COMMENT
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August, 2012
Selecting active investment managers in emerging market equities
This article has taken a long time to write, and not just the time taken to organise and prioritise the issues and decide what and how to write. It is about the time it has taken me to learn and understand the issues and to develop a set of coherent beliefs; to analyse what those beliefs mean in terms of my behaviour when selecting an investment ...
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April, 2012
Resource scarcity and the efficiency revolution
RESOURCE SCARCITY IS A TOPIC OF INCREASING CONCERN TO PENSION FUND MANAGERS GIVEN THE POTENTIAL IMPACT ON THEIR PORTFOLIOS. BRUCE JENKYN-JONES OF IMPAX ASSET MANAGEMENT EXAMINES THE ISSUES A growing body of evidence has highlighted the issue that certain resources are becoming increasingly scarce – water and oil to name but two. Some investors ...
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April, 2012
Long-running income streams to beat the yield drought
RETURN ENHANCING AND LIABILITY MATCHING (REALM) ASSETS TICK MANY OF THE RIGHT BOXES FOR SCHEMES WITH LONG-TERM INVESTMENT HORIZONS, SAYS PHIL REDDING, MANAGING DIRECTOR – INSTITUTIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AT AVIVA INVESTORS With bond yields remaining low, the challenge for schemes of meeting future liabilities is significant. Matching ...
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April, 2012
Infrastructure – The perfect partner
THIS ANALYSIS OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR BY INFRACAPITAL, M&G’S INFRASTRUCTURE FUND MANAGEMENT ARM, OUTLINES WHY THE LONG-TERM NATURE OF THE INVESTMENT, AND ITS INTEGRATION WITH CORE COMPONENTS OF ECONOMIES, MAKES THE ASSET CLASS SO SUITABLE FOR PENSION FUNDS Infrastructure by its nature has a long history, providing the backbone for an economy so ...
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April, 2012
The case for actively managing currency hedging
ARNAUD GERARD OF PARETO OUTLINES THE BENEFITS OF CURRENCY HEDGING AND EXAMINES THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF AN ACTIVE APPROACH As investors increase their allocations to foreign investment, currency translation risk consumes an ever larger proportion of their total risk budget. We believe it is very important for international investors to ...
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April, 2012
Can a local authority grow ABS?
THE REPUTATION OF ASSET-BACKED SECURITIES HAS TAKEN SOMETHING OF A HIT AS A RESULT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC WOES. ALISTAIR WILSON OF TWENTYFOUR ASSET MANAGEMENT OUTLINES WHY ABS PROVIDE AN ATTRACTIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR INVESTORS Up to a few years ago Abs would have been best known as something grown to perfection on Venice beach and, one suspects, little ...
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November, 2011
New directions in passive bond investing
ANTOINE LESNÉ OF STATE STREET GLOBAL ADVISORS ARGUES FOR AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRADITIONAL CAP-WEIGHTED INDEXES WHICH CAN PROVIDE EQUAL OR GREATER RETURNS WITH REDUCED RISK Most major indexes are capitalisation-weighted, ranking index constituents by size. For fixed income investors, following these indexes means allocating larger amounts of their ...
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November, 2011
Evolution or revolution?
DIFFERING APPROACHES TO BOND INVESTING CAN BE BENEFICIAL AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE ECONOMIC CYCLE. MITESH SHETH OF HENDERSON GLOBAL INVESTORS OUTLINES THE CHALLEGE FACING PORTFOLIO MANAGERS AND IDENTIFIES STRATEGIES THAT COULD HELP MANAGE THE YIELD/RISK CONUNDRUM Many local government pension funds (LGPF) find themselves in a challenging position ...
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November, 2011
When the walls came tumbling down
INCREASING GLOBALISATION AND THE BLURRING OF THE LINES BETWEEN DIFFERING ASSET CLASSES, MEANS THAT THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO ASSESSING INVESTMENT RISK MAY SOON BE OBSOLETE. JAMES CIELINSKI OF THREADNEEDLE INVESTMENTS TELLS US MORE Asset allocation has long been a key source of return for fixed income investors. High yield credit, emerging market ...
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November, 2011
Fixed income investing – how bonds are creating new challenges for local authorities
For all pension funds, bonds have moved from being a safe but dull investment asset to becoming an asset class of much greater potential interest.There are myriad reasons for this shift. Firstly, recent macro-economic events, particularly the build-up of debt in certain Western economies, have raised doubts over sovereign debt – or gilts – that ...
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