Retirement is a recent phenomenon in history and has acquired several preconceptions around a typical experience. This thought-provoking session explores the reality of ageing in the 21st century and the contemporary needs of members. After this session the question has to be asked, what will we call this conference next year?
Participant: Paul Gordon, Co Author Spenditude, Principal Aon’s smartMonday
Facilitator: Alex Proimos, head of institutional content, Investment Magazine
Length: 23 mins
A view that the US stock market is overvalued and equity risk premia will be lower over the long term has driven New Zealand Super to lower the return expectations for its reference portfolio following its recent five-yearly review of the benchmark. Co-chief investment officer Brad Dunstan also flags underweight commodity exposure as an area to address and explains why the fund remains sceptical of illiquidity premia despite seeing a growing case for private markets.
AP2 has voiced its concerns around what impact the shift in US shareholder proposal exclusions, or the so-called “no-action letter” change, will bring to sustainability-conscious investors, as the Swedish buffer fund gears up for a busy year of engagement in 2026.
Nest, the largest workplace pension in the UK, says that private credit managers who prioritise institutional clients will be more favourably viewed. The £61 billion ($82 billion) fund has awarded a £450 million ($605 million) US direct lending mandate to Crescent Capital this month, citing the manager's institutional-client-first approach as a key attraction.
TPA allows investors to better manage investment trade-offs, such as liquidity, costs and alpha, and has public and private investments compete explicitly on a common risk-adjusted basis, according to a new paper by CPP Investments. The Canadian giant, which has been practising TPA for two decades, says TPA cannot eliminate uncertainty, but it helps build resilience to it.
As concerns in private credit mount, Colorado PERA CIO and COO Amy McGarrity says the pension fund isn’t seeing any strains in its growing allocation to the asset class, arguing that long-term investors are shielded from the risks because they can lock up their capital to weather market cycles.
Canada has established its first national-level sovereign wealth fund with a seed of C$25 billion ($18.3 billion) to underwrite “nation-building” projects like ports, mines and energy infrastructure. In an unusual funding mechanism, the fund will issue a retail product that will allow individual investors to invest with the SWF and “participate in Canada’s growth”.
PKA, one of Denmark’s largest pension service providers, is exploring whether to increase its risk budget by 10 per cent to boost returns. Michael Flycht, deputy director of equities and liquid alternatives at PKA, outlines why the fund is achieving this objective via leverage rather than direct exposures, and where it's allocating towards in hedge funds and infrastructure.
Top1000funds.com is the market leading news and analysis site for the world’s largest institutional investors. It focuses on leading the global investment industry to continuous improvement through case studies of best practice in governance and decision making, portfolio construction and efficient portfolio management, fees and costs, and sustainable investing.
The publication pushes the industry to question whether status quo processes and behaviours to tackle risks and opportunities will be sufficient in the future, and actively campaigns for diversity, sustainability, transparency, innovation and better alignment of fees in the investment industry.
Top1000funds.com is read by investment professionals in more than 40 countries.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Login