Morningstar is looking into the viability of forming a public and corporate pension, endowment and foundation database, confirmed spokeswoman Alexa Auerbach. Morningstar is asking fund officials and investment consultants to fill out an online form indicating their willingness to provide monthly performance, expense and portfolio holdings data. Participants would receive periodic analysis reports comparing their performance to those of their peers. The database is an outgrowth of a project Morningstar did with members of National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems.
Though corporate and public pension plans, endowments, and foundations in the United States manage trillions of dollars, it is still a challenge to find objective, comprehensive information on performance, expenses, risk and holdings of these institutions, Steve Deutsch, head of development for institutional investment data, said in a news release. We hope everyone involved with pension plans and nonprofits will step forward and support transparency. If institutions readily agree to provide us with basic information on their performance and holdings, we will be able to offer a valuable resource to compare and benchmark performance of plans and nonprofits to their peers and to other portfolios.
Pension, endowment and foundation representatives can indicate their interest in participating by going to http://corporate.morningstar.com/MStarPEFDatabase by June 29.