AsianInvestor hosted its inaugural Japan Institutional Investment Forum at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo on April 24, 2012.
Pension funds in Japan are shifting out of equities and adding alternative exposures, as well as raising Asia allocations, a recent AsianInvestor conference in Tokyo heard.
The International Finance Corporation is considering issuing mandates to third-party managers to bring $2.5 billion to frontier and emerging public markets.
Institutional investors need to reorganise their investment processes around new ways to access managers, extend time-horizons and measure risk, says Stanford’s Ashby Monk.
Management fees for fund houses in Japan appear to have stabilised, but profitability continued to decline in 2010, says Nomura Research Institute.
The Military Mutual Aid Association is shifting to emerging-market equities as it diversifies away from heavy positions in real estate.
Not only are Japan’s pension funds keen to increase equity and debt exposure in emerging markets, but they are beginning to differentiate these from ‘global’ ...
Like ships passing in the night, pension funds from both sides of the Pacific are looking to increase investments on the far shore.
Assets are growing fast at superannuation funds, but they remain cautious about investing in markets such as China, says Baker & McKenzie.
In the US, corporate pension funds are cutting their allocations to risky assets, while public funds are increasing them, says Greenwich Associates.
The $9 billion Korea Teachers Pension Fund is also interested in allocating more to alternatives, says CIO Lee Yun-kyu.
Pension funds worldwide are paying higher fees supposedly because fund managers are focusing on alpha, but many are getting beta performance on their portfolios.