Pension Fund Investment Strategies

Since inflation is potentially expected to rise in many economies, pension funds are increasingly searching to invest across different asset classes including real estate to hedge against the threat of rising prices. This pension fund investment strategy training course focuses on pension fund investment style, asset allocation, performance of their portfolios with particular emphasis on private equity firms. It aims to address many of the current pension issues from both the asset and liability perspectives to give you a holistic appreciation of the complex issues involved. Participants will learn how portfolio theory can be applied to replicate pension fund investment strategy.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:

• Understand how pension funds operates
• Pension fund investors
• Performance of their portfolio company
• Differences between pension funds and other funds including private equity
• Replicating pension fund investment strategies

COURSE OUTLINE

Overview of Pension Funds 

• What is a pension fund?
• Types of pensions
• Main investors of pension funds
• Asset allocation strategy
• Investment risk
• Creating value in pension funds
• Private equity versus pension funds

Portfolio Theory 

• The Markowitz model of portfolio risk
• The Capital Asset Pricing Model
• A practical application of the CAPM to a range of companies
• Long-Term Sources of Finance
• Types of Equity Capital
• Calculating WACC and CAPM
• Short-Term Sources of Finance
• Replicating pension fund investments

Portfolio Management 

• Passive Equity Portfolio Management Strategies
• Active Equity Portfolio Management Strategies
• Strategic Asset Allocation
• Tactical Asset Allocation
• Style Investing
• Value versus Growth
• Pension fund and Private equity portfolio companies

Markov Models  

• Introduction to Markov Models
• Constructing the Markov Model
• Analyzing the Model
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Introduction to Scenario Analysis.
• Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulation
• How to apply Markov model to pension fund investments

Analyzing the Annual Report and Account 

• Using Ratio and Other Analyses of the Annual Report and Accounts to Assess Financial Position and Financial Performance
• Profitability and Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis
• Liquidity and the Short-term Solvency
• Investment and Growth
• Financial Structure and Long-term Solvency
• Ratio Analysis using Excel
• Excel Trend Analysis using Common-size Horizontal Analysis and Vertical Analysis for Comparability
• Assessing the performance of Pension fund portfolio companies