The decision by California Attorney General, Edmund Brown, to charge former CalPERS board member and placement agent, Alfred Villalobos, his company ARVCO Capital, and former CalPERS chief executive, Federico Buenrostro, with fraud could have serious consequences for the future investment direction of the fund.
Pension fund performance and costs: small is beautiful
This new paper by Rob Bauer, Martijn Cremers, and Rik Frehen uses the CEM pension fund data set to document the cost structure and performance of a large sample of US pension funds. It finds that small-cap mandates of defined-benefit funds have outperformed their benchmarks by about 3 per cent per year. Concluding that while large scale brings cost advantages, liquidity limitations seem to allow only smaller funds, and especially small-cap mandates, to outperform their benchmarks.
Broker cutbacks boost small-cap opportunities
With the tightening of belts at big stock broking firms in the past couple of years, particularly the firms which are owned by banks, has come an increase in the opportunity set for buy-side researchers.
CIC wants capital with smarter, greener ideas
China will continue to encourage capital flows into the country that emphasise technology and environmental impact, according to Jin Liqun, chairman of the board of supervisors of the $200 billion China Investment Corporation (CIC).
Sovereign fund execs flock to Sydney
The second meeting of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF) will take place in Sydney this week, with senior representatives from more than 20 funds discussing subjects including active versus passive investing and strategic challenges in post-crisis investment markets.
Mubadala grows in 2009
Mubadala Development, the strategic investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, grew its total assets by 75 per cent to AED88.5 billion ($24.1 billion) in 2009.
