry.
Top1000funds.com is read by investment professionals in more than 40 countries.
Investor Profile