THE BUY SIDE - Anson's Mark

GENUINE ALPHA GENERATORS are hard to find. That's why Mark Anson's departure came as such a shock to Hermes Pensions Management, which oversees $142 billion in assets for 240 clients, including pension funds, insurance companies and government entities in the U.K.

Anson, who jumped to Chicago-based Nuveen Investments at the beginning of September, had been orchestrating a sweeping new strategic investment project for Hermes's biggest client (and owner), the BT Pension Scheme, which has $75.4 billion in assets under management with the firm. The initiative -- to raise BT Pension Scheme's allocation to alternatives from 7 percent of the portfolio to 15 percent, or $11.3 billion -- was designed to dampen the volatility of the plan's equity holdings and reduce risk, while matching assets to liabilities more closely. But Anson's abrupt departure after only 21 months on the job stalled Hermes's momentum and left its trustees reeling.

“它刚刚震惊了，”Hermes的主席Richard Bernays致谢。

47日，安森于7月宣布，他正在离开爱马仕回到他的家乡，在那里他将成为Nuveen的投资服务总统和执行主任。伯晋立即开始在内部和外部寻找替代品。消息人士称，Anson的继任者可以在下个月后立即命名。

Recent market instability has made Hermes's search for a new CEO even more urgent. U.K. plans have traditionally been slow to diversify their portfolios, preferring to invest heavily in publicly traded equities, while using investments in property and other real assets as hedges against inflation. But their approach is shifting dramatically, following the implementation of the Accounting Standards Board's Financial Reporting Standard 17, which was introduced in 2001 and went into full effect in 2005. FRS-17, as it is colloquially known, requires private sector defined-benefit-plan portfolios to be marked to market. British pension plans now must mitigate the volatility of their massive equity holdings. They can no longer rely on actuarial assumptions about possible rates of return, nor can they defer recognition of a plan's liabilities.

毫不奇怪，责任驱动的投资策略已经取得了脱颖而出，并与他们脱颖而出，进入各种替代品类型。Hermes在ANSON下的多样化倡议的规模和范围是在英国养老金计划中设立新标准：2006年9月，BT养恤金计划同意减少其公开交易股票的暴露8个百分点，并向替代方案提升其拨款。

除了防震BT的计划之外，Anson试图通过吸引新的外部客户来实现Hermes的资产基础。Hermes has long had third-party investors -- pension funds, insurance companies, government entities and even charities and endowments -- but the sheer size of BT Pension Scheme's portfolio, the largest in the U.K., meant that most of the firm's capacity was taken by its founding client. Post FRS-17, Anson saw the chance to design innovative funds to revitalize Hermes's asset management business and attract more third-party investment.

为此，他震撼了Hermes的管理方法和投资流程，招聘了超过半个高级投资组合专家帮助重新定位公司。新员工意味着增强了爱马仕的替代品越来越多的替代品组合，以及其股东 - 活动家投资努力。在其他动作之外：7月中旬，爱马仕将被动指数跟踪业务从基于伦敦的法律和一般投资管理局释放，以释放其动态和有利可图的公司治理和管理服务。

伯纳金坚持认为，密封群将继续毫不犹豫地继续追求其投资组合多样化和其他战略投资举措。“该团队现已到位，我们正在与Gusto挑战，”他说。

仍然希望暂停其远程发展计划，直到新的首席执行官采取掌舵。“恩森的出发是对爱马仕的一个很大的打击，”基于伦敦的替代品集团新明星资产管理的创始人兼主席John Duffield说，他知道伯尼亚队的竞争对手之一。“在相对较短的时间内，马克在那里的时间里做了巨大的工作，并发现他的继任者将非常困难 - 这并不容易取代一个情报，诚信和经验的人。”

对于安森来说，家庭因素在他的举动中发挥了重要作用：在愿他的父亲生病了，但在他去世之前，安森无法回家。然后，几周后，安森的岳父被诊断出严重疾病。应对来自海外的两个家庭危机的应对损失。6月，当安森从行政招聘人员接到呼叫时，如果他有兴趣搬到芝加哥加入资产管理公司Nuveen投资，他就会被接受。

“我已经很好地了解了Nuveen，”Lanky，Hymarticuly Midwesterner说，来自西北大学法律学院的法律学位，以及硕士学位和博士学位。哥伦比亚大学商业研究生院的财务。“当我还在卡伯斯时，我会和他们谈谈，但时间不对。”

这次是。添加到上诉：公开交易Nuveen于6月份同意，由私募股权公司麦迪逊迪斯伯德伙伴领导的收购。预计这一秋季将落后，这笔交易将带来新的资本，允许安森从墙街的紧密审查中建立业务。

Anson自己在华尔街上度过了多年，首先是Salomon Brothers'股权衍生品课程的掉期，选择，期货和结构化产品专家，后来是Oppenheimer资金的投资组合经理。But he earned his stellar reputation in public service: At the California Public Employees' Retirement System (with $246.4 billion in assets under management, the largest pension plan in the U.S.), Anson played a key role in integrating hedge funds and other alternative assets -- private equity, infrastructure and commodities -- into the plan's portfolio. He also took the lead in initiating many of CalPERS's corporate governance initiatives, as the U.S. pension giant earned a reputation as a fearsome shareholder activist. During his tenure as CalPERS's CIO, from 2001 to 2005, assets soared from $127 billion to $220 billion, while he implemented the concept of separating alpha and beta in the investment portfolio, a process that generated $13.2 billion in excess returns.

“马克是一个非常聪明的人和一个优秀的人民和投资组合经理，”Chatpers的高级投资官员多年来一直监督Anson的高级投资官员，现在监督1600亿美元的全球股权单位（Calpers的对冲基金计划），国内长短计划，企业治理，现金管理和经理发展方案也在她的Purview中）。“当你有这样的人时，谁可以使理性决策并努力将组织拉到一起，结果真的展示。”

Anson was transforming Hermes along the same lines before he left. A top priority -- even before the credit markets began to deteriorate -- was to imbue Hermes's investment processes with even greater quantitative discipline and to go beyond the mere separation of alpha and beta to identify independent, uncorrelated sources. "Most investors love to talk about alpha versus beta as if they were diametrically opposed points on an economic compass," Anson says. "The truth is that there is a continuum between pure beta at one end and pure alpha at the other end. The trick for every asset manager is to decide where they want to position themselves on the alpha/beta continuum."

他正在开发的定量模型是基于对积极的资产管理的进展或频谱的想法。在频谱的一端是经典的beta，索引跟踪器使用的资本市场测试版。朝着频谱的中间移动，走向更多活动的管理，投资者可以访问定制的Beta，由交易所交易资金代表，将更广泛的市场切成更小的系统风险。安森说，即使沿着积极管理的频谱也是由基本指数代表的基本测试专家，其次是廉价Beta的Mavens - 包括可转换的套利管理人员 - 谁宣扬将可转换债券分解为他们的组成部分β风险和对冲昂贵的β组件。Anson将活跃的测试版，如130/30资金，接下来的频谱。最后，他积极管理，高alpha内容基金 - 包括股东活动家 - 在连续统一的尽头。

True alpha originators are increasingly difficult to find. Despite his record as a cutting-edge investor in hedge funds, Anson is skeptical that most hedge fund managers are actually delivering alpha; investors in the vast majority of funds, he says, are paying huge sums of money for the privilege of buying market exposure. At no time has that been more evident than in the wake of the recent upheaval in the credit markets, which rocked the public equities markets and caused major losses at more than half a dozen hedge funds.

“纯粹的alpha，正如我们曾经知道的那样，正变得越来越稀缺，”Anson说。“当你在全球对冲基金投资1.7万亿美元时，所有这些市场参与者进入和追逐alpha，你开始开发系统的风险因素，这些因素看起来比他们喜欢alpha更像beta。”

Anson's quantitative discipline was yielding results: In mid-May, the BT Pension Scheme announced that its investment returns of 12.7 percent for 2006 outperformed its benchmark return of 11.3 percent and handily outstripped the average investment return of 10.7 percent for the 50 largest U.K. pension funds last year, as calculated by Edinburgh-based market research firm WM Co.

然而，安森留下了强大的团队：瑞士瑞士瑞士瑞士资产管理前主管罗杰雷·雷尔·雷尔（Roger Gray）于2006年9月被聘请，以取代前首席投资官Nick Mustoe，他们在未能获胜后离开了Pictet资产管理首席执行官在爱马仕工作;奈杰尔·拉布拉姆（Nigel Labram）是初级商品投资负责人，于2006年秋季推动了战略和替代方执行董事，取代了最近搬到了美国的杰出沃尔什·沃尔什的前任主任，成为康奈尔大学的Cio。

54岁的拉布拉姆以前在瑞银和rabobank建立并运行了他们的全球商品衍生品业务。他现在监督爱马仕的兴奋剂组合。假设爱马仕在其当前课程上继续，其替代方案倍增，该团队将需要查找对冲基金的5％的投资，私募股权的5％，商品3％，2％才能储备机会主义的投资。

“在掌舵处标记很棒，因为他如此理解它就像推开敞开的门一样，”拉布兰说。“但在他到达之前已经在这里完成了大量的工作，我毫不怀疑它会继续。”

虽然爱马仕是最早的英国养老金资产管理公司之一，但该公司在2004年11月开始，该公司才开始直接投资对冲基金，于2004年11月建立了HEDGE基金的内部基金，即HERMES绝对退货基金。自2004年6月30日至6月30日至6月30日以来，该基金正在截至6月30日，自2007年6月至2007年6月，在2007年6月至2007年6月的裁员下，每年返回8.3％ - 仅在同一个期间的8.1％以上时期。然而，迄今为止，爱马仕需要大多数基金BTPS的能力;只有一个其他投资者南约克郡养老金机构，有股权 - 它是一个小的。

Hermes moved cautiously in developing alternative investment strategies, especially investing in hedge funds. It wanted to build its own team of specialists and experts in-house and had to face the relative difficulty of putting vast new sums of money to work in hard-to-gauge investment strategies.

“我们必须非常刻意地搬家，因为有很长一段时间来获得这些巨大，1亿美元的曝光，”拉布拉姆说。“我们花了很多时间在这里建立自己的过程，招聘工作人员，并确保我们的方法是充分的弹性。”

像许多养老金资产投资者一样，拉布拉姆和他的团队仍然看HEMES的替代品组合 - 对冲基金战略，私募股权，基础设施，积极的商品策略，战术资产拨款和替代β（如波动） - 作为卫星的卫星低成本，核心市场曝光在股权和固定收入。但他们也试图确保他们对各种替代战略的分配彼此不相关。Labram和他的团队正在使用他们的储备资金 - 为机会主义投资留出2％ - 寻找经营创新的alpha-生成策略的经理，例如遇险信贷的各种利基投资策略。

值得注意的是，爱马仕的绝对退货基金未投资任何专注于结构性融资的经理，例如造成投资银行对出血资本的抵押债务义务。对冲基金的唯一信用曝光通过其活动驱动或陷入困境的投资管理人员;通常，Labram说，这些经理的曝光一直在短边。

“现在的许多最佳投资机会可以在广泛接受的，分类资产类别之间的差距中找到，其中一些最具创新性的经理正在进行套利，”Labram说。“即使他们的策略不容易融合在我们的任何投资组合中，我们都希望确保我们没有阻止我们自己的投资能力，这就是为什么我们创建了我所谓的替代品的这组产品备择方案。'”

多样化可以采取多种形式。从历史上看，爱马仕被视为一种保守的英国机构，具有温室，公务员风格的文化;亚慱体育app怎么下载它需要雇用驾驶美国人的风险。

“对英国投资公司喜欢爱马仕达克e on an American CEO was really quite unusual," says New Star's Duffield. "While it isn't unprecedented in London, because there are a lot of foreigners working in financial services and investment banking, very few of them are running big, quintessentially British institutions."

截至9月下旬，伯勒斯·伯尼斯董事长伯尼斯显然希望能够找到像Anson一样的另一个候选人 - 立即明智和学者声音 - 谁可能能够将该公司扩大到新领域。“我们拥有极其良好的投资业绩，以及我们面临的挑战之一是尝试继续发展我们的第三方业务，”伯尼斯说。“虽然我很悲伤地看到标明上去，他的离开是不是爱马仕是一场灾难，幸运的是，因为我们有一个很好的团队，现在开展的业务发展。”

Mark Anson, 47, announced in July that he was leaving Hermes to return to his hometown of Chicago

事实

NAME: Hermes Pensions Management

FORMED: 1983

所有者：BT养老金计划

我们所知道的：自1997年以来 - 当HERMES首次允许第三方投资 - BT养老金计划的投资年度回报率为9.3％，最大的8.4％的年度养老金公司的年度投资回报率为50年。