Wilshire Taps New OCIO Chief | Chief Investment Officer

Mark Brubaker, Wilshire ConsultingWilshire Consulting, the institutional advisory unit of Wilshire Associates, has named a veteran consultant to lead its outsourced-CIO (OCIO) practice.

Mark Brubaker, currently a managing director of Wilshire Associates, will take on his new position and responsibilities effective immediately.

Brubaker has led OCIO business growth and the appointment formalizes his role, according to the Santa Monica, California-based firm.

“Mark has been instrumental in building our team, structure, and procedures critical for effectively executing numerous aspects of managing an outsourced-CIO practice,” said Andrew Junkin, Wilshire Consulting’s president, in a statement.

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Wilshire had $6.43 billion in full discretionary assets under management and 10 clients as of January 2016, according to CIO’s 2016 OCIO buyer’s guide,

The firm enter the OCIO business in 2001, and has since built a team including 12 portfolio managers and 5 relationship managers.

Wilshire’s former Chief Investment Researcher Steven Foresti became CIO of the outsourcing business last June.

Foresti oversees strategic investment research and asset allocation modeling as well as translates research into “actionable recommendations” for clients.

“There are an increasing number of organizations seeking to better allocate resources by outsourcing many of the investment and administrative responsibilities traditionally shouldered by a CIO,” Brubaker said. “I look forward to leading Wilshire’s response to this market demand.”

The new OCIO practice chief has spent 19 years with Wilshire, largely as a consult to large corporate, endowment, and public funds out of the Pittsburgh office.

Brubaker also sits on Wilshire Consulting’s investment and manager research oversight committees.

Prior to Wilshire, he managed $9 billion in pension and foundation assets at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He also worked in the investment management and trust division of PNC Financial.

A Lane Clark & Peacock survey found that asset managers who say they’re committed to environmental, social, and governance issues don’t necessarily behave accordingly.

Asset managers might talk the talk of “responsible investing,” but that doesn’t mean they walk the walk.

A recent survey by UK-based consultant Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) found that even signatories of the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) often failed to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into their investment processes.

“Just because a manager signs up to the PRI doesn’t necessarily mean they take it seriously.”The survey, which scored over 100 managers based on the underlying levels of commitment and resources they have dedicated to ESG issues and active ownership practices, found that just under half of PRI signatories actually followed through on these promises.

“Just because a manager signs up to the PRI doesn’t necessarily mean they take responsible investment seriously,” said Mark Nicoll, a partner at LCP. “There remains room for the rhetoric to catch up with reality.”

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Asset owners and trustees need to critically examine managers’ ESG credentials to determine which actually invest according to these promises, LCP said. These credentials can include integration of ESG in the investment process, shareholder voting and engagement, and fee transparency.

“It takes relatively little effort for an investment manager to give the appearance that they are concerned about responsible investment issues,” Nicoll said. “This can easily be done by producing glossy marketing material, by joining the relevant industry groups, or indeed by signing up to the Principles for Responsible Investment.”

But while not all PRI signatories scored well, the group as a whole still did better than managers who had not signed the PRI. Not one of the non-signatories earned a positive score from LCP. In total, 33% of managers received positive scores, while 49% of PRI signatories did.

“Many—though far from all—of those managers displaying a commitment to responsible investment are backing this up by integrating these considerations into their investment processes,” Nicoll said.

lcp esg Source: Lane Clark & Peacock’s “Investing Responsibly”