June 2026

Pension funds and insurers manage $100 trillion dollars — can they use it to help solve global problems?

Over the past century, finance has become increasingly disconnected from the physical world it depends on. Every day, trillions of dollars move through financial markets as stocks, bonds and derivatives. Much of that money never reaches the businesses, infrastructure and systems that power the real economy. The scale of this shift is striking. In 2024, around $149 trillion worth of shares were traded on global stock markets. Yet, companies raised only $741 billion in new capital through those same markets. So, for...

Zambia. Pensions Authority urges strong gov­ernance in pen­sion sec­tor

PENSIONS and Insur­ance Author­ity (PIA) regis­trar and chief exec­ut­ive officer Namakau Ntini says strong gov­ernance is the found­a­tion of sus­tain­able pen­sion sys­tems as it pro­motes account­ab­il­ity, trans­par­ency and prudent man­age­ment of retire­ment sav­ings. Mrs Ntini said the pen­sion industry is oper­at­ing in an increas­ingly com­plex envir­on­ment char­ac­ter­ised by eco­nomic uncer­tainty, chan­ging demo­graph­ics, tech­no­lo­gical dis­rup­tion, cli­mate-related risks and evolving mem­ber expect­a­tions. She said strong gov­ernance remains the found­a­tion upon which sus­tain­able pen­sion sys­tems are built, as it pro­motes account­ab­il­ity, prudent decision-mak­ing, trans­par­ency,...

Ambition Under Pressure: Analytical Leadership vs. Strategic Hesitation

By Amy Owens The report, Ambition Under Pressure: Analytical Leadership vs. Strategic Hesitation, examines what the climate risk strategy of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), manager of Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, reveals about the way financial markets are pricing climate risk. It finds that NBIM has built one of the most advanced climate and nature risk frameworks among global asset owners. Its internal modelling goes beyond many market-standard tools, enabling the fund to assess systemic physical climate risk, climate-nature interdependencies...

US. As retiree pensions shrank, Colorado PERA paid its staff millions of dollars in bonuses

In 2022, the Colorado state pension fund had its worst year since the Great Recession, losing $9.8 billion. The losses were so large, they set the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association’s finances back for years, digging a hole that the pension is only now starting to climb out of. But in the aftermath, PERA’s investment managers took home some of their largest bonuses ever. On average, PERA’s investment staff more than doubled their take-home pay, earning bonuses of $299,000 — the equivalent...

Pension funds manage trillions and most still underestimate their social role: report

Pension funds collectively manage more than US$56tn in assets, serve hundreds of millions of members worldwide, and, according to a new report, most still do not recognize the full scope of what they already do. The International Centre for Pension Management released Social Infrastructure Blueprint: A Roadmap for Pension Funds on June 1, arguing that pension funds function as social infrastructure providers whether they acknowledge it or not. The report said failing to recognise that role carries real institutional risk. Gibbins said aging populations and rising inequality...

May 2026

Private Climate Governance of Finance: “Net Zero” Prospects and Politics

By Cynthia A. Williams In 2021, as part of the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (“GFANZ”) was announced. This Alliance of banks, asset managers, and insurance companies, among other financial institutions, with more than $130 trillion of assets under management when announced, was based on a pledge by the participating companies to work towards net-zero status in their businesses by 2050 or sooner. Led by former UK Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who is now the U.N.’s Special Envoy...

April 2026

The ESG Valuation Gap: A Comparative Study of Egyptian and Saudi Listed Companies

By Mawaheb Abdel-Aziz Ismail The study examines the value relevance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures and tests for crosscountry differences in its impact on perceived firm value between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It specifically investigates whether ESG data provides incremental explanatory power beyond traditional accounting measures in determining stock prices in these two distinct MENA markets. The study employs a modified Ohlson (1995) valuation model using panel data from 2021 to 2024. The empirical analysis is conducted using...

March 2026

War and Pensions: The Effects of War on Social Security and Pensions Around the World

By John A. Turner, David Rajnes, Gerard Hughes & Maher Michelle War has affected the development of social security and employer-provided pensions. Roman soldiers received the first pensions. In most countries, military pensions preceded social security pensions, providing countries experience with the concept and administration of pensions. War or the threat of war affected the development of the two major branches of social insurance-based pensions—Bismarckian (earnings related pensions developed in Germany) and Beveridgian (pensions tied to years of work developed...

US. How Pension Funds Can Support Growth and Build an Economy That Benefits Workers

Private equity firms have increasingly come under fire for actions that are making life more difficult and unaffordable, such as driving up the prices of single-family homes, closing hospitals that aren’t profitable enough, and laying off workers at companies they have purchased. New efforts by public pension funds are hoping to counter these bad practices and instead promote investments that benefit communities and workers. Public pension funds have the ability to drive investment in our economy to promote shared prosperity while seeking competitive risk-adjusted returns....

February 2026

CalPERS appeals for ‘strong’ GPs in current political climate

California Public Employees’ Retirement System needs “strong” GPs to endure political opposition to climate and sustainability investments, according to CEO Marcie Frost. “We are getting a little more demanding about the capital, making sure that we have more values alignment,” Frost said during a keynote interview at PEI Group’s NEXUS 2026 in Orlando on Tuesday. “We need our GPs to be strong. We need our GPs to withstand the political pressures that they’re getting in addition to the political pressures that CalPERS continues to...