All Opinion Pieces articles – Page 22
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Opinion PiecesLetter from Australia: In need of a broader asset pool
With a market cap of just A$2.7trn (€1.75tn), Australia’s ASX stock market is increasingly overshadowed by a rapidly growing pool of super savings which now exceed A$3trn.
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Opinion PiecesNews Notes: Economies of cost saving
The three main reasons the UK government requested that the country’s 89 Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS) pool their assets back in 2015 were: establishing common investment vehicles to provide the pension funds with a mechanism to access economies of scale; helping them to invest more efficiently in listed and alternative assets; and reducing investment costs.
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Opinion PiecesNo right side to the inflation debate
The question of whether the current trend of rising inflation is a transitory or permanent one is not trivial. It is forcing the institutional investor community to reflect on their long-term investment strategies. Investors have to review their current approaches and get ready to make significant changes if their views prove incorrect.
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Opinion PiecesNotes from the Netherlands: Too eager to index
Most Dutch pensioners have been craving indexation ever since the financial crisis in 2008-09. Understandably, patience is running thin, especially now that inflation has reached its highest level since the introduction of the euro.
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Opinion PiecesGuest Viewpoint: Fiona Reynolds
Public and private sector leaders from around the world gathered in Glasgow for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) last month to tackle the climate crisis and kick off the next decade of climate policy.
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: How has the pandemic affected the UK – small-cap value investing
By Beini Zhou and Anand Vasagiri, portfolio managers, international small-cap value strategy, Artisan Partners
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: What pension schemes should consider when upping renewables
Renewity’s CIO, David Hunter, outlines five considerations for pension schemes looking to up their renewables exposure
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: What if COP26 fails?
Peter Kraneveld, international pensions adviser at PRIME bv., on finance issues and COP26
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Opinion PiecesGuest viewpoint: Alex Edmans
Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock, claimed in a March 2021 USA Today op-ed that “Wall Street is greenwashing the financial world, making sustainable investing merely PR, which is a distraction from the problem of climate change”.
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Opinion PiecesEngagement, divestment and emerging alternatives
Investment analysts make contrasting buy and sell recommendations for individual securities based on identical financial information – down to the last decimal point. The differential is judgement.
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Opinion PiecesLetter from Australia: Super funds: shame in a name
Named and shamed! Thirteen Australian superannuation funds have been forced to inform their million-plus members that they have failed an inaugural superannuation performance test mandated by the financial regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).
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Opinion PiecesGreen bonds – a ‘no-brainer’ paragon
Institutional investors are constantly searching for the elusive ‘no-brainer’ investment: the one that offers clear additional benefits without additional risk
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Opinion PiecesCo-investment newcomers need to be selective
The US and UK are seeing a diminishing number of companies in the listed markets whilst the private equity (PE) markets are booming. For investors, that raises a number of issues, of which fees are an important one. Private equity fees are much higher than those of listed equity managers.
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Opinion PiecesLetter from US: University endowments setting the pace on fossil fuel divestment
US university and college endowments control more than $600bn (€517bn) of investments. Their policies often influence the behaviour of public pensions. So it is interesting to see whether Harvard’s recent decision to end its investments in fossil fuels will be followed not only by other universities but also by retirement systems.
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Opinion PiecesNotes from Germany: Parties mull pensions
It all started with a selfie posted on social media. The leaders of the Green party Annalena Baerbock, candidate to be chancellor, and Robert Habeck posed with the Free Democrats’ Christian Lindner and Volker Wissing to show how serious they were to bridge the divide to form a new government coalition, prior to meeting with the winner of the election, the SDP’s Olaf Scholz.
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Opinion PiecesViewpoint: Why we need deforestation-free portfolios by 2025
‘If we are to address climate change, we need to put an end to deforestation’
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Opinion PiecesAgriculture: Time to rethink farming
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in August, provides grim reading. According to the summary for policymakers: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
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Opinion PiecesAn alternative pensions future
It’s no real news that ageing is changing our society in numerous ways – from simple things like product design (making smart phones for older eyes and fingers to use) to more generationally diverse workplaces.
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Opinion PiecesLetter from Australia: Public places, private matters
AustralianSuper marked a milestone with its successful takeover in 2019 of education provider, Navitas, for A$2.1bn (€1.3bn).
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Opinion PiecesGuest Viewpoint: The climate is ripe for change
If there is to be a successful transition to a net- zero global economy, trillions of dollars need to be invested in renewable energy generation, electricity transmission and storage systems, and energy efficiency. The need is for fresh money. At scale.
