After a tentative agreement was achieved by global leaders in Durban in December more than 500 global investors will meet at the United Nations next week to discuss the investment needed to address climate change.

The chief executive officers of CalPERS and CalSTRS, as well as the comptrollers of New York’s state and local public pension funds, will be among those providing their views to the biannual summit on climate risk.

The Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions is run through Ceres and its investor network on climate risk. The network has more than 100 members representing a collective $9.5 trillion in assets under management.

Ceres, an organisation bringing together non-government organisations, corporations and global investors to tackle climate change has described the December talks in Durban, South Africa as “inconclusive”.

Citing new UN research showing a strong linkage between climate change and extreme weather events that will have “far-reaching business ripples”, Ceres says that the summit will provide investors with a chance to share what action they are undertaking.

The summit will also discuss emerging trends aimed at encouraging the large-scale investment needed to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the severe impacts predicted from climate change.

The summit to be held on January 12 in the UN’s headquarters in New York also includes representatives from some of the world’s biggest asset managers.

Executives at Deutsche Asset Management, Barclays Capital and Goldman Sachs & Co, including president and senior investment strategist, Abby Joseph Cohen, are among those presenting at the summit.

Prominent investors include Thomas DiNapoli, the sole trustee of the $146 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, who will address the role of institutional investors in addressing climate risk.

Anne Stausboll, the chief executive of CalPERS will moderate a discussion on sustainable investing in today’s global economy. CalSTERS’ chief executive, Jack Ehnes, will participate in a discussion looking at what the future may hold for climate risk investment.

Treasurers from the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut will also look at discussions ranging from clean energy investment to energy efficiency.

New York City Comptroller, John Liu, will discuss the potential for climate change investment to create jobs.

The UN Foundation and the UN Office for Partnerships are sponsors of the summit. Prominent UN officials including UN assistant Secretary-General, Robert C. Orr, and Kandeh Yumkella, the Director-General of the UN Industrial Development will address the summit.

Yumkella will participate in a discussion with Andrew Steer, the World Bank’s special envoy on Climate Change, on growing climate change investment opportunities in emerging market economies.

 

The formal approval of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was a critical outcome of the UN climate change conference in Durban, according to Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors, but the lack of funding for the GCF remains a concern. (more…)

Investment controls and systems remain the highest risk at CalPERS according to its year-end enterprise risk dashboard.

While an investment office “target operating model” has been developed it has not been fully implemented, which means the risk rating remains at the highest level, with a report stating weak controls, systems and data could lead to inappropriate transactions, financial loss and reputational harm.

According to the report there are a number of planned mitigation strategies for this year that aim to reduce this risk. These include implementing a new equity portfolio construction system and global equity investment book of record; establish an investment office data management function; and the completion of the financial reporting reengineering project.

In September 2010 CalPERS created the Office of Enterprise Risk Management, which has purpose of leading the organisation in the identification, assessment and monitoring of enterprise risks, and for developing a risk-intelligent culture among staff and management.

In its risk assessment plan it has set out the planned risk assessment activities for the rest of the 2011/2012 financial year.

On the investment side these include a Blackrock/Charles River user review, and rules review, as well as a securities lending review.

The $47 billion Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) board had a busy 2011 which included the appointment of a raft of direct hedge fund managers and introducing a new risk dashboard. With 2012 set to continue at the same pace, the first quarter of this year will see RFPs for small cap and emerging market debt managers.

The theme for last year, and the overarching philosophy of the initiatives it introduced, was the aim of stabilising the performance of PRIM in the face of continued volatility.

The Massachusetts State Treasurer and PRIM chair, Steven Grossman, says: “A new asset allocation strategy will steer our investments in a direction that lowers risk. A pilot program of direct investments in hedge funds is expected to reduce management fees. Expanded relationships with emerging managers will give PRIM access to additional high-performing investment funds. And our highly successful venture capital and private equity portfolio will add high-calibre funds that will invest in growth companies in Massachusetts and internationally.”

The introduction of the direct hedge fund policy last year resulted in the appointment of a raft of hedge fund managers in two tranches. As mentioned by Grossman, one of the aims of the policy was to reduce management fees. According to PRIM’s board documents the 2012 financial year budget for indirect costs included $35.9 million in hedge fund fees.

The direct hedge fund pilot program aims to span various hedge fund strategies and the managers appointed fit this directive as well as being diversified by geography, size and years in business. The pilot program includes the allocation of $500 million and the appointment of 21 funds managers.

PRIM, which is the investment manager for about 88 per cent of the state and local retirement systems, sought to invest 6 per cent of its direct hedge fund program in market neutral strategies, 10 per cent in multi-strategy funds, 14 per cent in global macro strategies, 15 per cent each in credit and distressed debt strategies, 27 per cent in event driven strategies, and 28 per cent in equity long/short funds.

The direct hedge fund policy constitutes one of PRIM’s major initiatives for 2011. Others included risk management and non-core real estate investment plans.

PRIM executive director, Michael Trotsky, says the fund is about four months into the new risk management plan.

“We will incorporate these tools during the next 12 months to aid us with investment management decisions around manager selection, rebalancing, manager monitoring, and portfolio construction,” he says.

Another cost-focused initiative last year was the completion of two studies on the foreign currency transaction costs of the fund. PRIM negotiates the fees on transactions covering 84 per cent of its foreign exchange trade volume.

In June last year, PRIM staff instructed the investment managers to re-examine their foreign exchange instruction procedures to eliminate standing instructions transactions and negotiate all foreign exchange transactions where possible. As a result, the cost of negotiated trades has decreased from 1.79 basis points to 1.19 basis points from the second to third quarters of last year.

Russell Investments was appointed for foreign currency execution services, and part of its responsibility will be to negotiate transaction fees for transactions involving restricted currencies such as the Brazilian Real and the South Korean Won

Overall, the fund determined in August 2011 that its long-term asset allocation would be 43 per cent in global equity, 13 per cent in core fixed income, 10 per cent in value-added fixed income, 10 per cent in private equity, 10 per cent in real estate, 4 per cent in timber and natural resources and 10 per cent in hedge funds.

At the end of November the fund was overweight equities and private equity by 2 per cent, and underweight hedge funds and value-added fixed income.

Trotsky says reaching the target weights of the new asset allocation is a work in progress.

“We are still in process of issuing RFPs for small cap managers and for emerging market debt managers. Also, the direct hedge fund program is still ramping up and those funds will absorb the additional weighting of 2 per cent to hedge funds in the first two quarters of calendar 2012,” he says.

This year the fund will also issue an RFP for transition management services. It currently employs State Street and BlackRock. An RFP for independent audit services will also be issued.

Trotsky says the investment plan for the next year will be approved by the board at the February meeting.

 

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Analysis of asset class and sector fund flows in 2011 reveals investors’ propensity to flock to defensive assets, according to data from EPFR Global.

Emerging market equities revealed the biggest difference year on year, with outflows of $47.7 billion for 2011 contrasting with inflows of $95.6 billion for the previous year.

The emerging markets equity funds tracked by EPFR Global ended 2011 with their seventh consecutive weekly outflow with uncertainty around Europe, China’s prospects this year, and high levels of inflation all cited as drivers.

Developed market equities also had significant outflows of $123 billion for the year.

All bond funds saw inflows of about $110.6 billion, with US bond funds attracting $62.3 billion for the year.

European bond flows saw a record outflow for the year of $29.8 billion, with the previous year recording inflows of $3 billion.

Within sector funds, commodities also attracted significant inflows, with about $12.8 billion for the year, with currency hedging being the significant motivation.

EPFR Global tracks traditional and alternative funds with about $13 trillion in assets.

Meanwhile State Street’s Investor Confidence index reveals a changing risk appetite from 2010 to 2011. At the end of 2011 the index was 99.3 and a year earlier it was around 104.5.

The index, which was developed by Harvard University professor Kenneth Froot and Paul O’Connell of State Street Associates, measures investor confidence, or risk appetite, by analysing the buying and selling patterns of institutional investors.

The index assigns a precise meaning to changes in investor risk appetite: the greater the percentage allocation to equities the higher risk appetite or confidence. A reading of 100 is neutral and represents the level at which investors aren’t increasing or decreasing their allocations to risky assets.