Weekend Giants Reading, February 28–March 2, 2014

Here are some of the top stories from the Avenue of Giants for your weekend reading:

• New SWFs I: West Virginia's Senate unanimously approved the creation of a new "Future Fund."
• New SWFs II: All of PNG's LNGrevenueswill go to the country's new SWF. ALL of it? I sure hope the fund's governance is buttoned up...
• New SWFs III: Ghana's resource wealthappearsto be getting lost on its way over to the newsovereign wealth funds... Sigh.
• 我n-Sourcing: Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheelerthinkshe can save the state $2.8 billion over a 20-year period by investing more in house. I think that's a brilliant idea.
• Co-Investments: Looks like Japan's GPIFwill finally roll out its infrastructure collaborationwith OMERS.
• Divestments: NBIMdivestedout of 27 miners in 2013 and will continue to review the sector for more divestment in 2014.
• SDF: There are quite a few interesting detailshereon Ireland's new SDF and its current plans.
• Whistling: Oman's State General Reserve Fund is upping its governance game with some new, favorablewhistleblower policies.
• Bubble Trouble: The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and AustralianSuper arewarning资产泡沫的棕色地带的基础设施。
• Asset Allocation: Congrats to New Mexico forsuccessfully dramatizinga rather boring and obvious allocation decision: "It was a super exciting finish." Indeed.
• Musical Chairs: The Future Fund’s David Neal isapparently too good at being a Chief Investment Officer; the Board reportedly doesn't want to promote him to be the MD for fear of losing his investment acumen on a day-to-day basis.
• The Fee Machine: "The mark-upscausedmany customers to pay more than double what they understood they were paying." Standard stuff.
• Happy Birthday: The KIA may be asked to manage Kuwait's mooted "birthday fund" ... a pool to provide each Kuwaiti $40k at age 18.
• The Professionals: Norway's massive NBIM willdouble it's in-house equities teamfrom about 90 to about 180 people.

And last but most certainly not least, some rather sad news this week.

• Condolences: I was quite upset to learnthis weekabout Joe Dear’s passing. I first met Joe when I was a Ph.D. student and he was CEO of WSIB; he generously spent over an hour with me in his Olympia office talking about pension governance and management. That generosity carried through all the way to our last conversation this past October up in Sacramento. He’ll be sorely missed.

Have a nice weekend.