China Investment Corp. Sees Flat Results

Rough year brought on by wild global swings and higher volatility, says CEO.

The China Investment Corp.’s portfolio saw a near-flat return as it lost a little less than 1% of its assets from the previous year, going from $941.4 billion to $940.6 billion, according to its latest annual report.

Peng Chun, the organization’s chairman and CEO, said 2018 was a “rough year for international institutional investors such as CIC” due to the “wild swings of the global capital market and increased volatility of risk assets.” He also said in the report that the fund beat its annual benchmark by 371 basis points. He did not say what that benchmark was.

The plan’s 10-year returns were 6.07%, beating the organization’s benchmark by 45 basis points. CIC is China’s sovereign wealth fund responsible for managing part of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves.

The plan’s allocations were 44.1% alternative investments, 38.3% public equity, 15.2% fixed income, and 2.4% cash and others respectively take up 38.3%, 15.2%, 44.1%, and 2.4%.

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“On investment management, we continued to implement refined management of public market investments, adjust and optimize our investment strategy and the makeup of managers, and carry out new strategic investments such as risk factor investing,” Chun said. “Progressively, we increased our investment in alternative assets, consolidated our private equity investments, increased investment in assets with stable returns and stepped up co-investments in various ways.”

Chung summed up the lackluster year and the ones going forward with a quote from a Chinese poem. “Without the continuous bitter cold, there can be no fragrant plum blossom,” he said. “The tougher the road, the sweeter the taste of success—pain precedes gain.”

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Hackers Steal $4.2 Million from Oklahoma Police Pension

FBI launches investigation into cyberattack; pension claims it’s ‘certain the stolen funds will be recovered.’

The Oklahoma Law Enforcement Retirement System announced this week that it has suffered a cyberattack that saw hackers do away with $4.2 million from the pension’s $1 billion in holdings.

“OLERS was recently a victim of a cybercrime where $4.2 million was illegally stolen,” the fund wrote in a statement on its website. “We notified the FBI, who is conducting an active investigation of the crime.”

“However, we are certain the stolen funds will be recovered. Most importantly, no pension benefits to members or beneficiaries have been impacted or put at risk. All benefits will continue to be paid in a timely fashion as always.”

OLERS Executive Director Duane Michael told The Oklahoman that the pension had recovered $477,000 of the lost funds so far. He specified that the culprit(s) stole funds being managed by investment managers working on behalf of OLERS.

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OLERS provides pensions to approximately 1,500 retirees, including state highway troopers, state agents, park rangers, and other officers.

The hackers were able to access one of the retirement system’s employees’ email accounts, and as such, employees of the pension are due to receive training on cybercrime prevention initiatives.

Targeted cybercrime on US pension funds is nothing new; in 2017, hackers stole 103 retiree account containing sensitive information from the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System. In August 2019, the City of Austin Employees’ Retirement System suffered a hack where a member’s account was compromised, potentially exposing the personal information of other members.

Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future alleges that municipalities have reported 73 ransomware attacks in 2019, up from 54 in 2018. Such vulnerability to cyberattacks is making credit rating agencies wary and giving a negative impression to the pensions’ ratings. Moody’s rates Oklahoma Aa2, and S&P rates them AA—both equal ratings in measure.

All state agencies in Oklahoma are currently being transitioned into a unified cybersecurity program as part of Gov. Kevin Stitt’s agenda for his administration. Roy Rogers, the agency’s president, asserted that “if push comes to shove,” the fund will be able to recover its losses through its insurance coverage, in a statement to The Oklahoman.


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