With bond yields at historic lows, particularly in the US, pension funds have been searching for new forms of downside protection to reduce tail risk, boosting demand for certain types of hedge funds in the process. In the US, too, where demand is invariably met by a quick supply of new products, specialist ‘tail-risk funds’ have started to pop up.
Endowment funds turn to alternatives
Foundation and endowment funds are allocating the largest percentage of alternatives to their portfolios, with public funds coming second ahead corporate plans in third place.
The case for a new look at global benchmarks
Indexes are important for pension funds. They benchmark the fund’s performance against goals and peers. They allow the fund’s managers to be measured and often times they decide the managers’ remuneration. You would think, then, that there must be a lot of science behind their use.
Asia Pacific funds passport gathers momentum
State Street has thrown its weight behind the proposal for the Asian Pacific region to collaborate on development of an ‘Asian Funds Passport’ to facilitate the growth of locally domiciled managed funds.
Private equity is not an asset class: Siguler
Is private equity an asset class? George Siguler (pictured), a doyen in the field, a former head of alternative investments for the Harvard endowment that formed his own firm, and a pioneer of unlisted investments in the BRIC countries, thinks not. He spoke with Greg Bright about the state of play in private equity. George … Read more
Funds flow to bonds. Why?
The largest bond manager in the world, PIMCO, is cleaning up. Figures from researcher and data provider eVestment Alliance show that institutional investors put more than twice the amount of money into US fixed-income funds in the past three months than any other asset class.
