WTW’s Urwin defends TPA value-add as attribution scrutiny intensifies

Roger Urwin, one of the industry’s most well-known proponents of TPA, has defended it against the growing scepticism of its reported performance edge over SAA, saying “TPA is a system” and any performance attribution is difficult to isolate from the broader context each fund operates in. In an interview with Top1000funds.com, he also weighs in on whether some funds are inherently unsuitable for implementing TPA.

Future Fund: AI world order defined by US-China split will hurt capital owners

A geostrategic standoff between the US and China over AI would be “extremely damaging for capital owners” according to the Future Fund, Australia’s A$337 billion ($237 billion) sovereign wealth fund, which outlined four “secular scenarios” around AI and its investment implications.

Border to Coast hunts strategic partners as private markets set to surge

The UK’s LGPS pool, £120 billion ($161 billion) Border to Coast, is hunting for strategic relationships with asset managers and global asset owners as it prepares to invest £40 billion in private markets. Chief executive Rachel Elwell speaks to Top1000funds.com about the fund’s approach to finding long-term partnerships in the market.

China in ‘very precarious’ position as debt strains investment-led growth model

Michael Pettis, leading expert on China’s economy and financial markets, says investors should be concerned about the nation’s record total-debt-to-GDP ratio as it threatens to strangle the investment-led economic growth model it has maintained for decades. In the latest episode of the Top1000funds.com podcast, Pettis unpacks why China’s pivot to a consumption-led society will be painful.

Michael Pettis on China’s overinvestment paradox, and the Japan-style reckoning still to come

China’s advanced infrastructure and ballooning debt are two sides of the same story, says Carnegie Endowment nonresident senior fellow Michael Pettis, who compares China’s coming consumption-led rebalancing to Japan’s in the 1980s. In conversation with Top1000funds.com Asia Pacific correspondent Darcy Song, Pettis unpacks what this means for institutional investors weighing China exposure over multi-decade horizons, and why he remains bearish on the country’s outlook.