Low for ever, a risen China and climate change, are just some of the 10 changes set to sweep through the investment industry in the next 10 years, said Cyrus Taraporevala, president and chief executive of State Street Global Advisors, in his opening speech to 85 asset owners at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Harvard University.
David Villa, CIO of the $110 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board is worried about the outlook for returns. As a result he’s significantly underweight sovereign bonds in favour of cash. But he’s also positioning the organisation to do better analytics for more complicated portfolios, another result of a low return environment. The fund is working on at least five data and technology projects and has hired a chief technology and operations officer.
CalPERS traded $55 billion in fixed income securites last financial year as it implemented its new internal structure apportioning fixed income assets across three groups: treasuries, spread and high yield. The asset class returned 9.6 per cent for the year.
Investors should use the strategic asset allocation process to adjust their portfolios to plug the SDGs and climate finance gap, according to an expert panel at PRI in Person.
Modern portfolio theory has created the impression that diversification is always a good thing, but asset owners could benefit from a more sceptical attitude. This article suggests over-diversification favours managers at the expense of returns to investors.
The $31.3 billion South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission has launched a co-investment private equity program in a bid to reduce risk and enhance returns. Partnering with Chicago-headquartered GCM Grosvenor, RSIC will tap Grosvenor’s own private equity deal flow, as well as introductions to the manager’s GP network.
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FIS Harvard 2019