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AI Infrastructure Becomes Key Asset Class for Pension and SWF Investors
As forecast first by World Pensions® experts, 2024 saw a substantial increase in pension and SWF investment in AI infrastructure assets including giant data centers and advanced microchip foundries: “the bedrock of the fifth industrial revolution” and the “main playground for the Sino-American great game” (Cold War 2). As we write these lines, Microsoft announced…
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Pension Investment, Venture Capital & GDP Growth: A Question of Sovereignty
In the upcoming VdA roundtable held at the French Senate Friday 14th February 2025, we’ll be sharing the early results from our ‘Future of Retirement and Investing’ research primer co-authored with Lionel Tourtier, advisory convention member, Fondation Charles-de-Gaulle, executive director, LT Savings Retirement & Growth Assn. (Génération ERIC), and the Hon. Nick Sherry, former pensions minister…
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Israeli Tech Sector Sees +78% Rise in Exit Value Driven by Cash Rich US Investors
Despite the lingering Gaza war and downgrade of Israel’s credit rating – now at “Baa1”, close to “junk bond” status, 2024 was a very good year for Israel’s tech sector: “the past year has seen a 78% surge in the value of exits by Israeli companies. The total amount reached $13.4 billion, compared to $7.5…
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BNP Gets AXA’s Coveted Private Markets Business with AXA IM Deal
Christmas came early for BNP Paribas with the completion of the acquisition of AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) announced in Paris earlier today. At $ 5.1 bn. (agreed upon valuation when the sale process started five months ago) for approx. $ 850 bn. in assets under management, it looks like a bargain by any measure…
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G20 Pensions Roundtable, Rio Summit, 18 Nov 2024
Leading pension CEOs, CIOs, and retirement experts met at the JW Marriott in Copacabana on the sidelines of the G20 for the 8th annual G20 Pensions Dialogue (18 November 2024) That high-level closed-doors conference (hybrid format) brought together many of Brazil’s senior pension fund executives who discussed “the future of finance, social protection and asset…
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Trump’s Victory in Context: New Cultural Currents from Middle America to Michigan
Trump’s Victory in Context: New Cultural Currents from Middle America to Michigan’s ‘Mysterious’ Middle Eastern Hearts and Minds . . . https://videovoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Understanding-Trumps-Victory_AL-DOSTOR__6-NOV-2024.pdf
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Trumponomics:Supply Side on Steroids and the New Bull Moose Coalition
As the surprise victory of Donald J. Trump stuns European Union governments and NATO policy planners alike, Maher Nicolas Firzli, one of the original coiners of the term ‘Trumponomics’, talks to UK, Brazilian and Arabian Gulf experts re “what a second Trump administration means for Britain, Europe and the world”. In geoeconomics, time is non-linear:…
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Notes from Riyadh,Beijing & Washington
Earlier today, Governor Yasir Al-Rümayyân announced that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF) plans to cut its overseas investments by about a third, as the Kingdom adopts a resolutely “developmentalist” investment policy aiming to “leapfrog right into the fifth industrial revolution” (FIR) and thus play a central role in the “Age of Geoeconomics” (Cold War…
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Pension Powers, GDP Growth & the New Wealth of Nations
https://videovoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NEW-WEALTH-OF-NATIONS__29-OCTOBER-2024.pdf
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BRICS Summit: The Global South Goes to the Northern Volga
In this exclusive interview with Egypt’s Akhbar el-Yom weekly, EU ASEAN Centre director Maher Nicolas Firzli joins a roster of Chinese, Russian and Kazakh geoeconomics experts to discuss the significance of Kazan’s Summit, at a time when the “New Cold War” seems set to enter a new phase MN Firzli insists on the strategic role…