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John Ruffolo, CEO of OMERS Ventures, is leaving the firm, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System said. Ruffolo, who is also leaving his role as executive managing director of OMERS Platform Investments, the pension system’s innovation arm, will remain in an advisory capacity until Dec. 31, the statement said. The statement did not indicate why Ruffolo is stepping down. Ruffolo founded […]

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Harvard University’s endowment has returned 10 percent on its investments in 2018, up from 8.1 percent in 2017. But the endowment’s returns trailed its peers, which clocked more than 12 percent returns for 2018. Nirmal Narvekar, chief executive of Harvard Management Co, which manages the $39.2 billion endowment, on Sept. 28 reported the returns in a brief […]

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The Smedvig family may have divested its shipping and exploration businesses, but Smedvig Capital, its investment office, continues to navigate through disruptive technologies to find investments. Norwegian Peder Smedvig established his shipping company in 1915. The family also invested in canned foods, especially fish, in the First World War and became the third largest producer of canned foods in Norway. The […]

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New Mexico State Investment Council’s board at its Sept. 25 meeting approved a $50 million re-up to Vista Equity Partners’ seventh fund, targeting $12 billion. The sovereign fund previously committed $100 million each to Vista Equity’s fifth and sixth funds. The smaller re-up this time is due to concentration guidelines in the policy that limit […]

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Private equity is a preferred strategy among family offices, and North American FOs led the way with high PE allocations in their portfolios. Additionally, family offices increased their private equity allocation by almost four percentage points in 2017 from 2016. Eighty percent thought the asset class performed in-line or exceeded their expectations. That was the upshot […]

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Social Capital said it would cease operations as a venture firm, no longer accept capital from outside sources, and shrink by about 40 percent in size. The firm, plagued by a steady stream of departures in the past year, including Co-Founders Mamoon Hamid and Ted Maidenberg, provided the news in a blog post and interview […]

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Impact Engine, an investor in early-stage and Series A impact ventures, is raising its first hybrid PE fund, targeting $100 million. The fund will invest in emerging PE funds and make direct investments. Impact’s debut impact-focused PE fund has already raised $10 million, primarily from family offices, a source familiar with the company said. Impact […]

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The Engine Accelerator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s first fund for so-called tough tech, officially closed at $205.2 million, according to a recent report from the school’s treasurer for the year ended June 30, 2018. The Engine initially announced in September 2017 that it had raised $200 million for its first fund, according to a previous […]

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California Public Employees’ Retirement System named Ben Meng chief investment officer, succeeding CIO Ted Eliopoulos. Meng, 48, has been deputy CIO at China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange for three years. He previously worked a seven-year stint at CalPERS. In that earlier tenure, he served as investment director of asset allocation, and was previously a portfolio manager […]

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Baltimore Fire & Police Employees’ Retirement System’s strategy of investing directly in private equity funds is generating strong performance, a presentation by its investment adviser, Summit Strategies Group, said. The pension system began investing in PE in 2005, and the PE portfolio construction has shifted significantly in the past two years. Baltimore’s F&P pension system started committing directly to […]