Customer Reviews

The School of Hard Knocks: The Evolution of Pension Investing at Eastman Kodak

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Rusty Olson's book on his years at Eastman Kodak is a good complement to his "how to" books. It is fascinating to read his discussion of pension investment history at Kodak and - by extension - throughout the US institutional investment world. I would strongly recommend the book to institutional investors.

For anyone who manages or is interested in managing large sums of money for pensions, trusts, endowments, etc., Russell Olson paints a clear, introductory overview of the various investment opportunties that firms should consider when diversifying their portfolios. He discusses several classes of investments from index funds, cash equivalents, common stocks, fixed income, real estate, venture capital, market-neutral (hedge) funds, and several others. You're not going to learn how to start your own fund, but you will get an idea of how to diversify an institutional portfolio among various investment classes. You'll get some insight into the politics involved in institutional investment (e.g. dealing w/ investment committes), investment manager tracking strategies (to properly evaluate your portfolio), and long-term investing (coming to terms w/ the fact that you're not going to beat the S&P every year). Mr. Olson also speaks about pension payouts and a few things to consider from that perspective (like insurance, bulk payments, etc.). Highly recommended for beginners or intermediates (as an overview) in this area.