The investment committee of the New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association approved a domestic equities restructure at a meeting last week. Amanda White spoke with the two joint acting CIOs, Joelle Mevi and Julian Baca, about the changes to the portfolio and the plans for the year including a fixed income and international equities review.
Liquidity is the paramount risk factor for institutional investors to be cognisant of according to Ben Golub, vice chairman and chief risk officer, Blackrock who has co-authored a new paper outlining the risks learned from the credit crisis. He spoke to Amanda White about the suitable internal structure for institutional risk management and the risk challenges at Blackrock.
New research by Russell Investments’ co-chair of global investing, Don Ezra and senior lecturer at the Australian National University, Geoff Warren, presents a framework for deciding when to choose an alternative to passively investing in capitalisation-weighted indices within any particular asset class, and highlights how the debate over active versus passive investing needs to be broadened beyond a focus on performance by the average active equity manager.
Mercer Investment Consulting has revised down its view of global equities markets, suggesting the rally has pushed prices to fair value from their previous rating of undervalued.
CalPERS is expecting to deploy the $22 billion in unfunded commitments of its alternatives investment management program in the next two to three years, with greater concentration among the best performing managers one of the priorities for 2010.
The latest “periodic table” of investment returns – which ranks the performance of key equity and credit indices over two decades – from Callan Associates reinforces a lasting rule for long-term investors: diversification works.