In his editorial in the latest edition of the FAJ, Richard Ennis calls into question the role of advanced, aggressive fixed-income strategies, questioning the suitability of such techniques in the part of the investor’s portfolio that bears the brunt of providing downside protection.
The CalPERS governance risk management initiative (GRMI) project team, led by Allen Goldstein of The Results Group, has reported to the board on phase II of the project, concluding with 17 preliminary observations of areas of improvement.
The 10.6 billion ($15 billion) Shell Pension Fund’s recovery plan has been approved by De Nederlandsche Bank and includes a provision to increase employer contributions to 32 per cent, up from 5 per cent last year, on the back of a whopping -43.3 per cent return for 2008.
The $30 billion Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois (TRS) will commit up to $1.2 billion to private equity, and will focus on opportunistic investments in real estate including emerging manager initiatives, as it aims to reach its new long-term allocations in those sectors by year end.
Four of Canada’s pension funds have established a professorship in pension management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto with initial research to focus on a better understanding of the drivers of pension fund performance using the global databases of CEM Benchmarking.
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MSCI Barra takes a close look at the stock performance in various emerging markets, examining the differences to developed market stocks in the performance of particular sectors and styles.