Weekend Giant Reading, July 25 — 27, 2014

Phew, it's Friday. Here's some news for your weekend reading enjoyment:

- Active Mismanagement:How hard is it to find alpha? Just0.07% of mutual fundsachieved top-quartile in five successive years. Good luck.

- Mic Drop:“If a strategy makes your board comfortable, it needs updating.” ~Leo de Bever.

- The Fee Machine:Monitoring and transaction fees among PE GPs were$28 billionbetween 2004 and 2013 in the U.S. alone; another 2.2% fee hit.

- Selfie:We need moreinvest-techcompanies.

- Catastrophic:New Zealand Super Fund willreportedly investin catastrophe reinsurance: "You can get handsomely rewarded for wearing big tail risks."

- SDFs:The U.S. Government has seeded Capitol Peak Asset Management with$10 billion(!) for rural infra? Mandate to attract co-investment? Lord.

- Venture Capital I:For top venture capitalists, the message to LPs is crystallizing: This time is different! (hereandhere) I agree that this time will be different,but not for the reasons they cite.(By the way, you'll note that neither of these "star VCs" actually mention the issues that are most pressing to LPs: returns and fees... Why not?)

- Venture Capital II:Booming equity markets and record distributions in 2013...and VC stillfailed to beatthe public markets.

- Venture Capital lII:An entrepreneurial R&D program focused on graduating companies out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory?Boom.

- 'Sharpe':High-fee hedge funds have slightly higher returns butdo NOT generatehigher risk-adjusted returns.

- New SWFs:Zimbabwe's Parliament will likely make progress on theSovereign Wealth Fund Billthis week.

- Off Piste:Mubadala hassigned a dealto develop upstream opportunities in... Somalia. That's legit frontier investing.

- Alternatives:CalPERS is减少其exposureto hedge funds by 40%.

- Seeding:Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund isseeding companiesfocused on housing, petrochemicals and technology.

- White Knights:Oman's State General Reserve Fund isreportedly planningto bail out Bulgaria's Corpbank.

- California!Jagdeep Bachher is shaking things up over at Cal: "Recruitinghas already begunfor a host of senior positions".

- Inebriate:Great news! Wineoutperformsartwork and bonds. Bad news: Lack of willpower means you always end up drinking your pension.

- Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn:ADIA's team is down in Australia looking for some hotels...to buy.

- Transparency:Nigeria's NSIA is now a role modelfor SWF transparency;it's WAY more transparent than most U.S. university endowments. The website for my alma mater's endowment is almost hilariousit's so secretive.

- AuM:SOFAZ hasgained over$103 billion from 2001 to 2014. That is a lot.

- Musical Chairs:New CIOfor APG.

Have a great weekend!