CalPERS has reached its capacity to internally manage equities portfolios and would need to make changes to technology and staff resources if the internally-managed equities program is expanded, according to the outcome of the annual consultant review of CalPERS’ internal equity team by Wilshire Associates.
CalPERS is considering adopting an “opportunistic” program seeking to profit from substantially undervalued assets across various asset classes and strategies, and will be limited to 3 per cent of the fund’s total market value.
Barry Schachter, research associate with the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre and director, quantitative resources, Moore Capital Management believes the current crisis is a catalyst for change in the conduct of risk management because it has challenged the efficacy of the
existing risk management model, but simply imposing regulation is not the change that’s needed.
For their biggest public market investments in the last two years, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) zeroed-in on the most dogged companies in the worst-performing sector: Western financials. These decisions incurred paper losses of $US56.3 billion, accounting for most of their public market losses for the period.
A group of South African investors, led by the country’s largest pension fund, the R711.15 billion (US$89 billion) Government Employees Pension Fund, have launched an investor network as part of their commitment to the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment (UNPRI). Amanda White examines the ambitions of the network in changing the investment landscape in that country.
Setting its commercial finance joint venture with General Electric (GE) in stone last Sunday, the US$14.7 billion Mubadala Development of Abu Dhabi furthered its drive into investments designed to boost its home economy through knowledge transfer, from resources exploration and production and education, to the ultimate commodity hedge: a sustainable city founded in the desert. Simon Mumme profiles one of the most active sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investors of 2008.