Rising tensions in the Yellow Sea, a festering ‘Migrant Crisis' in Europe and Africa and resurgent antagonisms in the Persian Gulf are further threatening the Post-War social contract bequeathed by President Truman, Gen. Marshall and Gen. Eisenhower: praetorian Midwestern pragmatists whose...

English Abstract: Following the COP21 Summit, we've reached a point in economic history where real change can be expected – even if policy makers are unable or unwilling to curb the activities of oil companies in the United States… It's likely oil companies won't be in a position to reverse...

The year 2017 saw the unravelling of the prevailing order that had dominated the French political scene since the late 1950s (the end of the Fourth Republic). For nearly sixty years (1958 – 2017), the authoritarian centre-right Gaullists shared France's ‘fromage' (cushy public jobs,...

This second of a series of seven papers co-authored by M. Nicolas J. Firzli and David Weeks looks at the notions of private markets – PE, VC, private debt and infrastructure – and the "quest for yields" in a low interest rates environment, which where discussed at two recent global...

The investment choices of large asset owners such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and endowments, are, to a large extent ‘guided’ and pre-determined by the systematic use of old- fashioned indices or benchmarks designed by a small set of Anglo- American ‘index providers’ –...

Public pension funds are, by far, the world's preeminent asset owners, with more than $ 25 trillions in combined assets. The largest pension funds are found in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and the UK ("pension superpowers"). How they are managed, their funding...

In this primer published in the Feb. 2020 issue of Private Debt Investor (PDI), Nicolas J. Firzli, World Pensions Council, looks at how institutional asset owners will come to the fore in the new geo-economic context defined by renewed Sino-American "coopetition" across ASEAN countries,...

World Pensions Council cofounders Vincent Bazi and M. Nicolas J. Firzli analyse the rise of natural gas as a new asset class for pension and sovereign fund stakeholders in light of the geo-institutional dynamics underpinning asset allocation and investment decisions in an era of macroeconomic...

The last weeks of 2018 have set new records in net new institutional investment flows into infrastructure funds, with more generalist private equity and investment management players joining this strategic asset class par excellence, as the trend is likely to continue well into 2019 – 2020.The...

The 7th World Pensions Forum was held 22-23 March at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a cradle of modern European culture. 120 pension executives and board members representing more than $10 trillion in combined wealth convened in Paris to discuss the regulatory and governance impact of...