Asset Allocation

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PFZW reformulates investment principles

PFZW, the €150 billion ($205 billion) Dutch pension fund for the health care industry, has created a new investment framework which is the result of an 18-month soul-searching journey under a project called “The White Sheet of Paper”. The framework will translate into policy and implementation steps starting from 2015. Jaap van Dam, PGGM´s chief

Mercer capitalises on manager research

Mercer’s chief investment officer, Russell Clarke, explains how manager research helps create the 200 building blocks of an investment operation that has grown from $20 million a few years ago to $124 billion today and which covers – uniquely – all elements along the fixed income curve.   Starting from scratch in 1996, Melbourne was

Risk parity – the benefits of a conditional approach

Risk parity is a meaningful and robust approach for building well-diversified portfolios, but it relies on historical volatility estimates, which penalises upside risk as well as downside risk and leads to a massive overweighting of bonds versus equities, even in a low yield environment. The authors from EDHEC Risk-Institute build the case for an alternative

What is the right level of cash?

The $54 billion United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund has adapted to be more dynamic in its asset allocation, a result of lessons learned from the crisis and new stress-testing capabilities. The belief in active management still resonates with the fund beating its 10-year policy objectives. Amanda White spoke to the director of the investment

Evolution in risk reporting for sophisticated institutional investors

Risk reporting is increasingly regarded by sophisticated investors as an important ingredient in their decision-making process, authors from EDHEC argue that  the effective number of (uncorrelated) bets could be a useful risk indicator to be added to risk reports for equity and policy portfolios. Risk reporting is increasingly regarded by sophisticated investors as an important