Apologies for a slow week of posting; a rather obstinate stomach bug had my undivided attention. Good times. Anyway, I’m just now digging out and, as such, I have a bunch of news and research for your weekend reading enjoyment.
- The IFSWF: The Forum has decided to expand its Board, which I suspect is part of its master plan to actually do something in the year ahead. Intriguing.
- Hollywood: Thanks to a sovereign wealth fund, Matt Damon will soon be playing poker with Edward Norton again. Worm!
- Infrastructure: AfDB’s $1.2 billion ‘Second Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund’ seems to be coming together with South Africa’s PIC as the anchor investor.
- SDFs I: Taiwan’s National Development Fund will deploy a little over $3 million into “local startups”.
- SDFs II: Iran will reportedly use 5 percent of its National Development Fund to redevelop its air fleet.
- Saving: New Zealand will begin paying into its SWF in 2019 again.
- Foreign Offices: Is the CIC planning to move from Toronto to NYC? What’s that aboot?
- Super-Heros: “I will make KIC one of the best sovereign funds in the world.” Seriously. Do it!
- New SWFs: There’s a ton of new SWFs in Africa, which is cool.
- Spray and Pray: Take a guess as to how many PE managers CalPERS has? 20? 100? 200? Dude. Try 389. And that, in my mind, equates to alpha fees for beta returns. Thankfully, the public pension fund has plans to reduce that number down to 100 or so.
- SWF Rhymes: Felix Chee is leaving the CIC. Word?
- Musical Chairs I: It seems like yesterday that David Gonski was taking over as Chairman of Australia’s Future Fund. Today, however, he’s leaving; Peter Costello will replace him as interim Chair.
- Musical Chairs II: OMERS’ Nobrega will be replaced by OMERS’ Latimer.
- AoG: Sign up for the email. When I get around to actually publishing things, you’ll know.
Second, here’s some research for your reading enjoyment.
- Buffet’s Alpha: “Buffett’s returns appear to be neither luck nor magic, but, rather, reward for the use of leverage combined with a focus on cheap, safe, quality stocks.”
- Sovereign Development Funds: “...the companies in which Temasek has direct stakes have a higher proportion of independent directors and are more likely to have an independent director serving as chairman, indicating a higher quality of corporate governance.”
Have a great weekend!
