First, here’s the news:

- All told Aabar lost something in the range of $2.3 billion on its Daimler investment.

- OMERS is planning a $3 billion hotel-casino development in downtown Toronto.

- Italy is courting Abu Dhabi's SWFs: “The United Arab Emirates is Italy’s top commercial partner..." Really? Top commercial partner?

p> - The Council of Institutional Investors has asked Nasdaq and NYSE to stop listing companies with dual share classes - The CIC's Central Huiijin has pledged to support the big four state-owned lenders.

- New Jersey's pension fund assets top $70 billion .

- You know when cat-burglars finally go legit and become "locksmiths"? Or hackers become "database security experts"? Same dealio here : Ex-transition manager (that was let go from State Street in 2011 “...following revelations that multiple UK-based pension funds had been overcharged for transition management services...”) has launched a consultancy to help asset managers vet transition managers. Redemption! 

- A bad year for university endowments, apparently .

- PGGM: "Innovative" strategies are increasingly important to meet return objectives. Me: Be careful!

Second, here’s some new research worth reading: - Alexander Cappelen and Runa Urheim have an interesting new white paper entitled “ Pension Funds, Sovereign-wealth Funds and Intergenerational Justice .” Here’s a blurb: “Pension funds and sovereign-wealth funds own a large and increasing fraction of the shares in publicly traded companies in the OECD area. These funds typically have a very long time horizon on their investments, as well as highly diversified portfolios. These features imply that the interests of these funds on important issues are aligned with the interest of future generations because the longterm return on a highly diversified portfolio will depend on the degree to which the development of the world economy is sustainable. It is, therefore, in the enlightened self-interest of these investors to use their shareholder rights so as to protect the interest of future generations. The paper explores the arguments for a more active corporate governance policy among pension funds and sovereign-wealth funds and discusses the obstacles to such policies.” It's a useful read. 

- Yujin Jeong and Robert J. Weiner have a new working paper entitled “ Energy Security and Foreign Investment: Are Chinese (and other Asian) Compani4es Buying up the World’s Oil? ” And despite what you may be thinking, the answer to that question would seem to be... No. Here’s a blurb: “Are Chinese (and other Asian) Companies Buying up the World’s Oil? Does foreign-policy interest in acquiring foreign assets for energy security influence multinational investment? The rapid growth of resource-poor (RP) Asian economies, and their attempts to purchase natural resource reserves abroad, especially by China and India, has received much attention in recent years, generating concern that they are ‘buying up the world’s oil.’ Concern raised over the market behavior of the companies from these economies is that do not undertaking resource investment on a commercial basis, but instead to support foreign policy regarding energy access to oil abroad, a vital issue for RP countries. We discuss the energy security policies of several Asian countries relating to foreign reserve acquisition. We test whether firms from RP countries pay more for foreign petroleum reserves than would firms from resource-rich (RR) countries. However, we find no significant differences in the values paid for foreign reserves between acquirers from RP countries and those from RR countries with similar characteristics.” Huh. I reserve final judgment until peer reviewed, but that’s quite interesting nonetheless.

Have a nice weekend!