LA Times (December 19)
In its first climate risk assessment, CalPERS, the largest U.S. pension fund, “found that one-fifth of the fund’s public market investments were in sectors that have high exposure to climate change. Those include energy, materials and buildings, transportation, and agriculture, food and forestry.” The report by CalPERS, however, didn’t go into much detail because “less than half of the 10,000-plus companies in their portfolio voluntarily disclose information about their carbon emissions.”
Tags: Agriculture, Assessment, CalPERs, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Energy, Exposure, Forestry, Investments, Materials, Pension fund, Portfolio, Risk, Transportation, U.S., Voluntary disclosure
Institutional Investor (March 1)
New York City “is aiming for full divestment of coal, oil, and gas from its $189 billion retirement system–but could get sued in the process” if such a move is deemed contrary to fiduciary duty. If they successfully divest the roughly $5 billion in assets linked to fossil fuel, however, “New York’s pension funds would be the first major U.S. retirement system to rid itself of fossil fuels.”
Tags: Coal, Divestment, Fiduciary duty, Fossil fuel, Gas, New York, Oil, Pension fund, Retirement
Nordic Business Insider (November 17)
“Norway’s $1 trillion pension fund wants to ditch all oil and gas stocks.” The irony of the proposed move is that the Government Pension Fund of Norway has become the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund by investing Norway’s oil and gas revenue. The move is not being proposed as a bet against petroleum, but rather to mitigate risk through diversification. “The fund’s exposure to fossil fuel markets is currently double that of a standard global fund.”
Tags: Diversification, Fossil fuel markets, Gas, Norway, Oil, Pension fund, Risk, Sovereign wealth, Stocks
Investment Week (November 10)
“Investors and fund buyers are increasingly backing Japanese equities as the country boosts its QE programme, and rotates its national pension fund towards domestic equities.”
Tags: Equities, Funds, Investors, Japan, Pension fund, Quantitative easing
Bloomberg (October 23)
“It’s easy to see why Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants Japan’s $1.2 trillion government pension fund to start buying more stocks…. But attempts to game the stock market have failed to revive Japan in the past and are doomed to failure again, unless Abe puts more effort into the harder work of real reform.”
Tags: Abe, Failure, Government, Japan, Market, Pension fund, Reform, Stocks
Financial Times (May 23)
Bonds are in. Stocks are out. “Institutional investors, from pension funds to mutual funds sold directly to the public, have slashed holdings in the past decade. Stocks have not been so far out of favour for half a century.” The penchant for bonds could reverse. Or “the end of a six-decade passion for equities could lead to a less flexible, more conservative model of corporate financing.”