Pension Investment

Transportation Infrastructure and Country Att ractiveness

Cross-country comparison conducted by the
World Pensions Council (WPC) suggests that
transportation infrastructure, although important,
is not a major determinant of institutional
investment.

The rapid rise of “alternative” and non-listed asset classes has been one of the most remarkable phenomena in the institutional investment space since the start of the Great Recession 7 years ago. This trend is contributing to a profound transformation of the financial ecosystem as a whole. 
This unprecedented change is occurring against the backdrop of a growing disaffection for actively managed public equity, long the investment category of choice for institutional asset owners.

The World Bank Group has established the Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), an ambitious financial framework bringing together supranationals, donor countries, development banks and institutional investors to foster both the deployment of long-term capital into socially-beneficial assets and the transfer of technical and economic expertise across lower-to-middle-income jurisdictions.

La Banque Mondiale a mis en place dans un cadre coopératif réunissant instances supranationales, pays donateurs (Canada, Japon, Singapour), banques de développement (dont la BEI et la BERD) et investisseurs institutionnels (fonds de pension, compagnies d’assurance…) une plate-forme d’investissement en infrastructures dénommée Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF). Jim Yong Kim, président de la Banque Mondiale, et ses équipes ont conçu cet outil original permettant d’accélérer le développement économique et social des pays d’Afrique, d’Amérique latine et d’Asie du Sud, tout en offrant aux détenteurs d’actifs longs de l'hémisphère Nord l’occasion de bénéficier du potentiel de rendement important offert par des régions prometteuses, en phase de décollage économique.

This high-level colloquium will bring together leading pension thought leader and policy makers from across the European Union to discuss pension reform pathways and LT investment approaches that are financially sustainable and socially viable

The 4th edition of the World Pensions & Investments Forum – Paris, October 23 & 24 2014 - was held against the backdrop of severe economic slowdown in Mainland Europe, resurgent military tensions in Eastern Europe and the Arabian Gulf, declining oil and commodities prices affecting nations as diverse as Australia, Canada, South Africa and Mexico, and, more generally, a sense that the global economic landscape was still marred by menacing “legacies, clouds and uncertainties.”

Guido Schmidt-Traub, Executive Director, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network explained how institutional investors can help “fast-track sustainable investments
and foster quantifiable development goals”, while Robin Edme, Coordinator, Responsible Finance, French Ministry of Ecology, President, Group of Friends of Paragraph 47, the Inter-Governmental Sustainable Development Initiative, talked about the usefulness  of “sustainability reporting metrics”. Many institutional investors and regulators present concurred, expressing hope that the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) held in Paris in December 2015 would lead to concrete headways.

M. Nicolas J. Firzli, WPC, announced that the 5th Annual World Pensions Forum would be held in Paris December 2 & 3 2015 in association with supranational organizations, regional think-tanks and pension and SWF investors present in Paris for the Climate Change Conference.

This high-level gathering held in Paris was timed to coincide with the start of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The panel was chaired by Jean-Philippe Dorp, President, CFA Society France, Head of Credit Research, OFI Asset Management, and brought together three European experts in the field:
Vincent A. Guillaume, SFM, Infrastructure Debt, BNP Paribas Asset Management,
M. Nicolas J. Firzli, DG, World Pensions Council, ABM, World Bank Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF),
and Brice Lainé, Senior Investment Director, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations

As the economic malaise lingers on and mainstream active managers increasingly fail to deliver on “over-performance” expectations, institutional asset owners are switching to passive in droves. World Pension Council (WPC) experts estimate that the relative share of passive investments could double in the next five years, reaching up to 40% of pension and insurance assets by 2020.
Pension funds are collectively losing out on billions of dollars every year because of artificially low interest rates while the governments lower the debt servicing bills, resulting in a transfer of wealth from the future income of pensioners to enrich the Treasury department and a handful of financiers. . .