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Fewer, bigger funds for UK?

Australia, the US, Canada and Denmark have all done it. Kazakhstan and even Oman are talking about it. Increasingly, public sector pension funds are merging or pooling their assets into fewer bigger schemes. It’s no surprise the debate is gathering momentum in the United Kingdom, ripe for consolidation with a Local Government Pension Fund Scheme […]
Sarah RundellJune 7, 2013
Strategy

Pushing smart beta further

The rise of smart beta has just got another boost thanks to a study commissioned by Norway’s ministry of finance for its Government Pension Fund Global. It asked index provider MSCI to look into the feasibility of running smart beta strategies for large portfolios. Very few institutions with the size of GPFG’s $400-billion equity portfolio […]
Sarah RundellMay 29, 2013
Uncategorised posts

Real estate the object of desire for UK funds

United Kingdom pension funds will increase their real estate allocations as bond and equity investments continue to disappoint, according to new research by property consultancy Jones Lang Lasalle. The funds typically hold around 5 per cent of their assets in real estate, but the recent findings predict the pendulum will swing in favour of much […]
Sarah RundellJanuary 16, 2013
Investor Profile

Alternative benchmarks attractive for Strathclyde

For many trustees, fundamental indexing is still too much of a leap to risk any serious asset allocation. But the £11 billion Glasgow-based Strathclyde Pension Fund, one of the largest UK local authority schemes, plans to invest in the strategy. The idea is to track an equity index that weights companies according to their economic […]
Sarah RundellDecember 12, 2012
Opinion

UK’s NAPF conference focuses on three issues

The agenda at the United Kingdom’s National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) annual shindig in Liverpool’s Echo Arena on the banks of the Mersey couldn’t have been broader. From early analysis of auto-enrolment, the biggest shake-up of the industry in a generation and just days old, to life expectancy, Britain’s role in the European Union, […]
Sarah RundellNovember 2, 2012