The GMO chief argues why honouring Ben Bernanke is similar to saluting the captain of the Titanic, and why making banks that are ‘too big too fail’ even bigger is sheer lunacy, while identifying other instances in which many of the people enjoying financial incentives, rewards and public praise in the US are unworthy recipients.
Gareth Thomas, Minister of State with the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom, has urged pension funds to help boost private funding for low carbon investments in the developing world, calling on the group of investors at the P8 Summit to consider potential public financing mechanisms emerging from the private sector, including advanced market commitments, cornerstone funds and challenge funds.
The REIT market will not consistently outperform the broader equity and fixed income markets has it has done for thepast 20 years, according to this research by Mercer Real Estate Boutique’s David Nix and Michelle Reuter, but there will be pockets of opportunity ripe for stock pickers.
Chief investment officer of CalPERS, and chair of the Council of Institutional Investors, Joe Dear, has warned of a “reform facade” as memories of the crisis fade and resistance to reform instensifies, calling for a more comprehensive regulatory umbrella, and specifically for most over the counter derivatives to be traded on exchanges, in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington this week.
In the fall issue of the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management, Ed Waitzer, the Jarislowsky Dimma Mooney Chair in Corporate Governance at York University, Canada, argues the time has come for pension fund trustees and managers to lead rather than be dragged along. This article proposes a number of steps that can be taken to better align incentives and frame decision-making for longer-term perspectives.
When Paul Woolley, academic-turned funds manager-turned academic, set up his research Centre in 2007, the two main associated universities, London School of Economics and University of Toulouse, didn’t like the name. But he insisted and now the Paul Woolley Centre for (the study of) Capital Market Dysfunctionality has a significant body of work in progress. GREG BRIGHT reports.