The latest
WPF Risk Summit

How to solve Chicago’s pension pain

Moody’s recent downgrade of the City of Chicago was because of its pension liabilities, according to the city’s treasurer, Stephanie Neely, who says the current actions to fix the funding deficit problems are just “re-arranging the furniture”. “The benefits and contributions are the problem: we cannot invest our way out of this,” she says, adding […]
Amanda WhiteAugust 27, 2013
Uncategorised posts

CalPERS: a new framework of economy

CalPERS has adopted 10 preliminary investment principles following a board offsite in July, but a number of topics, including the role of active management, are still under debate ahead of the September board meeting that is the deadline for the principles’ adoption. The $266-billion Californian fund began the process for establishing investment principles in January […]
Amanda WhiteAugust 16, 2013
Investor Profile

Seeking partners in Alaska

The $46-billion Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) will launch PCIO, a private equity version of its successful external chief-investment-officer partnerships, and is looking for partners now. When the fund moved to a risk-based factor allocation a few years ago, it allocated mandates under its special opportunities bucket to five managers – PIMCO, GMO, Bridgewater, AQR […]
Amanda WhiteAugust 2, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Eijffinger’s decade of financial repression

Financial repression will define the economic landscape for at least another decade, according to professor of financial economics at Tilburg University, Sylvester Eijffinger, which has serious implications for institutional investors. Eijffinger, who also is also a visiting professor at Harvard, sits on the monetary experts panel of the European Union and is an adviser to […]
Amanda WhiteAugust 2, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Let’s talk about underfunding

Even using the assets of the pension plan was not enough of a leg-up to save the city of Detroit from bankruptcy. As the last words in the song Put your hands up for Detroit by Fedde Le Grand say, it is system shutdown. The fiscal demise of this city may be a lesson for […]
Amanda WhiteJuly 26, 2013
Asset Allocation

Assessing reality in US public funds

Distinct regulation of United States public pension funds that links the liability discount rate to expected return on assets, rather than to the riskiness of their promised benefits, sets them apart – in a bad way. US public funds have underperformed other pension fund cohorts because of higher allocations to risky assets. Arguably, regulation is […]
Amanda WhiteJuly 19, 2013
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