September 2021
08Sep

US. Retirement Reforms Included in Key House Committee Budget Language

The Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will begin debate Thursday on a set of major budget reconciliation recommendations, as directed by Section 2002 of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2022. The mechanics of congressional budget reconciliation legislation are complicated, but as explained in a white paper published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reconciliation bills are not subject to filibuster. In other words, that means the legislation only needs...

September 8, 2021
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03Sep

Social Investment: A New Zealand Policy Experiment , Jonathan Boston and Derek Gill (eds) (2018)

By Alessandra De Marco The notion of prioritising ‘productive’ social investments over ‘consumptive’ social spending has long been advocated but only sporadically applied. Since 2011, however, New Zealand governments have implemented an ambitious, multi-agency social investment agenda that promises to overhaul public social spending through analyses of citizen-derived data. This commentary focuses on the development and features of the social investment agenda. In doing so, it discusses the apparent primacy of fiscal outcomes over social outcomes, and the practices and...

September 3, 2021
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01Sep

Sustainability Gains In Asset Management, Led By Marketing

Asset managers are paying more attention to ESG — environmental, social and governance — concerns, according to a recent report from Northern Trust. “While many European markets have long made ESG a focus in their investment strategies, other mature markets in parts of North America and Asia have had a less straightforward approach,” Northern Trust reported, although recently Canadian asset managers have moved ahead of the U.S. “Alongside the pandemic, the summer of 2020 brought a global reckoning with racism, originating...

September 1, 2021
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August 2021

Students demand that teacher pension fund revoke fossil-fuel investments
30Aug

US. Students demand that teacher pension fund revoke fossil-fuel investments

More than 500 Bay Area high school students gathered outside the San Francisco Federal Building on 7th Street Friday before marching down Market Street to City Hall, calling on the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s pension fund for California public school teachers, to divest its investment holdings in fossil fuel companies. They pointed out that that California’s wildfires demonstrate the need to reduce emissions. “This climate strike has been going on for years, but we’re feeling the effects of climate...

August 30, 2021
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27Aug

African Pension Funds Report 2020

By AMETrade AMETrade hosts the annual Pension Funds and Alternative Investment Africa Conference (PI Africa). It is the leading forum on the continent gathering institutional investors and alternative investments representatives, examining new opportunities to diversify their portfolios to maximise returns. The conference has served as arguably the biggest networking and information sharing platform for the pension funds and alternative investment community, including leading pension funds, SWF, fund managers, asset managers & regulatory and administration heads. This report provides an overview of...

August 27, 2021
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26Aug

How to avoid green bubbles and diversify against climate crisis

Although green bubbles are emerging as a result of the sustainability boom, investors can find safer ways to tap into the climate transition theme. This is according to Nikesh Patel, head of investment strategy at Kempen, who agreed that bubbles are emerging when investors invest in the theme too narrowly, giving the farmland sector as an example. Read also ESG: Impact Investing ‘If you invest only in listed farmland equities, and that became your focus - you are creating a bubble, because...

August 26, 2021
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25Aug

Sweden’s biggest pension manager cuts stocks on inflation concern

The specter of accelerating inflation is prompting the biggest pension manager in Sweden to cut its holdings of stocks and bonds. Read also Ireland. Pensions gap widens as pandemic deepens the divide Alecta, which manages $130 billion, is instead boosting exposure to alternative assets such as infrastructure projects and residential housing in an effort to preserve returns. Read also New Zealand. Super-sharers: How small contributions can push back against inequality "Longer term we may see rising inflation and that is one of the...

August 25, 2021
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23Aug

ESG: Impact Investing

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Investors are finding that financial performance and ESG ‘impact’ can be complementary goals Understanding the landscape of environmental, social and governance investing is critical to choosing the right investment strategy, particularly when it comes to the impact of that investment. As ESG investing continues to evolve and institutional investors have a growing number of strategies to pursue, they may find it challenging to navigate the wider array of options and to apply the appropriate nomenclature to the...

August 23, 2021
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19Aug

Mega-IRAs, Boon or a Bane?

By Albert Feuer Peter Thiel reportedly converted a 1999 Roth IRA investment of $1,700 in PayPal “founder’s shares,” into assets that appeared to be worth $7 billion on June 30, 2021. There are serious questions whether this IRA and other Mega-IRAs are entitled to the IRA tax benefits. The IRS should have the resources to challenge the tax exemption of any Mega-IRAs appearing to violate the current law. These Mega-IRAs will disappear when the IRS prevails. There should also be...

August 19, 2021
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19Aug

US. Climate Change and Benchmarking Risk for Retirement Plans

Institutional Investors Generally  don´t mine coal, make cement or indiscriminately strip large forests. But the companies in which they invest might be engaged in such activities that experts say will prove incompatible with the shift to a lower-carbon world. And, they add, a retirement plan’s holdings of these at-risk investments could have negative consequences for plan participants.   Plan Exposures Climate change risks can affect plans in several ways, says Therese Feng, vice president of research for The Climate Service, a climate...

August 19, 2021
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