Alternative Market Briefing

Dutch delegates debate pros and cons of hedge fund investing for institutions

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

By Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London:

Speaking at the Opalesque Netherlands Roundtable, sponsored by Eurex and Taussig Capital, Mark Burbach, Chief Investment Officer with the Blue Sky Group announced that, at the time of speaking, they had no investments in hedge funds.

"The reason for that is that trustees of our clients don’t see the need to invest in hedge funds. So it would be very nice to hear from Niels and Michiel who have more than a decade of investment experience with hedge funds their rationale for hedge funds in a pension fund portfolio context and how to best explain and communicate these investments to the Dutch (pension) community."

Burbach confirmed that his firm is sensitive to Asset Liability Management (ALM), so his concern was how to model certain scenarios into an ALM study and see the benefits and perhaps also the pitfalls of adding hedge funds to a portfolio.

Burbach said: "Over the past years we have put some of our efforts into tactical positioning, for instance. Traditionally a portfolio of a Dutch pension fund consists assets of equities, bonds, some real estate and certain risk hedges. Invested amounts stem from ALM studies translated into benchmarks. Any deviation is mostly applied through position away from benchm......................

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