Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
New Zealand Superannuation Fund appoints co-CIOs
The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, manager of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, has appointed Brad Dunstan and Will Goodwin as co-CIOs following a “global search” to replace former CIO Stephen Gilmore.
Gilmore headed off to California to take up the CIO role at CalPERS back in June. Since then, Alex Bacchus, the Guardians’ head of strategic tilting, has been acting CIO. Guardians CEO Jo Townsend said Gilmore’s departure had “created an opportunity… to review the way the investment team was structured”.
“Taking into account the projected future growth of the Fund and the increasingly complex and challenging investment environment in which we are operating, it makes sense to combine the functions of the CIO and the GM Portfolio Completion and create a co-CIO model.”
Dunstan is currently acting GM for portfolio completion while Goodwin is head of direct investments. Townsend said that their “broad experience had been a tremendous asset to the… management of the super fund” and that the new structure would see the Guardians “get the very best of their complementary skills and expertise”.
The appointments come as the Guardians digests the latest review five-year review of its operations, where WTW handed out “excellent” ratings across its business, governance, people and investment models, and a “very good” rating for its systems model – putting the fund “into a small group of leading asset owners globally”.
Improvements included a more conservative approach to liquidity management, changes to the risk budgeting process and a shift from responsible investment to sustainable finance practices. But the WTW review recommends that the Guardians mature the insourcing of private market investments and consider establishing an overseas presence – London, for example – in order to improve access to talent, GP and peer relationships and deals.
In its response, the Guardians said that it would look for ways to enhance how it resourced insourced investment in private markets, but said that while it would keep a potential overseas office “under consideration”, it had no immediate plans to establish an overseas presence.
