Asset Allocation

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Behind the strategy of the French pension reserve fund

The French pension reforms in 2010 had a profound impact on the asset allocation of the Fonds de reserve pour les Retraites, the €35.8 billion French pension reserves fund. Instead of making payouts between 2020 and 2040, after the reform, the FRR has to pay €2.1 billon to Caisse d’Amortissement de la Dette Sociale (CADES)

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