April 2024
11Apr

Kenya. Alternative assets give pension funds options to expand investment menu

Government bonds and equities have long served as a cornerstone of pension fund portfolios. While these traditional asset classes have their merits, they represent an uncomfortably high (and growing) percentage of pension portfolios, leaving them vulnerable to concentration risk and the underperformance in these two asset classes. The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) All Share Index, for example, fell by 27.7 percent in 2023 and bond valuations have taken a beating following recent rises in interest rates. Driven by this high concentration risk,...

April 11, 2024
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10Apr

U.S. private equity exit activity remains low

There were 201 private equity exits totaling $66.7 billion in the first quarter, according to data provided by PitchBook. That compares with 233 exits and $82.4 billion in volume for the fourth quarter. Exit volume was much higher in 2020 and 2021. In the second quarter of 2021, there were 431 exits and $263.3 billion in exit value. There were 65 private equity funds that raised $77.6 billion in during the first quarter. The average size was about $1.2 billion. For all...

April 10, 2024
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09Apr

Financial sector faces challenges amid climate crisis

Many of us have life insurance or retirement funds: we may allocate a portion of our salary to them each month. But we rarely know how our money is being invested. We simply trust that, when the time comes, the resources will be available to us and that the financial system will have invested our savings wisely. Still, we don’t necessarily know precisely where our money is being invested, nor do we know what regulatory framework financial institutions are operating under. At...

April 9, 2024
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08Apr

Largest Australia Pension Fund Says Now Is the Time to Buy Private Assets

Australia’s largest pension fund wants to put more money into private-market investments and will further boost its exposure to overseas assets. “Now is a better time to put money into private markets than two or three years ago, when valuations were more expensive and deals were quite scarce,” AustralianSuper Chief Investment Officer Mark Delaney said on Bloomberg TV in Melbourne on Monday. “The inability for a lot of US pension plans to recycle capital has meant that private deal opportunities are...

April 8, 2024
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08Apr

Japan’s GPIF and Netherlands’ APG join forces to invest in infrastructure

Japan’s ¥225trn (€1.37trn) Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) and Dutch pensions asset manager APG have teamed up to invest in infrastructure. The pension fund investors said they have launched the joint investment programme to “gain access to attractive investment opportunities, with a focus on infrastructure in developed markets worldwide”, without disclosing any financial information. The partnership is expected to focus on sectors such as sustainable energy, fibre networks, transport and other infrastructure projects. “The partnership will focus on investment opportunities that align with...

April 8, 2024
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04Apr

US. NYC Pensions Reach Deal With RBC to Publish Green-Funding Ratio

New York City retirement plans reached an agreement with Royal Bank of Canada for the lender to disclose how much financing it provides for clean-energy projects relative to fossil fuels. Canada’s largest bank is the third financial giant to agree to begin disclosing the ratio after New York Comptroller Brad Lander and the city’s public-pension boards filed shareholder resolutions with six banks in January. The proposal was set to be voted upon at Toronto-based Royal Bank’s annual meeting next week. “We’re...

April 4, 2024
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March 2024
27Mar

Global top 300 pension funds

By Thinking Ahead Institute The global top 300 pension funds is an annual study conducted by the Thinking Ahead Institute, in conjunction with Pensions and Investments. The research highlights high-level trends in the pension fund industry and provides information on how the characteristics of these top funds have changed. Get the report here

March 27, 2024
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27Mar

Report on long term investing of large pension funds and public pension reserve funds 2023: Annual Survey of Large Pension Funds and Public Pension Reserve Funds

By Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development This is the tenth edition of the OECD survey of large pension funds and public pension reserve funds that collects long-term investment data since it was first published in 2011. The scope of this report covers 87 public and private pension funds from 34 countries. This survey is based on a qualitative questionnaire sent directly to large pension funds and public pension reserve funds. It covers the infrastructure investments made by large pension...

March 27, 2024
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27Mar

Leveraging FinTech Compliance to Mitigate Cryptocurrency Volatility for Secure US Employee Retirement Benefits: Bitcoin ETF Case Study

By Samuel Oladiipo Olabanji, Tunbosun Oyewale Oladoyinbo, Christopher Uzoma Asonze, Chinasa Adigwe, Olalekan J Okunleye & Oluwaseun Oladeji Olaniyi The integration of cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, into retirement savings plans has recently garnered significant attention. This interest has been amplified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in January 2024 and Fidelity Investments' decision to include Bitcoin in their 401(k) plans. These landmark developments represent a paradigm shift in retirement investment strategies, merging traditional financial...

March 27, 2024
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27Mar

Little planning for looming retirement crisis, BlackRock chief warns

The chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager is warning of a future “retirement crisis”, as pension savings fail to keep up with life-extending medical breakthroughs. In his annual letter to investors, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, said that establishing “a secure, well-earned retirement” would be one of the greatest economic challenges to face the US in the mid-21st century. The boss of BlackRock, which manages about $10tn (£7.4tn) in assets, including retirement funds, praised medical advances, including obesity drugs such...

March 27, 2024
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