[civilized]

And what do they accomplish with all that complexity and the absurdly large up-to-2% expense ratio? Any evidence that these funds deliver better than index returns after fees? Or is it just a jobs program for the spreadsheet set?

[fakedang]

Some of the sovereign wealth funds like the Norwegian one and the Middle Eastern ones aim for a 10% annual return. They are extremely stringent about which funds they invest with, and in most cases they go for direct investments rather than passive ones. The funds from those are literally used to fund various welfare programmes for their citizens. They also hire some of the brightest, most talented traders and not some PE-rejects.

Just sucks that Western pension funds hire mostly second-tier folks with the right connections, with a few exceptions here and there, or some stupid union bosses, at least from my experience in PE.