By Pirkko Juntunen
The UK’s National Association of Pension Funds launched a guide to hedge funds for pension funds, Hedge Funds Made Simple, at its recent annual investment conference in Edinburgh.
Hedge funds were on the agenda, and at one of the sessions the advantages of investing directly in hedge funds versus taking the fund of hedge funds route was the hot topic of discussion. The Universities Superannuation Scheme – with assets of over $52 billion, one of the largest pension funds in the country – talked about its experience in its move to allocate directly with the support of Albourne Partners.
In the session entitled ‘Fighting The Fee Drag’, Mike Powell, head of alternative investments at USS said he believes that the trend in the UK will be towards direct hedge investments. The fund has $1.6 billion across 17 hedge funds and the experience so far has been good. The...