Phew, it’s Friday. Here’s some news for your weekend reading enjoyment:
- Active Mismanagement: How hard is it to find alpha? Just 0.07% of mutual funds achieved top-quartile in five successive years. Good luck.
- Mic Drop: “If a strategy makes your board comfortable, it needs updating.” ~ Leo de Bever.
- The Fee Machine: Monitoring and transaction fees among PE GPs were $28 billion between 2004 and 2013 in the U.S. alone; another 2.2% fee hit.
- Selfie: We need more invest-tech companies.
- Catastrophic: New Zealand Super Fund will reportedly invest in catastrophe reinsurance: “You can get handsomely rewarded for wearing big tail risks.”
- SDFs: The U.S. Government has seeded Capitol Peak Asset Management with $10 billion (!) for rural infra? Mandate to attract co-investment? Lord.
- Venture Capital I: For top venture capitalists, the message to LPs is crystallizing: This time is different! (here and here) I agree that this time will be different, but not for the reasons they cite. (By the way, you’ll note that neither of these “star VCs” actually mention the issues that are most pressing to LPs: returns and fees... Why not?)
- Venture Capital II: Booming equity markets and record distributions in 2013...and VC still failed to beat the public markets.
- Venture Capital lII: An entrepreneurial R&D program focused on graduating companies out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory? Boom.
- ‘Sharpe': High-fee hedge funds have slightly higher returns but do NOT generate higher risk-adjusted returns.
- New SWFs: Zimbabwe’s Parliament will likely make progress on the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill this week.
- Off Piste: Mubadala has signed a deal to develop upstream opportunities in... Somalia. That’s legit frontier investing.
- Alternatives: CalPERS is reducing its exposure to hedge funds by 40%.
- Seeding: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is seeding companies focused on housing, petrochemicals and technology.
- White Knights: Oman’s State General Reserve Fund is reportedly planning to bail out Bulgaria’s Corpbank.
- California! Jagdeep Bachher is shaking things up over at Cal: “Recruiting has already begun for a host of senior positions”.
- Inebriate: Great news! Wine outperforms artwork and bonds. Bad news: Lack of willpower means you always end up drinking your pension.
- Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn: ADIA’s team is down in Australia looking for some hotels...to buy.
- Transparency: Nigeria’s NSIA is now a role model for SWF transparency; it’s WAY more transparent than most U.S. university endowments. The website for my alma mater’s endowment is almost hilarious it’s so secretive.
- AuM: SOFAZ has gained over $103 billion from 2001 to 2014. That is a lot.
- Musical Chairs: New CIO for APG.
Have a great weekend!
