Survey Shows That Pensions Worry About Risk Management and Valuation
In his May 16 testimony to Congress, Mr. Douglas Lowenstein, head of the Private Equity Council, extolled the virtues of non-public investments. With over $110 billion invested in private equity by twenty large public pension funds, Lowenstein cites relatively higher historical returns that have helped plan sponsors pay the bills. Click here to read his testimony.
A few months earlier, a survey conducted by the State Street Bank describes escalating interest in hedge funds. At the same time, half of respondents expressed "a need for additional reporting and analysis on the part of hedge fund managers and more rigorous due diligence practices," adding that "they find it difficult to gain a portfolio-wide view of risk, and that aggregating risk statistics provided by all hedge funds in their portfolio was problematic. The same number also agreed that obtaining an accurate valuation of hedge fund holdings can be problematic." Click here to read the executive summary of the survey.
As with any investment, there is no "perfect" choice. Selection depends on a wide variety of factors.( A discussion about optimal asset allocation and security/fund selection is outside the scope of this blog post.) However, a few points are in order.
1. Risk management and valuation concerns are not created equal. They vary across type of asset and fund. Private equity funds tend to trade less frequently than hedge funds. Even within an asset class (assuming you agree that hedge funds constitute a separate asset class), the risk-return tradeoff varies by strategy, management and much more. For example, the use of derivatives by a market neutral hedge fund can differ dramatically from that of a macro oriented fund.
2. The use of a side pocket may reduce the need for frequent valuations. However, institutional investors need to understand if a side pocket is to be used, what will go inside the side pocket and the impact on reported performance as a result of its use.
3. Knowing that a manager employs derivatives is not enough. Understanding instrument and strategy choice is likewise important (though still not sufficient).
4. Valuation numbers provided by traders or anyone else who stands to benefit by reporting high numbers should be discarded and replaced with those provided by an independent party.
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