Achieving Investment Excellence: A Practical Guide for Trustees of Pension Funds, Endowments and Foundations

IMPROVE FUND PERFORMANCE THROUGH ENHANCED UNDERSTANDING AND EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE Trustees play an essential role in the success of pension funds and other long-term asset organizations. The performance of such funds depends on the trustee’s level of knowledge and expertise. Whether you are a new or experienced trustee, Achieving Investment Excellence will help you safeguard fund performance while remaining faithful to the fund’s mission and long-term strategic goals. Inside, you’ll learn how to effectively and confidently steer your fund’s portfolio with a thorough understanding of risk concepts, return expectations and key investment tools and benchmarks. With an ability to thoroughly assess the quality of your investment set-up, you will be ready to engage in strategic changes that can yield real, measurable gains for your fund. The board is key in achieving long-term investment success. Achieving Investment Excellence is peppered with discussion questions, case studies and practical tools you can implement to immediately begin improving board effectiveness and fund performance. Regardless of fund size, you can realize greater returns, simply by improving your understanding of how the board designs, guides and monitors investment. Embrace the opportunity inherent in the trustee role and begin focusing the investment agenda on what really matters. Crucial methods, tactics and tools for successful pension fund management Achieving Investment Excellence offers trustees and asset managers a comprehensive handbook for improving the quality of their investments. With a stated goal of substantially and sustainably improving annual returns, this book clarifies and demystifies important concepts surrounding trustee duties and responsibilities, investment strategies, analysis, evaluation and much more. Low interest rates are making the high cost of future pension payouts fraught with tension, even as the time and knowledge required to manage these funds appropriately increases — it is no wonder that pensions are increasingly seen as a financial liability. Now more than ever, it is critical that trustees understand exactly what contributes to investment success — and what detracts from it. This book details the roles, the tools and the strategies that make pension funds pay off. Understand the role of pension funds and the fiduciary duty of trustees Learn the tools and kills you need to build profound and lasting investment excellence Analyse, diagnose and improve investment quality of funds using concrete tools and instruments Study illustrative examples that demonstrate critical implementation and execution advice Packed with expert insight, crucial tools and real-life examples, this book is an important resource for those tasked with governing these. Achieving Investment Excellence provides the expert insight, clear guidance and key wisdom you need to manage these funds successfully.