NEST’s private markets strategic review includes manager scrutiny

NEST is conducting a strategic review of its private markets allocation to ensure the program – launched in 2020 – is still capturing a liquidity premium for its young member base. Its private market head explains the key seams including no performance fees and evergreen structures to monitor deployment.

UK corporate DB consolidation: TPT throws its hat in the ring

Trustees and employers overseeing the UK’s 5,000 corporate pension plans, which hold an estimated £1.2 trillion ($1.6 trillion), have another option to help manage their defined benefit assets following TPT Retirement Solutions’ proposal for a new superfund that will access managers through a fund-of-funds structure.

Minnesota overhauls governance as CIO gets more mandate power

Chief investment officer of the $150 billion Minnesota State Board of Investment will gain authority to hire and fire managers without board approval in a governance overhaul approved this week that will sharply fast-track decision-making. The change follows an 18-month asset allocation study which has resulted in some portfolio finetunes.

Fordham University dials up growth equity, cools on private credit

Fordham University CIO Geeta Kapadia is cutting back on private credit, calling it an asset class “less able to financially engineer returns” in a higher-rate world. She’s instead redirecting the $1.1 billion endowment to venture and growth equity and entrusting larger mandates to a smaller roster of high-conviction managers.

Resilience: Abdicating from transformational change?

Will the relentless pursuit of efficiency undermine our ability to build a resilient and sustainable future? Andrea Caloisi, a researcher at the Thinking Ahead Institute at WTW, explores how complex systems, driven by short-term optimisation, may be fuelling long-term fragility.