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Skewed risk for CalPERS’ absolute return portfolio
The underperformance of the CalPERS’ risk-managed absolute return strategy indicates the portfolio may be too heavily weighted towards macro, currency, commodity or directional risk than the investment committee originally set out to achieve, according to a review by Wilshire.
DB plans continue to slide
The funded status of US defined-benefit corporate-pension plans continued to worsen last year, despite plan sponsors increasing contributions by $70 billion, a new Mercer study reveals. Mercer found funding levels have slipped to 2009 levels, with the outlook for 2012 likely to extend the bleak news for plan sponsors. The funded status of pension plans
CalPERS to finalise alternative asset classifications
CalPERS’s investment committee is expected to make a decision on its alternative asset classification at a November asset liability management workshop.
Inflation devalues attempts at consensus
The two big decisions for fiduciary investors this year concern interest rates and currencies. But those decisions are relatively easy. What is a lot more difficult is: how do you go about implementing these big-picture decisions at the hands-on level?
Active management under pressure as US funds underperform
The alpha from active funds management was a massive -1.2 per cent before fees for US funds in 2008, a figure eight times below the average of 15 bps over 18 years, according to research by CEM Benchmarking.
Slow and steady not necessarily the best way to go
‘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.
The Determinants of Pension Funds’ Allocation to Private Equity
This paper by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) investigates the main determinants of pension funds investment in private equity funds, and particularly in venture capital and leverage buyouts in the US and Canada over the 1996-2011 period. The results show some important differences between pension funds allocating to private equity and more traditional assets. The first ones are
Active management: turning the argument on its head
One of the enduring areas of asset management academic study, and practitioner query, is whether or not managers have skill. In his work, professor of finance at Stanford, Jonathan Berk, shows the answer doesn’t lie in returns but in manager compensation. Determining whether active skill exists is not the same as looking at whether
Capital provider: Australia’s Sunsuper
The $26 billion Australian super fund, Sunsuper, is investing in an increasing amount of exclusive unlisted asset deals. Chief investment officer David Hartley says the difficulties of banks in Europe in particular have led the fund down the path of increasing the amount of debt investments in its unlisted exposure. Much of this has been
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