•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

From the Opalesque team:

A lot of pension funds were disappointed with alternative investments, noted Swiss daily Le Temps on Monday, even if they were a better investment over the longer term. And overall allocations from pension funds to alternatives have decreased a little. Just at the time when a new Swiss order on professional contingency funds (OPP 2) has been giving, since 1st January, explicit room for alternative funds.

Much of the money redeemed from alternative funds has not been re-invested, or indeed investments into alternatives have been suspended. A representative of a companies association in the French-speaking part of Switzerland told Le Temps: "we want to see first which direction regulations will go, and how transparency will evolve."

But this is not the end of such investments. A particular pension fund is now selecting funds directly and is participating directly in the construction of FoHFs. Hedge funds are no longer seen as an asset class, but more as a style of active investing.

A pension fund manager said that pension funds have to keep an exposure to alternatives anyway, in order to meet their performance mandates.

Swiss AuM Whereas Swiss FoHFs had $203bn in AuM in 2007, they now only have $61bn, reported French-speaking newswire Casafree.com. According to Eurekahedge, the Singapore-based data provider, AuM have fallen 70% between May 2008 and October 2009. Switzerland's slice of the global cake fel......................

To view our full article Click here