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UN Pension Fund Looks to Add 3 to Investment Team

The $82.4 billion UNJSPF is seeking investment officers for its sustainable investment, private equity and emerging debt portfolios.

By Michael Katz



The $82.4 billion United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund is looking to add to its investment staff three new officers, one each for its private equity, emerging market debt and sustainable investment portfolios.

The investment officer for sustainable investments, who will be supervised by the pension fund’s CIO, will assist in developing and implementing the sustainable portfolio’s approach regarding private markets and impact investing strategies while collaborating with all investment teams at the pension fund.

The position is responsible for balancing long-term strategic goals with short-term performance objectives with the aim of outperforming benchmarks supported by environmental, social and governance integration, impact investing and stewardship. The new hire will be required to contribute to the development and implementation of proxy voting and engagement guidelines in line with the UNJSPF’s fiduciary responsibility, as well as integrate the UN’s Principles of Responsible Investment into investment analysis.

Other duties include monitoring the various portfolio holdings and external managers; conducting appropriate ESG and impact analysis using risk tools and analytical tools; conducting due diligence at the direction of the investment officer; and conducting portfolio, external manager and service provider reviews.

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The application deadline for the position is January 4.

The private equity investment officer, who will work under the UNJSPF’s senior investment officer of private equity investments, will implement investment strategy in fund and co-investments for asset allocation and portfolio rebalancing, as well as perform fundamental analysis through financial statements, corporate announcements, market news and other publicly available information.

Among other duties, the private equity investment officer will be responsible for reviewing portfolio and benchmark performance on a regular basis, ensuring that all investments are in compliance with the Office of Investment Management’s investment and policy guidelines, and conducting portfolio reviews and presentations.

The application deadline for the position is December 9.

The emerging market debt investment officer, who will work under the supervision of the pension fund’s director of fixed income, will assist the investment officer for emerging markets in managing and investing the assets of the pension fund’s emerging markets bond portfolio. The position requires monitoring the portfolio holdings and conducting appropriate security analysis at the direction of the supervising investment officer, as well as complying with risk control parameters.

The role’s other responsibilities include, among others, performing fundamental and quantitative fixed-income emerging markets securities analysis; reviewing investment research and talking with strategists, economists and security analysts; and analyzing foreign exchange, interest rates, sovereign and economic data and ESG data.

The application deadline for the position is December 4.

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Home > Economy > How Bad Was 2022 for Asset Managers? Assets Dipped 10%

How Bad Was 2022 for Asset Managers? Assets Dipped 10%

Thus far this year, the recovery is muted, a McKinsey study finds.
By Larry Light



Last year was a bummer for asset managers, with assets under management dropping 10% and profit margins off five percentage points from 2021, according to a McKinsey & Co. study, and the recovery in 2023’s first half was muted.

Escalating interest rates—the key impetus for 2022’s suffering in stock and bond markets—as well as this year’s volatility, mean the asset management “industry is undergoing structural adjustments,” the report found. A substantial chunk of allocators’ AUM is run by these managers, although less than in the past.

Hardest hit were equities with stronger net outflows of assets from active managers, accelerating a trend that had been brewing for a while. Some of that money went into low-fee index funds.

For fixed income, assets also fled active managers last year and inched back a tiny bit in this year’s first half. Fixed-income passive strategies’ inflows remained positive for both years. The big gainers, both in 2022 and 2023, are private alternatives: private equity, private credit and the like.

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Meanwhile, there is an “increasing wedge between the industry’s haves and have-nots” among asset managers, McKinsey stated. Only 29% of asset managers generated positive net flows in both 2022 and the first half of 2023, as the portion of struggling firms increased to 42%.

Profit margins have declined, although, relative to many other industries, they are still rich. Last year, pretax operating margins fell to 34% from 39%. No numbers were available for 2023.

The study termed the state of the industry as “down but not quite out.” The 10% falloff in AUM last year is far more than in past contractions, it contended. Some of the problem is an inflexible cost structure, the report noted. The industry’s cost base shrank only 3%, not enough to offset the margin drop.

One antidote, in McKinsey’s eyes: “Asset managers need to modernize their distribution, making sales and marketing a competitive differentiator by using non-traditional data, digital tools and gen AI for certain tasks.”

Asset managers will rise again, McKinsey averred: The industry downdraft “presents an unparalleled opportunity for asset managers to expand their roles as financial intermediaries.”

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