Pensions & Investments, the international newspaper of money management, has entered into a multiyear data licensing partnership with BlackRock, the world's largest money manager with $3.659 trillion in assets under management.
P&I's asset allocation survey data will be used by BlackRock to construct a liquid portfolio strategy using exchange traded funds managed by iShares that will correspond to the median asset allocation of the largest pension funds.
The creation of BlackRock's liquid policy strategy reflects the growing interest and acceptance of ETFs among institutional investors including corporate and public pension funds.
P&I, the most trusted source of data, news and information on the institutional money management business, has been surveying the largest pension funds and collecting asset allocation data since 1974. The P&I Top 1,000 pension fund survey represents $6.56 trillion in assets and measures the growth and allocation of both defined contribution and defined benefit retirement plan assets and covers dozens of asset classes including equities, fixed income, cash and alternative investments.
“Liquidity management and investment returns are top priorities of retirement plan executives. Following the credit crisis, many plan sponsors have taken on larger positions in cash to meet liquidity needs, which can have an adverse effect on returns. We are pleased that BlackRock has created an innovative way to use P&I's asset allocation data to help reduce cash drag, allowing these investors to more efficiently manage their pension funds' liquidity needs by using ETFs to maintain asset class exposures,' says Chris J. Battaglia, vice president and publisher of Pensions & Investments.
P&I adds new data sets and enhancements to its Research Center
P&I also recently added several new features and enhancements to the P&I Research Center.
Information is now available on the 50 largest foundations in the United States. Data include total investment assets, asset allocation information and individuals in charge of the investments. One to two years of historical data on each foundation are currently available.
Actuarial information for the largest corporate and public defined benefit plans has also been added to the plan sponsor section of the Research Center. Actuarial information allows the user to see historical trends in funded status and critical assumptions. Data include actuarial assets, actuarial liabilities, funded status, funded ratio, assumed rate of return and discount rate for corporate defined benefit pension funds. Five years of history are included.
Plan investment return information is also now available for the largest corporate and public defined benefit pension funds. Public fund information includes both actual returns and policy returns. Corporate fund data includes the actual rate of return for the latest annual fiscal period.
Money manager information now includes gross outflows and gross inflows, allowing the user to evaluate which firms are winning or losing the most business. This is updated annually.
"The newly added information on foundations enables analysis to be performed on another critical asset owner group with more than $140 billion in assets. The actuarial information on DB pension plans allows the user to understand the health of the nation's largest DB funds. which is crucial to state, municipal and corporate balance sheets," says Aaron Cunningham, director of research & analytics, Pensions & Investments.
P&I will also be releasing separate account and hedge fund performance profiles powered by Morningstar Inc. in the near future.
To view a demo of the P&I Research Center go to www.pionline.com/researchcenter.
For additional information on P&I Research Center, contact Aaron M. Cunningham CAIA, Director of Research & Analytics, at [email protected] or 212-210-0750.
To view all P&I Press Releases got to http://www.pionline.com/section/press.
