Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Investment committee governance decisions destroy massive value while chasing marginal alpha

Jon Hirtle · Jon Hirtle – The Pioneer of OCIO (Capital Allocators, EP.98) · May 6, 2019 · at 50:25

Jon Hirtle, Executive Chairman of OCIO firm Hirtle Callaghan, explains why institutional investors should prioritize 'governance alpha' over searching for minor manager outperformance.

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“Everybody's had lots of decades of concentrating on why the small cap manager ought to beat the benchmark by 50 basis points. And yet, a lot of times, the governance decisions that are coming out of the committees are destroying massive amounts of value, and no one's ever held accountable for that.”

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