David Blake, director of the Pensions Institute at the Cass Business School in London, believes the UK government should issue longevity bonds to help create an efficient capital market for the transfer of longevity risk. But given the government’s reluctance to do so, he says, perhaps the private sector should step up. (more…)

While the hedge fund space may have contracted in the past three years, manager representation at an association level in Europe is set to increase with the launch of a US-based rival group to the London-based Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). (more…)

CalPERS has reduced its total fund tracking error from 2.17 per cent to 1.94 per cent in the quarter to June 30, but it still sits above the budgeted 1.5 per cent. (more…)

‘The Hare and the Tortoise’, a well-known Aesop’s fable, does not have much in common with ‘An Imperial Message’, a less-well-known story from Franz Kafka, but combined they may tell us something about current reactions to the unsettling world which the global financial crisis has thrown investors into. (more…)

In a sign that ESG issues are becoming a greater concern in China, the country’s first ESG index will launch this Friday as a joint venture between the main Shanghai exchange and an Italian research company. (more…)

Asian IPOs, core retail real estate and natural resource investments are the most favoured by the world’s sovereign wealth funds for the next three months, according to a ‘consensus demand meter’ produced by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute in the US. (more…)