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Liquidity tightens, volatility rises

How should pension funds in the United Kingdom best prepare for the government unwinding quantitive easing (QE) and tightening monetary policy? The Bank of England isn’t showing any signs of ending QE just yet, its policy begun in 2009 and designed to stimulate the economy by creating new money to buy government bonds. But QE […]
Sarah RundellSeptember 11, 2013
Investor Profile

The real star of Washington State

Renowned academic Ashby Monk said the best way to lure talent to US public sector retirement funds unable to pay Wall Street salaries was to hire the green, the grey or the grounded. With a 30-year career spanning business, government and media, Theresa Whitmarsh, executive director of the $92.1-billion Washington State Investment Board (WSIB) laughs […]
Sarah RundellAugust 7, 2013
Investor Profile

Wallach takes long view cross the Mersey

Peter Wallach, head of the United Kingdom’s Merseyside Pension Fund isn’t overly worried about the recent fall in equities. “Markets are being driven by liquidity from central banks; this is more about central banks just needing to reassure investors,” he says. “It is bonds, to our mind, that are over-valued in the medium to long […]
Sarah RundellJune 21, 2013
Investor Profile

Diversification key for pioneer of fiduciary management

For someone whose ideas have revolutionised the Dutch pension industry and carried significant international clout, Anton van Nunen strikes a humble tone. Widely credited with pioneering fiduciary management from its infancy, Van Nunen confesses with a chuckle that it is “quite a surprise” that the concept has grown to win over a significant proportion of […]
Dan BillinghamMay 22, 2013
Investor Profile

Autumnal Danish fund shows spring growth

Innovation is associated more with bold new businesses than gently declining ones, but Denmark’s Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond (LD) is embracing change as it enters its final years. The pension fund’s inevitable disappearance has nothing to do with any lack of competitiveness or poor investment returns – the 9.9-per-cent net return it generated in 2012 is testament […]
Dan BillinghamApril 10, 2013
Investor Profile

Mid-life crisis at West Midlands Pension Fund

The area surrounding the British city of Wolverhampton, near Birmingham, is still called the Black Country although the polluting coal mines and steel mills that sprung up during England’s nineteenth-century explosion of wealth have long gone. Today there is little evidence that Wolverhampton was the cradle of an industrial revolution and the 300-odd public sector […]
Sarah RundellApril 3, 2013
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