Norway’s Finance Ministry is under fire for huge fees paid to external fund managers of the NOK3 trillion ($478 billion) Government Pension Fund, with the country’s auditor general criticising Norges Bank as “reprehensible” for paying out NOK500 million ($81 million) on a mandate of NOK3.3 billion ($534 million).
Mercer’s acquisition of US-based Hammond Associates marks the continued trend of a new consulting environment that raises the question of whether boutique firms can survive. Amanda White spoke to Mercer’s US investment consulting leader, Jeff Schutes, about why clients’ demand for deeper resources and knowledge is driving the consolidation, and why large firms are rejecting the risks of the public pension domain. 
(more…)
The Conference Board’s 2010 Institutional Investment Report: Trends in Asset Allocation and Portfolio Composition measures the asset growth and portfolio composition of institutional investors operating in the US. (more…)
Economists hate price and wages controls. They distort the natural forces of markets and usually result in pent-up demand and/or supply which will be unleashed at a later stage as well as a range of unexpected distortions. Investors, too, should hate them. (more…)
This paper by Columbia University’s Ulf Nielsson, empricially investigates the effects of stock exchange consolidation, specifically measuring how it affects stock liquidity and how the effect varies with firm type.
Institutional investors’ increasing use of factor-based models to understand their portfolio risk exposures is the conduit for Russell Investments’ collaboration with Axioma to launch a series of factor-based indexes to rival MSCI/Barra, according to Rolf Agather, managing director of research and innovation at Russell. 
(more…)