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The world of cash equities trading is changing and will continue to change, says Celent. Brokerages will have to outsource in order to reduce costs and restore their margins: and some of the outsourcing will involve "the cloud."
The bottom line of EDHEC's study is that there is no need to create new public sector liabilities to get private sector institutions to invest in infrastructure.
The survey also asked that the asset managers state where their total assets are invested, using four geographical categories: Europe; Central/North America; Asia Pacific; Other. Commodity funds were easily the most heavily invested in C/NA, to the extent of 94 percent of their portfolios. Private equity funds are 61 percent invested in C/NA, and PE FoFs also have the majority of their portfolios there, at 54 percent.
Britain’s Private Finance Initiative has continued through the administrations since Blair’s, and indeed has inspired emulation across the Channel. At the same time, it has stirred up a good deal of criticism, and in November 2011 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a plan to reform the PFI. One of the reform proposals is to seek broader participation by pension funds, or in pale bureaucratic jargon, “access a wider range of financing sources.”
Infrastructure is a perpetual investment, whether it's rebuilding old, existing underpinnings in developed markets or building the foundations that turn an emerging nation into a developing one. Preqin looks at this lesser known investment that underpins many alternative portfolios.
Infrastructure is a basic need for any country, no matter what size. However, investing in infrastructure funds has been scant since its peak in 2007. That may be about to change.
We report on a talk given by Dr. Keith Crane of the Rand Organization about renewable energy and climate change at a meeting of the FInancial Policy Council. Dr. Crane showed that the cost differences between renewables and coal shrink when the costs of carbon emission controls are also counted. Subsequent research revealed possible reasons why the average person in the United States has a unique inability to accept climate science, in opposition to the conclusions of the U. S. Defense Department.
