Welcome to the weekend. Here’s some reading for the beach chair:
- In-Sourcing: CIC realizes that in-sourcing assets is really hard, gives 20% of AUM back to external providers.
- Non-Correlated Investments: Equatorial Guinea is investingits resource wealth into a HIGHLY diversified portfolio of assets, investing in such uncorrelated items as Lamborghinis, private jets, and the red “Thriller Jacket” worn by Michael Jackson. AYFKM? No, that’s legit.
- Farms: The Wellcome Trust — one of the best performing endowments of all time — just bought 15 farms.
- The Empire: A rising leader for the Rebel Alliance defects to The Empire; embraces the dark side of the force.
- Just Do It: Big SWFs obviously can’t source high quality venture deal flow on their own... except when they do.
- Deep I: “Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness” ~ Marshall McLuhan.
- Deep II: “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgment.” ~ Mulla Nasrudin
- Ventures: The persistent inability to outperform public equities is a real threat to the sustainability of the VC industry.
- Isolation: Russia’s leadership expects to have to draw down the $173 billion SWFs to stabilize the economy.
- Governance: The Fundo Soberano de Angola and the National Investment Corporation Kazakhstan have both joined the IFSWF:
- Restructured: Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala is finally restructuring its $2 billion investment with Eike Batista.
- Follow The Leader: What the $1.3 trillion Japan GPIF does - and it is doing lots of new things in the years ahead - $500 billion from sister funds will follow.
- AuM: Australia’s Future Fund now has more than One Hundred Billllllion Dollars.
- Deals: BTG partners with the Abu Dhabi Investment Council to develop its reinsurance business.
Have a great weekend!
