July 2024
01Jul

US. CalPERS breaks with its past

Over the past year, the US’s largest public pension system, CalPERS, has been making some interesting moves. CalPERS has been making commitments to private equity funds much smaller in size than it has traditionally targeted, including growth-oriented and venture capital vehicles. Historically, CalPERS has built its private equity portfolio to reflect its own massive size – choosing large funds into which it could make sizable investments that gave it outsized influence on the GP and potential access to choice economics and...

July 1, 2024
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June 2024
28Jun

The list of money managers axing oil stocks just got longer

There’s a growing list of institutional investors in Europe who are stripping oil and gas stocks out of their portfolios, in a move they say reduces the risk of ending up with stranded assets and financial losses. The latest to do so is PFA, Denmark’s largest commercial pension fund with roughly USD 110bn of assets under management. The investor has just offloaded its USD 170m stake in Shell Plc based on an assessment that the company’s capital expenditure on renewables...

June 28, 2024
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27Jun

Commentary: Investors’ role addressing intergenerational risk of LGBTQIA+ inequity

Investor demand for LGBTQIA+ investment options is strong and set to grow, so why is the market not responding? Today, the proportion of the population identifying as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community is estimated to grow exponentially, with each generation nearly twice as likely as the generation preceding it to identify as LGBTQIA+, according to Gallup. However, our systems — spanning corporate human resources, education, healthcare and more — are unprepared to address this ongoing generational shift. The exclusion of...

June 27, 2024
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25Jun

US. DOL report inconclusive on pension risk transfer market, needs more research

The U.S. Department of Labor is not proposing specific changes to Congress regarding Interpretive Bulletin 95-1, its Employee Benefits Security Administration guidance related to the fiduciary standards of pension risk transfer transactions. Instead, the DOL believes further exploration into the evolution of the PRT market may warrant changes in the future. A report released June 24 was required by SECURE 2.0, the retirement security package Congress passed in December 2022. The bulletin, IB 95-1, outlines the process plan fiduciaries must take when executing...

June 25, 2024
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25Jun

Morningstar launches index tracking LGBTQ+ inclusive companies

The new Morningstar Developed Markets LGBTQ+ Leaders Index is designed to deliver exposure to 100 large and mid-cap companies from across regions and sectors that demonstrate strong LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices. Companies are screened for controversial product involvement, UN Global Compact compliance, and severe ESG controversies using Morningstar Sustainalytics leading ESG data and research and are then ranked by ExecuPride score and size with the 100 highest scorers making it into the index. “We are thrilled to add this new...

June 25, 2024
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24Jun

U.K. pension funds oppose dual-class voting proposed by regulators

U.K. pension funds and asset owners with a collective £136.2 billion ($173.2 billion) oppose reforms to U.K. listings that would allow for dual-class share structures that carry separate levels of voting rights. Dual-class share structures are already prevalent in other markets, such as the U.S. and Sweden. More than 40% of U.S. technology initial public offerings used dual-class structures between 2020 and 2022, according to a report by the Investor Coalition for Equal Votes. In a signed a letter to Ashley...

June 24, 2024
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24Jun

German Allianz to invest in China’s mega pension company with 2% stake

 Allianz Global Investors (AGI), one of the investment arms of German insurer Allianz, has become the first foreign company to own a stake in China's pension insurance giant Guomin Pension. AGI was allowed to subscribe to newly issued shares representing 2% in the company, and the stake is worth 228 million yuan ($31.40 million), the pension firm said in a statement issued Monday. Guomin Pension, jointly launched by China's largest banks and insurers, was established in 2022 to promote the development...

June 24, 2024
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19Jun

How Retirement Investments Align With Long-Term Environmental Goals

What do retirement plan sponsors and sustainable investors have in common? A focus on the long term. We explore how different asset classes, particularly real assets, can be aligned with long-term climate-related objectives, such as reducing carbon footprints to net zero. By extension, we suggest ways for retirement plan sponsors—whether in the defined benefit or defined contribution space—to align their investments with increasingly common sustainable climate goals. Key takeaways Climate-related risks and opportunities are present in virtually all asset classes, but...

June 19, 2024
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18Jun

Thailand pension fund GPF studies asset allocation to seek resilient traits, report says

Thailand’s Government Pension Fund (GPF) is conducting a study on its strategic asset allocation strategy to identify characteristics of assets that can be resilient to risks over the next three years, Songpol Chevapanyaroj, secretary-general of the pension fund for civil servants, says in an interview with the Bangkok Post. The study is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter. “The difficulty in investment allocation is you cannot fully rely on either domestic or foreign investments,” Songpol is quoted as saying in...

June 18, 2024
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17Jun

Japan’s Kishida says no plan for pension fund to buy BOJ’s ETF holdings

apanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday he has no plan for the government's pension fund to buy the central bank's holdings of exchange-traded funds (ETF). "The Bank of Japan holds ETFs as part of its monetary policy efforts to achieve its price target. It's up to the central bank to decide on how to load the holdings," Kishida told parliament. "The government has no plan to request or instruct GPIF to buy the central bank's ETF holdings," he said. Kishida...

June 17, 2024
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