Investit, a specialist administrative consultant to funds managers, has completed a survey on the IT budgets of 29global firms with $3.25 trillion under management and a combined IT spend in 2008 of $1.53 billion, and found that the smartest firms are doing more with the same or less. The head of Investit’s Australian office, Doug Neill, said the consultancy’s latest ‘IT Value Survey’ was conducted in late 2008 and focussed on the effects of the financial crisis. “Inevitably, as markets have contracted, budgets have come under pressure. However for IT, that’s not the full story,” Neill says.
Tail wags the dog – modelling tail risk in alternatives
When it comes to modelling the potential risks and returns of alternatives, trustees continue to rely on mean-variance approaches (such as expected average returns and annual return volatility), but acknowledge it is not the best solution as correlations are non-stationary (that is, can vary over time), and illiquidity and leverage create tail risk. In … Read more
Super fund executives who attended last month’s Watson Wyatt Ideas Exchange conference in Melbourne – and there were nearly 100 of them – were not impressed with the performance of their portfolios of alternative investments.
For as scared as everyone gets about the prospect of losing their job, it’s remarkable how often the de-commissioned sound relaxed, even pleased, about what’s just happened to them.
