portfolio institutional hit desks for the first time 10 years ago. The magazine was launched in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. As we celebrate our anniversary the world has come full circle with economies suffering, but this time from the im- pact of a pandemic.
In between crises it has been an eventful decade. Events such as the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as US president, the Paris Agreement, the rise of ESG-led investing and the arrival of Covid-19 have all influenced our coverage.
Indeed, a lot has changed since our first issue carried features on custody mandates, high- frequency traders, equities, emerging markets and inflation. But the issue remains the same – pension schemes, insurers and foundations need to generate a return from their investment portfolios to meet their obligations or fund their projects no matter how markets are behaving.
To celebrate we looked back at 10 of our favourite articles from the past 10 years.
1. Carillion: Lessons for trustees
In 2018 when Mona Dohle investigated the collapse of construction giant, Carillion and how the fall raised questions on whether the trustee’s role could be strengthened to make sure that it doesn’t happen to other schemes. Read here.
2. Going viral – How Covid-19 could hit UK pension funds
Where 2020 was a year we will not forget, the second article chosen in our 10 year anniversary series explores how the Coronavirus pandemic could impact pension schemes. Read here.
3. USS whistleblower Jane Hutton on pension valuation challenges
In 2020, Mona Dohle spoke to Professor Jane Hutton, a former non-executive director at USS about the problems with forecasting pension scheme deficits and the risks of shifting from defined benefit to defined contribution. Read here.
4. January 2017 – Donald Trump and a new era for US politics
As Donald Trump was on the verge of stepping into the Oval Office for the first time, portfolio institutional looked at what the next four years could mean for investors. Read here.
5. September 2016 – Turning the world upside down
In 2016, growing resentment towards the political establishments of Europe and the US culminated in the UK voting to leave the European Union. In September of that year, former PI editor Sebastian Cheek took on the task of looking at what rising political risk in the developed world meant for investors. Read here.
6. June 2013 – Behind the curve: still a long way to go on SRI
ESG is all the rage today with governments, corporates and institutional investors have sustainable policies. Although being responsible with your capital is not a new strategy, its move into the mainstream is. We look back at an early take on ESG with a piece by Gill Wadsworth from June 2013. Read here.
7. November 2012 – Armageddon: When failed QE and falling asset prices collide
Quantitative easing has become a fact of life for investors. The inflated asset prices resulting from central bank bond buying programmes have made it difficult to beat the benchmark as prices rarely reflect the fundamentals. We looked back at an early take of ours from November 2012 on the government interventions in the markets. Read here.
8. January/February 2014 – Emerging markets: better times ahead?
Emerging market fundamentals are driving more than half of global GDP growth, meaning that developed world institutional investor allocations to bonds and equities in these countries are rising. In January-February 2014, we published an early take on these markets, which we thought would make an interesting contribution to our 10-year anniversary coverage. Read here.
9. April 2013 – Mind the gap: rules of engagement
The importance placed on engagement as a strategy for institutional investors has grown since portfolio institutional published its first edition a decade ago. Here is an early look at how we reported on engagement back in April 2013. Read here.
10. June 2016 – DC: are default strategies delivering?
The rise of defined contribution schemes and the introduction of auto enrolment has been one of the major trends to emerge in pensions over the past decade. To mark 10 years since the first edition of portfolio institutional we are looking back at one of our features that examines at the investment side of workplace pensions from June 2016. Read here.
