Liam Kennedy

3 weeks ago | ipe.com | Liam Kennedy

The UK’s Pension Protection Fund (PPF) is to plough an additional £1bn into “high quality” infrastructure in the UK and globally, according to chief investment officer Barry Kenneth. The allocation amounts to approximately 3.5% of total assets and will involve a shift away from listed equities. The fund also plans to allocate to mid-market private credit.

Nov 29, 2024 | ipe.com | Liam Kennedy

Impact investing was once a niche concept. “We were seen as the weird people in the corner of the room,” recalls Andy Kuper, the South African founder and CEO of LeapFrog Investments

Nov 28, 2024 | ipe.com | Liam Kennedy

Wars are famously costly. Most people would agree that preventing them is infinitely preferable to paying for them. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the financial and human cost of war. But while conventional or nuclear armed conflict remains a worst-case scenario, the nature of warfare has altered dramatically in recent years. During the Cold War, diplomacy, secret back channels and international treaties were the preferred methods of preventing conflict.

Oct 31, 2024 | ipe.com | Liam Kennedy

For years, strategic asset allocation (SAA) has been a cornerstone of investment for pension funds and other institutional investors. Is sustainability a missing ingredient? Gary Brinson, value investing proponent and founder of Brinson & Partners, later acquired by UBS, plays a strong part in the development of thinking around SAA as co-author of a seminal paper of 1986 together with Randolph Hood and Gilbert Beebower.

Sep 30, 2024 | ipe.com | Liam Kennedy

Europe sure does not have a savings problem – EU household savings amounted to €1.4trn in 2022 versus €840bn in the US. What Europe does have, though, is a glut of bank savings capital that serves as a double bind.   First, this glut makes Europeans poorer than their US counterparts over time because savers fail to compound returns as efficiently as Americans do by investing in growth asset classes. From 2009 to 2023, US household wealth increased by 151%, compared to 55% in the EU.