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Investor Profile
South Africa’s GEPF prepares the ground for a two pot system
South Africa’s $119 billion Government Employee Pension Fund is in the process of readying its investment processes for a new law that will allow people to draw down some of their retirement income early.
Featured Story
CalPERS mulls tying climate KPIs to incentive pay
CalPERS may tie the incentive pay of its staff to meeting climate KPIs in the near future. The fund's executive pay consultants also discussed other ways the fund should tweak incentive pay like adding an asset class investment performance weighting to the annual incentive formula.
Investor Profile
Dutch fund tackles the cost and time of shifting to DC
The clock is ticking for Dutch fund PWRI to transition to a new DC scheme in line with pension reform. Imke Hollander explains why the pension fund is unlikely to invest more in risk assets and flags mounting costs in the transition, particularly in fees paid to advisors.
Investor Profile
LACERA adds downside protection as equity markets look unsustainable
The $77 billion LACERA has positioned for the downside, launching a new asset allocation that pivots towards diversification and downside risk, adding to hedge funds and investment grade bonds. Top1000funds.com talks to CIO, Jonathan Grabel.
Featured Story
Brightwell ponders implications of shake up in UK pension scheme surpluses
New rules may enable employers to tap surplus funds built up in defined benefit plans in the UK. It remains unclear if this would alter investment strategy and see these funds invest more investment in so-called productive assets rather than UK government bonds.
Investor Profile
Giants APG and GPIF collaborate on infra
Two of the biggest pension funds in the world, the Dutch APG and Japan’s GPIF, have joined forces to invest in large scale infrastructure deals. The move comes as APG Asia head Thijs Aaten says he envisages more than half of the fund’s real assets will be in Asia.
Investor Profile
CalSTRS’ sustainability strategy: Net zero and investing in opportunities
CalSTRS’ net zero strategy has provided a new level of focus and anchor for the 220-person investment team. Kirsty Jenkinson, investment director for the sustainable investment and stewardship strategies at the fund, explains its evolution including integrating climate scenarios into its asset liability modelling study.
Featured Story
Applying a factor approach to total portfolio management
A new report points to the Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) as one way for institutional investors to build more resiliency into their portfolios. Report contributors Derek Walker and Geoffrey Rubin from CPP Investments explain how they apply a factor lens to the process.
Investor Profile
Denmark’s PenSam introduces new climate index to solve tech tilt
A new climate index at Danish investor PenSam aims to solve the overweight to tech stocks, a common problem for sustainable investors give the sector is low emitting and solving many of the challenges of climate change.
Investor Profile
TfL explains why hedge funds provide essential diversification
Padmesh Shukla, chief investment officer of the £14 billion Transport for London Pension Fund explains why he believes hedge funds are a crucial element to a diversified portfolio.
Featured Story
Ford’s Roy Swan on how the Church of England is tackling its slavery legacy
Roy Swan, director, mission investments at the Ford Foundation, is helping The Church Commissioners for England set up a new impact fund to tackle its slavery legacy. He tells Top1000funds.com about how the fund will provide grants and make impact investments intended to increase access to capital for Black-led businesses.
FIS Singapore 2024
Asia’s climate transition requires unique regional presence
Asia is going through its own sustainability journey, and it’s different from the transition pathways in Europe and North America. Robeco head of fixed income, Asia, Thu Ha Chow told the Top1000funds.com Fiduciary Investors Symposium in Singapore that this means investing in the region requires a unique, regional perspective.
FIS Singapore 2024
Recasting emissions abatement as expensive rather than hard
When it comes to figuring out how a company will get to net zero and how their transition will be financed, more investors are making a distinction between emissions that are hard to abate, and emissions that are expensive to abate.
Featured Story
Real estate drags for Swiss fund MPK but climate proofing gathers momentum
Migros-Pensionskasse (MPK) the CHF28.2 billion ($30 billion) pension fund for Switzerland’s largest retailer, Migros, has done much to reduce emissions in its real estate allocation. But balancing adding value with the cost of integrating sustainability is a challenge.
Investor Profile
Korea Investment Corporation focuses on alternatives push
KIC is looking to boost its alternatives allocation - particularly private credit - both directly and through managers. Influenced by what it sees as an unfolding AI-led industrial revolution it is looking for opportunities in fast-developing sectors including AI, semiconductors and healthcare, and has opened an office in Mumbai.
Investor Profile
PGGM revamps fixed income; focuses on liquidity
PGGM's Wilfried Bolt explains how the end of quantitative easing (QE) has changed the asset manager's hedging strategy and prompted a keen focus on liquidity. He also explains the rationale behind managing more of the corporate bond allocation in house.
Featured Story
Private equity angst at Oregon
A stubbornly high exposure, lacklustre M&A deals and exit activity as well as a slowdown in fundraising and deployment and market volatility creating benchmarking havoc have all conspired to cause consternation in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund's private equity allocation.
Stanford 2018
FIS Stanford Photo Gallery
View photos from the 2018 Fiduciary Investors Symposium, held at Stanford University, United States.
Stanford 2018
China’s enticing, challenging market
Inefficient markets and an explosion of technological innovation fuelled by Millennial consumers make China a tantalising prospect but accessing strong returns there isn’t as simple as it looks.
Stanford 2018
Protecting human capital helps everyone
Investors have plenty to gain from helping to protect human rights in supply chains and managing the human costs during technological disruption and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Stanford 2018
How to follow megatrends to success
The big themes that will fuel growth in coming decades are interconnected and subject to change. An expert panel gave advice on riding societal change to outperformance.
Stanford 2018
How the active complements the passive
Investors discuss the various ways that two styles often presented as if they are enemies in fact work hand in hand across portfolios to produce returns.
Featured Story
How Ireland’s ISIF is helping crowd-in transition finance
The €15 billion ($16.1 billion) Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) is finding compelling investment opportunities in the energy transition and is successfully drawing in additional investment to finance Ireland’s net zero commitments.
Investor Profile
Texas ERS boosts cash allocation as higher rates end era of dead money
Texas ERS has bumped up its allocation to cash to 10 per cent, and revamped its global equities around a core fund with an overweight to AI and other Magic Seven themes, drug manufacturers and aerospace. Another key development in equities includes reducing the number of stocks by half.
Asset Allocation
Penn PSERS trims leverage, adds fixed income and hones in on fees
The $71.9 billion Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System has reduced net leverage, added fixed income and continues to shave costs off its external investment management fees, mostly by reducing private allocations. The trimming and shifting of the portfolio is part of an adjusted SAA responding to ongoing market changes.
Featured Story
CalSTRS looks at big picture with total portfolio function
The $315 billion CalSTRS is looking to build a top-down portfolio function to better incorporate liquidity management alongside portfolio construction and to consider how it can better deal with often lumpy cashflows to maximise returns, while continuing to keep a tight rein on risk.
Strategy
What the new global labour market really means for investors
As western economies grapple with demographic shifts and labour mismatches, a new set of opportunities and risks have appeared for investors. PGIM thematic research group director Jakob Wilhelmus outlines what they should look out for in this new world order.
Featured Story
India’s NIIF: A poster child for development finance
Sujoy Bose played a central role in setting up India's celebrated sovereign development fund, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund. He explains how NIFF's governance combines a perfect combination of sovereign comfort for investors seeking Indian exposure alongside the discipline and freedom to hunt returns.
Investor Profile
What drives success at CPP Investments’ giant PE portfolio
Size and scale are not always advantages. Against the backdrop of tougher market conditions, CPP Investments' global head of private equity Suyi Kim says successfully managing what could be the world’s largest private equity allocation a program will depend on successfully managing the large team.
Investor Profile
South Africa’s EPPF builds resilience in governance-focused strategy
South Africa's EPPF wants to increase its allocation to private equity and venture capital to help ride out volatility at home in a strategy where governance and stakeholder engagement is central. CEO Shafeeq Abrahams explains.