Welcome to the weekend, everybody. Here’s some news for your reading enjoyment:
- Subsidizing Asset Managers: Japan’s government has decided to give a massive handout to the asset manager community by restricting the Government Pension Investment Fund’s ability to invest directly in companies.
- Sisyphus: Readers might recall that Canada’s vaunted pension plans were explicitly designed to prevent politicians from being able to influence investment decisions. Now that we’ve got that out of the way: Reports out this week that Canada’s politicians are trying to influence the country’s pension funds’ investment decisions, pushing them to invest in domestic infrastructure. I’m sure it will be a fruitful set of conversations.
- Collaboration: According to a new report from the Institute for Obvious Things, collaboration among asset owners to minimize reliance on asset managers . . . leads to some asset managers not being relied on as much. Awesome insights!
- White Knights: Can you remember when sovereign were funds were regarded as white knights for the struggling financial services industry, swooping in to save the day in times of market turmoil? Me neither. Was that ever a thing?
- Lessons in Long Termism: A big pension once tried to sell a timber asset and failed. It was forced, not by choice, to hold on. Five years later, the fund decided it now loved the asset and is currently buying more.
- New SWFs In Places I Want To Go To — Part I: The Bahamas officially joined the sovereign fund club! Welcome! Now, when’s the conference?
- New SWFs In Places I Want To Go To — Part II: And the next country to set up a new sovereign fund is . . . Turks and Caicos.
- Seeding Funds: Temasek has launched a new $150 million “Red Dot” venture fund targeting Israel.
- Names and Shames: Norway’s massive sovereign fund pointed a finger directly at Volkswagen and said, “This cannot be a role model for Germany.”
- Bull$hit Detection: Thanks to Ned K. for making me aware of a new paper that, let’s be honest, all asset owners really must read before dealing with any asset managers: “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit.”
Have a great weekend.
