Starting from Scratch: How 28 CIOs Would Build a New Portfolio

(September 26, 2013) -- “How would you allocate your portfolio if you could start from just a blank whiteboard?”

A group of 28 institutional asset owners and 10 managers took on that question recently at a workshop in New York City. It was the same exercise that Yale CIO David Swensen is said to have put to his staff in the 1980s, thereby giving rise to the endowment model.

The participating asset owners approached with the memory of 2008, however, when premiers endowment suffered a collective liquidity crisis as markets collapsed.

CIOs at the New York workshop largely set aside asset class discussions to focus on governance and fund culture, according to a whitepaper on the event by organizer Cathleen Rittereiser. She is CEO of the asset owner education and mentorship group Uncorrelated.

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“The discussion of asset allocation is in many ways secondary to the conversation of effective governance and execution because without effective governance no one will be able to implement a new and exciting model for asset allocation, assuming such a model exists,” said one participant.

Governance related back to the specific concern of liquidity: Rittereiser reported that a number of asset owners lamented their board’s reluctance to keep cash on hand.

Board members were also said to be a roadblock to another feature of asset owners’ ideal portfolios: a risk-factor allocation model. Those who had transitioned away from traditional asset classes encouraged their peers to follow suit, but stressed the need for effective execution.

Board education was one element, but CIOs also felt their new portfolios would demand cutting-edge IT systems to support robust stress testing.

According to the paper, the key question that emerged from the activity was not “What is the optimal asset allocation model?” Rather, CIOs sought to answer, “What is the optimal selection process?”

The group was tasked with a hypothetical $2 billion portfolio and a 7% to 8% annual return objective over 20 years. Participants included investment leaders from the Universities of Illinois, Cincinnati, Iowa, Louisiana State, Pennsylvania State, Utah, and a number of foundations.

Read the full review of the workshop here.

Related Content: Risk Factors 0.0

(September 26, 2013) – Regulators must reassess their views on infrastructure risk, as investors are being frustrated by the capital requirements needed, according to Pensions Europe Chair Joanne Segars.

Pension funds and insurance companies have long been interested in investing in infrastructure projects, but many CIOs have been put off by the capital requirements European solvency regulations will force them to observe.

Although EU Commissioner Michel Barnier appeared to rule out applying Solvency II rules to European pension funds, EIOPA— the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority—is still looking at proposals to revisit it in future.

Speaking today ahead of the Allianz-Oxford Pension Conference, Segars—who is also chief executive of the National Association of Pension Funds—told reporters of her frustration at the regulations coming out of the EU.

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“One of the more positive developments from the commission is the green paper directive on long-term investing, which puts pension funds at centre-stage of how they can help create jobs growth and held the recovery by investing for the good of the economy,” she said.

“There is now a willingness by trustees to look at a broader set of asset classes, including infrastructure. But there’s a mismatch here between what the trustees and CIOs want and should be able to invest in, and what the regulations are pushing them to do—they’re pushing for risk-free assets.”

JP Morgan Asset Management also believes the regulator has applied too broad a brush to infrastructure investment and its solvency requirements, adding EIOPA had over-estimated the capital requirements needed by insurers.

Investment in this area by insurers has been cautious to date: the proposed Solvency II regime requires insurers to invest in accordance with the “prudent person principle”.

But ranking the assets against other alternatives is difficult as the funds are, for the most part, unlisted.

For example, due to its characteristics, infrastructure equity would generally be considered as “type 2 equity” under the standard formula and, as such, capital requirements are calculated under a 49% fall in market values (plus or minus any symmetric adjustment).

“The capital requirements for infrastructure debt are captured under the spread risk sub-module, irrespective of whether the debt is held in the form of bonds or where insurers are providing investment through long-term loans,” JP Morgan Asset Management’s white paper said.

“Under this, the capital requirements are calculated in relation to the duration and credit rating of the instrument. Where the infrastructure debt is unrated, the spread risk charge to be applied falls between that for A and BBB rated bonds and loans.”

EIOPA has fundamentally missed the fact that the volatility of infrastructure cash flows is materially lower than those of equities and property, that infrastructure cash flows are not highly correlated to those of equities and property, and that the cash flows of infrastructure assets grow faster than consumer price inflation, the paper continued.

It also ignores the diversification opportunities within the asset class itself, and investing in equities of infrastructure corporates has a different risk profile to investing directly in an infrastructure asset, alone, or investing through a portfolio of infrastructure bonds.

The whitepaper concluded: “EIOPA’s proposed calibrations may materially overestimate the capital requirements for insurers looking to hold these assets. The use of an internal model to calculate Solvency II capital requirements allows firms to adopt a more granular treatment than set out in the current draft of the Solvency II standard formula.”

The fund manager suggested those looking to hold significant levels of investment in infrastructure could consider moving to an internal model approach in order to more accurately reflect the risks inherent in this asset class.

The JP Morgan Asset Management whitepaper can be read here.