Financial studies students at one of New York’s most-respected business schools, Columbia Business School, are asked to suggest a new governance model for the State Common Retirement Fund, as its current model of a single trustee is held up to be “the worst example of governance” in a large pension fund in the developed world by Professor Andrew Ang.
Risk management is the new black – never out of fashion and always reliable. Russell Investments’ director of investment strategy, Canada, Bruce Curwood, explains why risk management is the cornerstone of investing and why now is the perfect time to talk to fiduciaries about their governance structures. (more…)
Relief for Californian state fund investment chiefs, their bosses and their members – with CalSTRS and CalPERS both returning 20+ per cent for the financial year – has been usurped by a reminder to politicians that the funds cannot invest their way to good health and a responsible funding strategy is required.
Whether it involves skill, good judgment or just plain luck, choosing the right manager is never an exact science but recently published research reveals institutional investors can make better decisions by avoiding conventional wisdom around past performance. (more…)
Bond indices’ risk exposures are very unstable measures over time, and further this instability is accentuated in the indices with the smallest number of bonds, according to research by EDHEC-Risk Institute which examines two sets of four corporate investment-grade bond indices in the US and Europe. It concludes that the more investable the index is meant to be, the less reliable it is.
The Chicago Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund is nearly 125 years old, but with a funding level of merely 35 per cent, it is perilously dehydrated. Chief investment officer Sam Kunz discusses his investment plan for the fund’s survival. (more…)