Japanese Pension’s Hedge Fund, Private Equity Investments Soar |
Date: Friday, July 11, 2008
Author: FINalternatives
A Japanese pension fund has increased its hedge fund investments sixfold in the past year, and plans to increase it even further.
Japan’s Pension Fund Association began investing in hedge funds in the second half of last year, a year after it first began to consider the asset class. The fund now has some ¥300 billion (US$2.8 billion) in hedge funds, and plans to boost that to 4% of its ¥13 trillion (US$121.1 billion) in assets, or ¥520 billion (US$4.8 billion), Bloomberg News reports.
“We’ve been aggressively increasing investments mainly in about the top 50 hedge funds in the U.S.,” Tomomi Yano, JPFA executive managing director, told Bloomberg.
The pension has also hired a pair of professionals to oversee its hedge fund and private equity investments. It has about ¥60 billion (US$559.8 million) invested in p.e., with plans to boost that to 2% of assets, or ¥260 billion (US$1.1 billion).
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