There’s a relatively new product out there for pension plans and high net worth investors seeking stable returns with relatively low volatility. But it comes with a hitch—it’s about cashing in on death. In the U.S., at least, there is a growing industry in life settlements. Older policyholders may decide that, after years of paying […]
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have changed the nature of the debate between active management and passive investing. Passive investing once involved holding a broad-market index fund and comparing performance against an active manager who used the same benchmark. What essentially differentiated an actively managed fund was that it was exposed to individual stock risk, according to […]
Risks abound for pension plans – even while they are in the midst of restructuring the kinds of risks they are exposed to. Ask Errico Cocchi, pension fund investment manager for the City of Montreal. The end of 2008 and early 2009 “were a pretty tough year for our plan,” explained Cocchi at the IMN’s […]
Risks abound for pensions plans – even while they are in the midst the process of restructuring the kinds of risks they are exposed to. Ask Errico Cocchi, pension fund investment manager for the City of Montreal. The end of 2008 and early 2009 “were a pretty tough year for our plan,” he says. “We […]
Investors in what was once reputed to be a billion-dollar Canadian hedge fund manager may get five to seven cents on the dollar for their investments. The “guiding minds” behind Norshield face regulatory sanctions as well as civil litigation. But a veil of mystery remains around where $472 million in investor assets actually ended up. […]
After a harrowing 2008 and 2009, managers of alternative investments — hedge funds, private equity and real estate — are beginning to regroup. Now might be a time buy, with managers chastened by their fall from grace — or at least declining fund flows. Over the past two years alternative investment managers saw assets rush […]
After the turmoil of 2008 and 2009, hedge fund investors have learned to dread the “four horsemen.” That’s how Bernice Miedzinski, executive vice-president at Man Investments Canada characterizes the Bernie Madoff fraud and the Lehman Brothers collapse, which froze some hedge fund accounts, as well as the sub-prime meltdown, factors that along with falling markets, […]
Bernie Madoff fooled a lot of people with his purported hedge fund strategy. They included some of the most reputable fund-of-fund managers in the business who are now, as one insider puts it, “squawking like seagulls,” after years of freely scooping fish out of nets illegally cast in the first place. But he didn’t fool […]
What’s theoretically rational for an investor may not be what most people actually do. This could be because of behavioural factors, or there could be deeper, and quite rational factors. So it is with lifetime annuities. Academic research suggests they’re superior to other products in providing a lifelong income, and the earlier they are bought, […]
Returns have been good for some hedge fund managers this year. But despite the stock market rally, they are sanguine about the prospects for a full economic recovery. There has been a sea change. The unwinding of financial leverage brought stock and debt markets to lows experienced at the depth of the tech crash as […]