Table of Contents

Wal-Mart a smart shopper for target-date funds

Wal-Mart Stores introduced custom target-date funds to its more than 1 million 401(k) participants, following an unusual selection process.

Full plate awaiting PBGC chief

Joshua Gotbaum, President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., will have a long to-do list at the agency.

Private equity investors gaining negotiating power

The balance of power is shifting in private equity investment negotiations. With billions in dollars of commitments at stake, investors are playing hardball, using new sets of best practices as their playbooks.

Managers contest change in oversight

Money managers are fighting legislation that would — for the first time — subject the roughly 4,000 firms associated with broker-dealers to regulation by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Long-only or hedge? It no longer matters

Institutional investors are gearing up to integrate hedge funds into their equity and fixed-income portfolios, part of a growing trend toward allocating assets based on their sources of return — alpha and beta.

Here's why buyout firms are flooding IPO market

Private equity firms are dolling up companies for initial public offering as a way of easing the $1 trillion of buyout debt weighing down their portfolios.

Hermes' latest boutique marks firm's push to gain U.S. clients

Hermes Fund Managers has lifted out a six-member global equity team from Fortis Investments in Boston as part of a bid to attract U.S. institutional clients.

Bonuses down for 2009 despite market jump

Incentive pay for traditional money management, hedge funds and private equity will fall on average 15% to 25% below 2008 levels, even with the market rebound and a stabilizing investment industry, compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc. predicts.

Frequent asset allocation tuneups coming

Institutional investors' asset allocation reviews, those three-to-five-year exercises of the past, could occur more frequently, as investment consultants scramble to craft policies better suited to volatile market conditions.

Dutch pension plans' funding still a risky business

Most Dutch pension funds have returned to their required 105% minimum funding threshold, but fund officials are not out of the woods yet.

Record keepers hit by revenue decline

Record-keeping revenue for defined contribution plans took a major hit during 2008, plummeting about 30%, according to a survey by NEPC.

Wilshire pushing CalPERS to stiffen disclosure penalties

CalPERS should severely penalize money managers who do not disclose fees they've paid to placement agents to get business from the plan, the $196.6 billion system's investment consultant is recommending.

Green groups taking battle to U.N. conference

Pension industry organizations fighting for greener investment strategies are taking their campaign to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month.

Managers unlikely to escape regulation

Hedge fund managers should expect regulation, likely from all corners of the world, according to speakers at the third annual Global Alpha Forum.

Report: Target-date to explode by 2018

Total assets in target-date retirement funds will grow to $2.6 trillion by 2018, attracting 80% of new and reallocated flows into defined contribution plans for the next decade, according to Casey, Quirk & Associates.

Supreme Court hints at ruling about money manager fees

The U.S. Supreme Court signaled it might require money managers to justify charging retail mutual fund customers dramatically more than institutional investors in similar separate-account strategies.

Missouri fund sues State Street over securities lending

Sharing fiscal stress in 17 syllables

A death knell for Euro hedge funds?

'Money manager capitalism' led to crisis, paper says

Pension reforms could hurt women, paper finds

TPG sponsors fellowship for minority investment analysts

Toigo, Carlyle join forces on private equity job education fellowship

Battle for advisers

The oversight of money managers is veering off course in the proposals for the restructuring of regulation to allow the dots to be connected more easily during a budding financial crisis as well as uncover at individual firms specific violations or troubles putting investors at risk.

Possible unexpected costs of proxy access

Shareholders should be careful what they wish for in terms of proxy access.

Proxy access reinforces the capitalist way

If the third time is a charm, investors might luck into proxy access.

Placement-agent ban would harm pension funds

Policymakers, despite best intentions, often craft the wrong answers to the right problems. One recent example of this phenomenon involves the proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rule regarding placement agents.

Tradewatch

Diamond joins P&I as S.F. reporter

Ford delivers $100 million to plans in Q3

Thiele named Microsoft director of global benefits

ABA Retirement Funds hires Northern Trust

Working the angles: Face to face with Roger Gray

The new CIO of USS discusses his plan to boost the pension fund's allocation to hedge funds and other alternative investments, taking cash out of public equities to fund the move to a "more liability-aware stance and a more diversified asset allocation."

Chicago fund seeking international equity help