Japan fund reduces domestic bond weighting

The world’s largest investor, the ¥117,643 billion ($1.43 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan (GPIF) has reduced its weighting to domestic bonds by more than 1 per cent, moving the money into short term assets.

At the end of September, the second quarter of the fund’s fiscal year, it still had a whopping 70 per cent invested in domestic bonds, but this was down from 71.1 per cent the quarter previous.

The domestic bond allocation has been as high as 72 per cent, but at the end of fiscal 2009 was a relatively low 67.54 per cent.

The allocation to international bonds (8.16 per cent) and international stocks (9.74 per cent) were also up slightly for the September 2010 quarter.

The fund returned 1.53 per cent for the second quarter, a vast improvement on its first quarter loss of -2.94 per cent.

Most of the fund’s assets are managed passively, and last financial year (ending March 31, it reduced its weighting to actively managed international equities, widening the number of service providers at the same time.

Sponsored Content

Overall the fund employs more than 80 funds managers.

Leave a Comment

Sort content by

Ugo Bassi focuses on transparency at ICGN

For many people their most memorable in situ news moment is when man landed on the moon or when John Lennon, Princess Diana or Michael Jackson died. But most Italians will remember where they were when Pope Benedict XVI resigned. A country with record unemployment, no head of state and no head of the church

Montagnon defines investor engagement

There is scope for European legislation directing asset owners who issue mandates to service providers in Europe to say that they have “thought through” what they want their asset managers to engage with companies on, ICGN conference delegates heard. Peter Montagnon, senior investment adviser of corporate governance at the UK Financial Reporting Council, says there

Code of conduct for proxy voting industry

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has developed a set of high level principles with the aim of encouraging the proxy voting industry to develop its own code of conduct. Speaking at the ICGN conference in Milan, the head of the investment and reporting division at ESMA, Laurent Degabriel, said it will set a

Breakfast with AQR’s Cliff Asness

Having a breakfast meeting with Cliff Asness is a wake-up call. He will let you know if you’re late – something he holds in very little regard. He admits he has to constantly remind himself that just because he’s 20 minutes early to everything that others are not automatically then 20 minutes late. Asness is

Tackling sustainability in emerging markets

Emerging market investing and sustainable investing easily rank as two of the most substantiated of the many investment trends of the past decade. However, the two styles of investing are far from natural bedfellows. Christian Ragnartz, as chief investment officer of the $17-billion-plus Swedish pension fund AP7 – which has 13 per cent of its

Ownership: a forgotten art?

While the responsible investment field has come a long way, the majority of investors are still treating it as an overlay, rather than truly integrating it into investment decision-making. This is not an ideal situation for the investment industry, not to mention society at large, but it presents an opportunity for those that do integrate

Previous