Pension Pulse

Yun Li and Maggie Fitzgerald of CNBC report the Dow jumps nearly 300 points to a record high, gains 2% for the week: U.S. stocks climbed to record levels and closed out Friday at their session highs as Wall Street wrapped up the week with solid gains amid rising reopening optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 297.03 points to 33,800.60, notching a record closing high. The S&P 500 gained 0.8% to 4,128.80, hitting its third straight record close. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.5% to 13,900.19. Stocks linked to the recovering economy led the gains again amid the accelerating vaccine rollout. Carnival Corp rose 2.6% after getting two upgrades on Wall street amid pent-up demand and potential summer restart. General Electric climbed more than 1%. JPMorgan added 0.8%. The blue-chip Dow climbed 2% this week, while the S&P 500 gained about 2.7%, posting its best week since early February. The Nasdaq rallied 3.1% over the same period as major technology n

Antoine Gara of Forbes reports on how private equity’s tech bonanza continues as KKR stands to make billionson on AppLovin deal: The technology and software sector continues to be a goldmine for the world’s biggest and best performing private equity firms. Add KKR & Co., cofounded by billionaires Henry Kravis and George Roberts, to the list of mega-firms set to mine one of its great dealmaking coups in the tech sector. AppLovin, a pioneering maker of software for mobile gaming application developers, is poised to go public at a valuation of about $30 billion, according to a report from Reuters . AppLovin has set its IPO range at between $75 a share and $85 a share, and is looking to raise $2 billion by selling 25 million shares. For KKR, which invested $400 million into Applovin in July 2018 out of its flagship KKR Americas XII Fund, the looming IPO will yield a home run investment. According to AppLovin’s S-1 filing, KKR’s funds hold over 110 million AppLovin

Satish Rai, CIO at OMERS, posted a comment on Linkedin on how the organization is committing to a low-carbon future, targeting a 20% carbon intensity reduction by 2025: Sustainable investing has long been a focus for OMERS, but never have environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues been as front of mind as they are today. Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time and represents both risks and opportunities for financial markets. As investors, we play a role in supporting accelerators of the transition to a lower carbon economy and across OMERS we have made a commitment to become a leader in Sustainable Investing. Demonstrating that commitment, last year we undertook the organization’s first total portfolio carbon footprinting exercise based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The exercise measured the carbon footprint across our investments and allowed us to assess our total portfolio through t

Razak Musah Baba of IPE Real Assets reports that CPP Investments names Bruce Hogg as head of a new sustainable energy unit: CPP Investments has combined its energy and resources investment division with its power and renewables business to create the C$18bn (€12.1bn) Sustainable Energy Group (SEG) led by Hogg as managing director. Hogg, who joined 14 years ago, was most recently managing director and head of the pension fund’s power and renewables business. Avik Dey, managing director and head of energy and resources at CPP Investments, will act as senior advisor to CPP Investments, supporting SEG and the office of the CEO over the next six months, following which he has decided to return to his entrepreneurial roots. “The creation of the Sustainable Energy Group with significant, flexible capital positions us extremely well to pursue the best market opportunities across the entire energy spectrum. This, coupled with a deep, highly experienced team, will allow SEG to generate

Yun Li and Jesse Pound of CNBC report the S&P 500 climbs more than 1% to close above 4,000 for the first time: The S&P 500 crossed the 4,000 threshold for the first time on Thursday as Wall Street built on a solid March following the rollout of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan. The broad equity benchmark rose 1.2% to a fresh record high of 4,019.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 171.66 points, or 0.5%, to 33,153.21. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.8% to 13,480.11. Alphabet and Netflix jumped more than 3%, while Amazon and Microsoft gained over 2%. Microsoft shares advanced on news that the software giant will deliver to the U.S. Army more than 120,000 devices based on its HoloLens augmented reality headset. The contract will be worth $21.9 billion over 10 years. Tech stocks led the gains as bond yields continued to retreat from recent highs. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 7 basis points to around 1.68% Thursday. The benchmark rate hit a