Towers Watson on Pension Fund "Alternative" Asset Allocations

A very interesting report from Towers Watson on pension fund Alternative Assets' AUM by asset class, geography, top managers (by volume, no performance numbers given), etc.

And this very delightful quote from the press release accompanying the release.

Carl Hess said: “Infrastructure and commodities managers have significantly increased their pension fund assets under management during the past year, as investors have become more comfortable with these asset classes and while others have continued to opportunistically add to their allocations. However, investors should be very wary of the structure of some of these mandates with careful attention being paid to the ‘net of fees’ proposition, in particular for infrastructure.”

Wise advice indeed.  "Net of fees" is an important concept to perceptive investors in all asset classes.  I presume Carl mentioned it here because some fee "propositions" in the infrastructure class were in his opinion a bit "rich".  Which just goes to show that "conventional" firms can charge fees like so-called "religious" ones.  Doing God's work, indeed!