KLM funds ride out de-risking turbulence

Pension funds can face a lot of turbulence in the course of their investing journey and many funds thrown into shortfalls have found the need to de-risk their portfolios. There might be a few investment officers at those funds casting an enviable eye upwards to the pension fund of Dutch flag-carrying airline KLM. Toine van … Read more

Siguler: buy good quality companies

As the world and companies globalise, George Siguler, managing director and founding partner of private equity firm, Siguler Guff, has a simple recommendation for investors. “My recommendation for stock investors is to look at great global companies,” he says. “Look at companies like Johnson and Johnson, Unilever or Boeing. They all have great balance sheets … Read more

Mid-life crisis at West Midlands Pension Fund

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 … Read more

A series of shorts
don’t make a long

It is easy for long-term investors to avoid short termism, and the solution lies in avoiding momentum and conducting risk analysis using cash flows – not market pricing. “Diversification is a joke. Diversification and risk analysis relies on pricing, but pricing is distorted because it’s driven by momentum,” says Paul Woolley, chairman of the Paul … Read more

ShareAction mainstreams responsible investment

“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 … Read more

Cass creates principles
for DC model

As almost every market in the world looks to move from defined benefit to some sort of defined contribution model, academics at the Pensions Institute of the Cass Business School, City University London have developed a set of 15 principles for designing a defined contribution model. The principles, consistent with the recently published OECD guidelines, are based … Read more