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— Partha Dasgupta, PPF

The Pension Protection Fund supports UK retirees whose final-salary pension schemes have collapsed under their sponsors. But it also insures 7800 schemes with investment risk exposures that are completely out of its control. Martin Steward reports.

— Chris Hitchen, Railpen

Railpen, the UK railways pension scheme encompasses nine member schemes and five smaller funds, with £19bn in assets. Nat Mankelow talks to chief executive Chris Hitchen about a new decision making structure and plans to extend the alternatives allocation.

Group treasurer Jacob Tsang talks to Ruth Emery about the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s different investment pools and how it is galloping ahead of its rivals with the inclusion of hedge funds in its portfolios.

— Richard Gröttheim, AP-Fonden 7

Swedish pension reserve fund AP-Fonden 7 has been talking-up its ‘pure alpha’ equity mandates as a way to optimise transparency, assess performance within a liability-matching context, and make your beta allocation sweat. Martin Steward reports.

— Mike Taylor, LPFA

Only months into the CEO job at LPFA, and Mike Taylor is already overseeing an investment shake-up which will see the fund move more towards alternatives, writes Paula Garrido.

Following in the footsteps of its US counterpart, the UK pension scheme for packaging group Rexam is aiming to eleminate the risk from its portfolio by ditching equities in favour of a fixed income majority. But there may still be room for alternatives. Nat Mankelow reports.

— John Corrigan, director of Ireland’s National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF)

Large-scale equity investing might seem like a risky business, but NPRF’s John Corrigan believes that the risk premium over the long term will provide better returns and reduce the funding costs. With a 70% allocation, the fund is jumping in with both feet, writes Henry Smith.

New international accounting standards and reporting requirements are leading pension funds to shy away from the volatility inherent in large-scale equity investing, so foregoing a valuable equity risk premium.

— Fons Lute, Blue Sky

With all the hoo-haa surrounding institutional investment into alternatives and commodities, it seems a strange choice to reject them altogether. However, this is exactly what the advisers for the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines fund have done. Henry Smith explores the reasons behind this.

— Caner Öner, Oyak Group

Paula Garrido speaks to Oyak Group’s CIO Caner Öner, about the Turkish pension fund’s strategy to expand beyond its remit into an insurance company, a credit union and a holding firm with investments in more than 60 companies across different industrial sectors.

— Brendan Reville, investment director at Railpen

The UK’s Railways Pension Scheme isn’t exactly steaming ahead with its switch from balanced to specialist management, due to the number of funds that it oversees. However, the specialists are ensuring more names but fewer moving parts, writes Paula Garrido.

— De Salins: the target was political and is old

Will the French government help the country’s Pensions Reserve Fund reach its lofty target of €150bn by 2020? Executive director Antoine de Salins believes the figure to be outdated and is focusing on the fund’s much-anticipated asset allocation review which is on the cusp of being unveiled. Henry Smith reports.

— Dick Kamp, Laurus

With new regulation increasing the flexibility of members’ retirement options, the Laurus pension fund has refocused its investment strategy to achieve a better risk/reward balance, writes Paula Garrido.

The Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Trust has been forced into a reshuffle of its portfolio due to increased liabilities. Paula Garrido reports on the move to alternatives.

— Chris Armitage, J Sainsbury

After a disappointing three years, the J Sainsbury pension scheme has introduced a system to get rid of poor performing managers, but is sticking to the same structure, writes Henry Smith.

Worrying solvency levels prompted a re-think at the Environment Agency resulting in a shift from UK equities to the global, corporate and SRI arena. Henry Smith reports.

With membership rising and liability profiles diverging, the Greater Manchester Pension Fund’s long-term strategy focuses on diversification and meeting set benchmarks with the aid of its three external managers, writes Paula Garridoy.

— Poswick: ‘it’s possible to find good stock pickers, but active managers often feel obliged to have lots of bets in their portfolios’

Excessive exposure to traditional equity markets forced the pension fund of Belgium’s Suez-Tractebel to split its portfolio into more risk-graded classes. Henry Smith reports.

Suez-Tractebel, an international industrial services and engineering group, manages the largest pension fund portfolio in Belgium with three defined benefit schemes containing a total of €1.3bn and two defined contribution funds of €10m and €1.5m each.

The DC schemes were launched in 1999 and 2001 respectively and now serve as pensions savings vehicles for all new employees of Tractebel and Electrabel. They were set up to take over eventually from the DB schemes, two of which are already closed to new investors. The third DB scheme is also due for closure in the near future.

Lothian Pension Fund’s strategy of high weighting in equities and SRI, driven by asset-liability modelling, is beginning to pay off. Roxane McMeeken reports.

Under the winter ice and snow in the north of the British Isles lies one of the UK’s largest retirement schemes. The £2bn (€2.9bn) Lothian Pension Fund is far from frozen, however. A high-risk-taking scheme, with a heavy allocation to equities and an emphasis on socially responsible investment, it is in hot pursuit of fund managers to run two new mandates.

— Sleijpen: ‘the notion has gradually crept into investment strategy of finding an attractive risk return profile’

Europe’s largest pension fund has boosted its investment in alternative assets in a bid to raise returns. Elizabeth Cripps reports.

Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, the pension fund for Dutch government and education employees, recently announced a dramatic 20 per cent strategic allocation to alternative investments.It has come a long way. In 1995, the fund’s only gesture in the direction of alternatives was a 7 per cent allocation to real estate. In 2004, the real estate allocation remained more or less the same, but it has been joined by investments in private equity, commodities and hedge funds. The move, according to Olaf Sleijpen, deputy head of the ABP asset platform, has been made “for diversification reasons”.

— Blumenthal: ‘there have been discussions among some trustees about introducing a hedge fund allocation into our portfolio’

Underperformance has forced the New York City Retirement Systems to query their strategy, with the five boards deciding on greater diversification of assets. Even hedge fund investment is being considered as part of the reorganisation, reports Paula Garrido.

— Andre Morony, chief investment officer at PSS/CSS

The pension provider PSS/CSS is aiming for positive returns in at least four years out of every five. Among the strands of its strategy are lower equities holdings, fully hedged currency risk and its hallmark active management, writes Tim Blue.

— Roland van den Brink, managing director of investments at PME

A shift to diversification, specialisation and SRI has turned the Dutch metalworkers’ fund around, writes Elizabeth Cripps.