A SMART Approach to Portfolio Management

Book excerpt: The year 2008 was a watershed year as dramatic market movements exposed the flaws in the theory and practice of pension fund management. Solvency declined dramatically, hedge funds did not deliver, rebalancing policies detracted value and liquidity dried up tainting the allure of "alternative" investments. Static policies for dynamic markets are undoubtedly flawed and have to be changed with the support of appropriate liquid, transparent and low cost benchmarks; implicit bets need to be made explicit and managed; naive performance measures have to be improved; and the CAPM needs to be revamped dramatically. But this process can only start with investors taking the time to understand how various market factors influence assets or managers and then develop a set of rules so that as the factors evolve over time, the optimal portfolio evolves simultaneously. SMART (Systematic Management of Assets using a Rules-based Technique) management of assets and liabilities leads to improved solvency and a lowering of ALM risks. SMART is about introducing good process namely, only measured and monitored risks can be managed. This book presents a new design for pension fund management that allows CIOs to be smart about managing assets relative to liabilities and, at the same time, allows them to access alpha flexibly (and compensate managers only when they demonstrate skill), thereby improving solvency.