Alternatives and Liquidity: Will Spending and Capital Calls Eat Your “Modern” Portfolio?

An award for the academic paper with the most relevance to institutional investors, as judged by a panel including the chief investment officers of three large European pension funds, has been awarded to Laurence B Siegel, for his paper “Alternatives and Liquidity: Will Spending and Capital Calls Eat Your ‘Modern’ Portfolio?” published in the Journal of Portfolio Management.

Siegel, who has authored more than 70 articles and one book, Benchmarks and Investment Management, was a previous member of the editorial board of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Journal of Investing.

The inaugural EDHEC Robeco Journal of Portfolio Management Award is awarded to the author of the academic paper
published in the Journal of Portfolio Management in the previous calendar year which, in the opinion of the jury, has had the most relevance for institutional investors.

Siegel’s paper was chosen following a two-stage selection process, firstly involving a panel of academic experts who
drew up a shortlist of potential winning papers, and then a final vote from a jury made up of three chief investment officers from leading European pension funds.

The pension fund representatives on the selection committee were: Johan van der Ende, chief investment officer, PGGM, Frederic Methlow, chief investment officer, AVS-AHV Compensation Fund, and Tom Steenkamp, chief investment officer for asset allocation and research, APG.

Siegel, who is renowned as a “bull”, was appointed as research director of the Research Foundation at the CFA Institute in 2005, he has also served as the director of research in the investment division of the Ford Foundation, and was a former managing director of consulting firm Ibbotson Associates.

Sponsored Content

Part of his (voluntary) role at the Research Foundation was to emphasise research of practical value to investment
professionals, while exploring new and challenging topics that provided a unique perspective.

At the time of his appointment to the CFA’s Research Foundation he said: “Some thoughtful investors have expressed concern that the “glory days” of discovery in finance are in the past, beginning in the 1950s with Harry Markowitz’s work and ending in the 1970s with the Black-Scholes option pricing formula.

“While these founding events are monumentally important, discovery has continued, practical financial innovation
has greatly accelerated, and the direct impact of finance on people’s lives has dramatically increased. The monograph series will both reflect these innovations and try to advance them further.”

He received both his BA and his MBA from the University of Chicago.

His winning paper can be found at http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/abs/10.2469/dig.v39.n2.14

Leave a Comment

Sort content by

Credit to be the 2012 honeypot: Mercer

Investments in credit will be a hive of activity this year as the role of banks in lending continues to fall and investors make decisions about the place of sovereign debt in their portfolios, according to Mercer. The consultant, which has outlined economic and financial challenges for investors in 2012, says the scarcity of credit,

Investors demand company action on climate change

Some of the world’s largest investors have outlined their expectations of how companies should respond to climate change.mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

Investors look to clean energy infrastructure

Despite clean energy public equity investments performing poorly in 2011, there are still attractive investing opportunities in the sector and strong investor interest in financing green energy infrastructure, a Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors report has revealed. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

DiNapoli: fund focuses on economic growth

Pension funds are “perpetual investors” and should promote long-term, sustainable economic growth through integrating environmental, sustainability and governance considerations into investment decisions, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says.mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

Doubts raised about Cal pension plan

While Virginia is the latest US state to announce an overhaul of its public pension system, a report into California’s pension reform plans says it does little to address CalSTRS’ $56 billion of underfunded liabilities and that some proposals may be unconstitutional.mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

Edhec warns of narrow focus on ETF risks

European regulators should focus on ensuring transparency of risk and disclosure about costs and returns to create a level playing field for all financial products, rather than focusing on the potential risks of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), EDHEC-Risk Institute has warned.mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

Previous