Foreign institutional investors mainly consist of mutual funds, pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, banks, asset management companies etc.
This means pension funds, endowments, foundations, foreign investors, hedge funds, banks, insurance companies, and a host of other entities that are either not taxed or taxed using a different structure than individuals.
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Investors include some government and private sector pension and retirement funds, a number of charitable foundations, university endowments, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies.
Most of the billion-dollar money pools, endowments and pension funds were cut in half over 24 months.
Driving prices down further are stressed endowments and pension funds looking to dump their private equity stakes in the secondary market.
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Just two years ago, the private equity business was reeling from massive redemptions by university endowments and pension funds purging their illiquid investments at fire sale prices.
His simple indexing philosophy has led to better performance with less risk compared to the vast majority of investors who are trying to beat the markets, including financial advisors and large institutions such as endowments and pension funds.
That means the industry will become more focused on institutional investors like pension funds and endowments.
Demand for yield will come from pension funds, endowments and individual retirees seeking to fund liabilities and cash flow needs.
Wall Street bankers routinely tout hedge funds as a way for institutions such as pension funds and endowments to diversify and manage risk.
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That makes it a buyer's market, given the slew of desperate banks, pension funds and endowments looking to unload assets to meet obligations.
With returns on American Treasury bonds and high-grade debt too low to meet the needs of pension funds and endowments, they have to take more risks.
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He reckons pension funds and endowments will be sellers of common stocks for some time to come as they position their portfolios to be more risk averse.
The public pensions funds and endowments and other institutional investors that entrust money with these firms are often taking the same long-term view on returns that the general partners have preferred.
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The biggest asset he bequeathed, in retrospect: a track record that turned Bain Capital into a fundraising machine, as pension funds, endowments and rich families sought to capture some of those dazzling returns.
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When private equity fund raising was at its peak, Forbes wondered about the ''mad rush to private equity'' in a March 2006 cover story, questioning the wisdom pension funds and endowments were showing.
According to a recent study by Greenwich Associates of the U.S. investment management market about 14% of U.S. pension funds, endowments and foundations said they were using ETFs in their strategy.
The big buyers were pension funds and endowments.
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Einhorn believes none of these routes would yield as much shareholder value as the iPrefs, because their 4 percent annual dividend yield would make them attractive to investors that otherwise wouldn't look at Apple shares, such as pension funds and endowments.
It acquires equity in startups often on the cheap via a hodgepodge of sources: venture funds in wind down mode, pension funds and endowments looking to purge long-term illiquid assets from their portfolios, or just founders, VCs and angels starved for a little liquidity.
But the insidious culture that allowed Wall Street firms to peddle securities of dubious value to pension funds and charitable endowments remains largely in place.
Many institutional investors, including pension funds and university endowments, are prohibited from owning stocks in sectors that are thought to have a detrimental effect on society.
European schools have been trying to boost their funds through increased endowments, as shown by the fact that both Insead and LBS have recently appointed deans from the business world rather than academia.
This includes many pension funds and university endowments.
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Currently (and for the foreseeable future) the primary investor market for hedge funds is the United States, consisting of US tax-exempt investors, such as public and private pension funds and university endowments, and US high net worth investors.
It's easy to see why investors think fewer dollars will flow to start-ups--73% of venture capitalists expect fund-raising among venture firms to stay the same or decline, as limited partners such as pension funds and university endowments proceed cautiously in a still-struggling economy and remain wary of the venture industry after more than a decade of generally lackluster returns.
Large institutions like pension funds, banks, endowments, and insurance companies suffered punishing and sometimes fatal losses.
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Others, such as some university endowments or defined-benefit pension funds, have backstop commitments that must be honored, and they too must "capitulate" at some point.
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