Insights

Navigating the Diversified Growth Fund Maze

Diversified growth funds (DGFs) have garnered significant attention and assets—particularly amongst UK defined benefit pension schemes—as a less volatile source of long-term growth. DGFs can be valuable tools for pension portfolio management, but only if trustees understand what they are buying and how it fits into the context of the total portfolio. The simple bifurcation of the available products into traditional and absolute return strategies can be a starting point for trustees to help make sense of the market and set appropriate risk/return expectations across different market environments.

October 2015

Constructing Superior Equity Portfolios

A common perception among investors that employ active equity management is that the “donut” structure is more aggressive, more expensive, and riskier than the “core-satellite” structure because of the donut structure’s heavier reliance on concentrated, high tracking error, high fee managers. The research we present in this report, which examines a 17-year period, calls into question these perceptions. Our analysis suggests that, at a minimum, investors should reassess whether a core-satellite structure is as likely to help them earn their payout as a donut structure.

September 2015

The Forgotten 70%: Strategies for Pension Plans Accruing Benefits

Plans with active participants need a holistic, flexible risk budgeting approach—not a simple glide path.

July 2015

Trimming the Fat While Sniffing for Truffles

Late-stage investing is challenging. As central banks around the globe have generally been in easing mode, valuations for bonds and risk assets have appreciated, leaving very little value and some pockets of froth. Ultra-low yields have pushed investors into increasingly risky assets—from high yield bonds to venture capital—in search of attractive returns. In this webinar, […]

July 2015

Making Waves: The Cresting Co-Investment Opportunity

Private investing without a fee drag! Directly invest in the best companies alongside the best general partners! The headlines resound, while GP offerings and investor interest in co-investments swell. Our analysis shows that co-investment returns have the potential to outpace private fund investment returns. However, not every individual co-investment outperforms, and therein lies the rub. This report frames the opportunities and common pitfalls of co-investing, leveraging our aggregated data on co-investments and funds generating co-investment.

March 2015

Declaring a Major: Sector-Focused Private Investment Funds

The competitive advantages and resulting return profile of sector specialists should not be ignored when constructing a long-term private equity portfolio

November 2014

MAPping the Future of Pension Funding

The Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014, which temporarily maintains the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, can benefit most pension plan sponsors by giving them flexibility around the timing and amount of contributions for the next several years, but may not decrease the total amount of contributions required over the long term.

August 2014

Avoid the Agg Drag

For plan sponsors that wish to de-risk, the Agg may not be the solution

July 2014