European pension funds need to make a “fundamental” behavioural and cultural shift to close “a yawning gap between the rhetoric of governance improvements of recent years and their reality on the ground”, according to a paper from The 300 Club, a group of investment professionals seeking to challenge mainstream investment practice and thinking.
Written by Sally Bridgeland (pictured), senior adviser at governance consultancy Avida International and former chief executive of BP Pension Trustees, and Amin Rajan, chief executive at Create-Research, the paper argues that while European pension funds have made some notable improvements with respect to investment and risk management in recent years, the changes do not go far enough.