Governance and Management

Investment Publications Highlights: May 2016

May’s publication summarizes three articles focused on investment management fees. The first argues that the total fees charged to investors increase when incentive fees are more frequently crystallized, the second suggests high fees can significantly reduce an asset class’s diversification benefit, and the third explores five myths about fees and fee structures.

The Foundation of Good Governance for Endowments and Investment Committees

Suboptimal governance can extend disappointing performance or perpetuate suboptimal past decisions. By contrast, good governance leads of its own design to necessary mid-course corrections. To create the conditions for good governance, endowments should assess whether they have in place the appropriate model for portfolio oversight and management, are upholding their fiduciary responsibilities, and are learning about peer best practices in structure, process, policies, and role of the portfolio.

A Holistic Approach to Liquidity Management

In this paper we share trends in liquidity creation at institutions and look at what’s behind them. We outline three building blocks to optimize liquidity management across an enterprise, providing several approaches to assessing liquidity needs holistically. We offer specific examples from US colleges and universities given the availability and breadth of data, though we believe that the lessons learned are broadly applicable. Finally, we discuss approaches to cash management in the current environment.

Strategic Currency Hedging Policy: A New Framework

Currency risk is a fact of life for investors, yet few investors have given appropriate thought to setting a strategic hedging policy. The typical approaches have material drawbacks, being either too simplistic or too complex. The new framework we introduce in this paper achieves an attractive balance by seamlessly integrating qualitative portfolio considerations driven by relevant asset class characteristics with a highly simplified yet robust method of incorporating individual currency characteristics. The framework is applicable to a broad set of investors, accommodates lack of precision in measuring currency exposures, separates the question of implementation from policy setting, and helps clearly distinguish between strategic exposures and tactical overlays.

Quarterly Regulatory Update: Fourth Quarter 2015

In this Edition: Market illiquidity concerns prompt additional regulations, investor solutions New liquidity regulations designed to reduce risk and create global alignment also raise questions of applicability Collateralized loan obligation changes create interesting potential risk/reward opportunity IRS pushes back key FATCA deadlines again Market Illiquidity Continues to Raise Concerns Spurs New Trading Platform Developments We…