Welcome to the weekend, everybody. Here are the top stories from this past week down on the Avenue of Giants:
- Buffering: Russia’s massive sovereign fund will, by 2017, be entirely depleted. Wow.
- Board to Death: Bad pension fund governance, according to new research, leads to bad returns. Conversely, then, good governance leads to good returns. So we all should start taking pension fund governance seriously!
- Greenfield of Dreams: In Canada, politicians have made an important realization about infrastructure: If you de-risk it, investors will come.
- Ouch: Temasek lost 9 percent last year, which, given that Temasek is widely seen as one of the best investors on the planet, suggests to me we’re going to see a lot of bad performance numbers this year among the Giants.
- Putin-Approved: The Russian Direct Investment Fund is backing Elon Musk’s Hyperloop idea. Of course it is.
- The Fee Machine I: Sneaky private equity firms have, apparently, succeeded in weakening California’s new fee transparency law so as to allow ongoing sneaky fees by said private equity firms.
- The Fee Machine II: The State of Wisconsin Investment Board is about to get serious on fees, which is awesome. Kudos.
- God’s Work: Goldman is under investigation for its role in the Malaysia’s 1MDB shenanigans.
- Bridge & Tunnel Crowd: The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is the single biggest global infrastructure investor by a factor of two.
Have a great weekend.
