Written by Peter Ellis, BI-SAM

To paraphrase the renowned Irish physicist Lord Kelvin: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

 

The concept behind Lord Kelvin’s statement is one familiar to the asset management industry. Huge resources are devoted to measuring and analysing investment performance to establish:

1. Whether or not the level of performance being achieved is acceptable...

2...and if not, the corrective action that should be taken.

 

Yet although we apply Kelvin’s concept to the results calculated by performance teams, we do not apply it to the business processes that generate those results, where the industry lacks a robust best practice framework...

 

The Investment Association and EY have published Board Effectiveness: Continuing the Journey. The duo say that investors and board directors were brought together over a number of meetings to share examples of leading practice and new ideas for improving and demonstrating board effectiveness.

A new paper from EDHEC-Risk Institute underlines the usefulness of analysing the performance and risks of portfolios taking into account their geographic equity exposure based on real economic activity and not only on their place of listing or, more generally, the nationality assigned to them in market indices.

 

Repo outstandings are down, according to the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) which has just published two separate studies on the continuing cumulative effect of regulation on the ability of financial markets to support economic growth.

Celent has released a new report, titled, Risk Management Outlook 2015: A Critical Juncture on the Way to Industrialization. The report is authored by Cubillas Ding, a research director with Celent's Securities and Investments practice.

A new study from industry experts, Silverfinch, the secure data utility, claims to show that fund managers who help their insurance clients navigate the complexities of Solvency II reporting are likely to dramatically increase assets in the next year.  

The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global hedge fund association, and the CAIA Association, an alternative investment education specialist, say they have jointly published the first of a series of educational papers about hedge funds for pension fund trustees and other fiduciaries at institutional investors.