June 2026
19Jun

South Africa. Government invested R18 billion in pension funds in 23 companies and lost 100% of its money

The Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC) Isibaya Fund invested more than R18.2 billion in 23 companies, which ultimately recorded an internal rate of return (IRR) of -100%, meaning the investments lost all their value. The losses came to light through a parliamentary reply to questions from DA MP Andrew Bateman to the Minister of Finance regarding the PIC’s unlisted investment portfolio. The PIC is South Africa’s state-owned asset manager and invests money on behalf of public sector clients, including the Government Employees Pension Fund...

June 19, 2026
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16Jun

US. NYC comptroller launches search for new pension fund asset managers

New York City Comptroller Mark Levine announced Friday that the city’s pension funds would undertake a search for new asset managers to provide passive indexing of public equity stocks for the city’s five public pensions systems. Levine and the city’s pension funds said the search specifically includes seeking indexes that are weighted by market capitalization, alternatively weighted or those based on ESG factors and limits on carbon, so long as they are consistent with each pension system’s investment guidelines, according...

June 16, 2026
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15Jun

US. Federal Rescue Stabilizes Pension Benefits for 1.8 Million Workers

A new Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on multiemployer pension plans lands at a tense moment: a $77.9 billion federal rescue program enacted under the Biden administration has stabilized the retirement benefits of 1.8 million workers, but unresolved questions about improper payments, structural vulnerabilities, and the long-term health of hundreds of plans are now up to a Republican Congress and a Trump administration with a very different view of federal intervention in private sector pensions. More than 11 million workers...

June 15, 2026
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11Jun

A $600 Billion Experiment Kicks Off at the Biggest US Pension Fund

Stephen Gilmore’s 40-year tour of global finance has given him a front-row seat to the Russian debt crisis, the bailout of a financial giant and the rise of sovereign wealth funds. It’s also taken him to a war zone. As the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Tajikistan in the 1990s, Gilmore hunkered down in his office for three days as a militia advanced on the capital city of Dushanbe. Now he has what many consider the hardest job in investing....

June 11, 2026
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10Jun

UK. Smart Pension surpasses £10bn AUM

Smart Pension has surpassed £10bn in assets under management (AUM), meeting the government’s first ‘scale test’ ahead of the 2030 timeframe. The pension provider manages the pensions of two million members and 100,000 employers across the UK, and described the £10bn AUM mark as a “major milestone”. It is on track to meet the future mandatory scale thresholds, as set out in the Pension Schemes Act, having now surpassed the government’s initial £10bn AUM threshold ahead of the 2030 deadline and...

June 10, 2026
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10Jun

Norway’s oil fund shows gap between climate risk insight and action

Norway’s oil fund, NBIM, has not applied its framework for measuring climate and nature risk into moving away from fossil fuels, a report from Carbon Tracker finds. The mismatch is due to a mandate limit, political expectations, and an increasingly uncertain global climate policy environment. The findings reveal the limits of voluntary investor action. Norway’s oil fund (NBIM) has developed one of the most advanced frameworks for measuring climate and nature risk, but it has yet to apply those...

June 10, 2026
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08Jun

Blue Owl, Ares Court Mexico’s $500 Billion Pension Fund Windfall

In Mexico City, the executives have arrived from the likes of Blue Owl Capital Inc., Ares Management Corp. and Golub Capital, all seeking a rare prize: a large pot of untapped money. Firms that haven’t made the journey may already have fallen behind. Mexican pension funds, known as Afores, represent a $500 billion opportunity for the biggest alternatives firms. They’re ballooning in size thanks to reforms that increased how much money is contributed to workers’ accounts, while other rule changes have...

June 8, 2026
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02Jun

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...

June 2, 2026
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02Jun

US. Company Pension Funds Stuffed With Bonds Ease Up on Debt Buying

A key source of demand for corporate bonds may be fading now that managers of company pension funds have more than enough money on hand to pay their retirees. Company-sponsored plans that had struggled in past years to keep up with their obligations in an era of low interest rates have gotten a boost from a decade of strong equity returns. Many plowed those gains into bonds in more recent years as yields rose. The trade allowed managers to lock...

June 2, 2026
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May 2026
29May

Agency Costs Beyond Corporations: Evidence from Pension Funds

By Clemens Böhlen This paper examines the role of agency costs in pension fund performance. Grounded in corporate agency theory, it exploits institutional variation in a unique dataset on the Swiss pension system to assess how differences in monitoring incentives affect investment outcomes. Specifically, I examine the role of the sponsoring company and show that multi-employer funds underperform institutionally comparable single-employer funds by 25-31 basis points per year, in line with weaker governance incentives. Consistent with corporate agency theory, these...

May 29, 2026
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