Tag: strategy

Arizona Pension Nabs Canadian Administrator for Top Job

Arizona

The Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) concluded its months-long search for a new executive this week.

The fund’s Board has selected Kevin Olineck to take over as administrator, according to the Arizona Republic.

More on Olineck, from the Arizona Republic:

Olineck is scheduled to assume his role with PSPRS in October, contingent upon receiving H-1B visa approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, according to PSPRS.

Olineck, of Victoria, B.C., currently works as vice president of member experience for British Columbia Pension Corp., which provides services to five public-sector pension plans that together have more than 500,000 members and more than $80 billion in assets.

Olineck has more than 15 years of experience in strategic and operational positions with both public-sector and private-sector pension systems, and has been a frequent visitor to Arizona for more than 20 years.

PSPRS manages over $8 billion in assets.

 

Photo credit: “Entering Arizona on I-10 Westbound” by Wing-Chi Poon – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entering_Arizona_on_I-10_Westbound.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Entering_Arizona_on_I-10_Westbound.jpg

Study: Pension Funds Flock to ETFs for Diversification

champagne glasses

A recent survey of European institutional investors, including almost 70 pension funds, attempted to pin down why institutional investors are driven towards ETFs.

The research, conducted by Greenwich Associates, concluded that most investors are drawn toward ETFs because of the diversification they promise.

More on the results from Investments & Pensions Europe:

Pension fund allocations to exchange-traded fund (ETFs) are driven by diversification and tactics over short-term transition management, research shows.

[…]

The study, sponsored by BlackRock, also found 69% of pension fund investors used ETFs for international diversification.

More than half (53%) used the funds for tactical adjustment in portfolios, as well as part of a core allocation.

Only 9% used ETFs for transitional management, with roughly one in 10 using the strategy for interim beta or overlay management.

The report said: “Despite the widespread use of ETFs for tactical applications, few institutions are employing ETFs as true short-term investments.

“Less than 2% of study participants report average holding periods of a month or shorter. In practice, European pension funds seem to be employing ETFs in the most strategic manner.”

The full report can be accessed here.

 

Photo by  Nick Wheeler via Flickr CC License