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Explainers

Coverage, charts, video and research on Explainers for universal owners.

Latest in Explainers
Pension Funds

Pension Funded Status, Explained

How to read the single number that tells you whether a pension can pay what it owes — and why the same plan can show several funded ratios at once.

UAO Editorial · Jun 14, 2026
Pension Funds

The Discount Rate and Pension Liabilities, Explained

Why a single assumption — the discount rate — can swing a pension plan's reported liabilities by hundreds of billions, and how the post-2022 rate regime reshaped funded status.

UAO Editorial · Jun 14, 2026
Institutional Investing

The Reference Portfolio, Explained

A reference portfolio is the simple, low-cost benchmark that tells a sophisticated fund whether all its complexity is actually adding value.

UAO Editorial · Jun 13, 2026
Sovereign Wealth Funds

Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), Explained

How the world's oldest sovereign wealth fund turns Kuwait's oil revenue into more than a trillion dollars of intergenerational savings.

UAO Editorial · Jun 13, 2026
Asset Owners

Who Are the Largest Asset Owners in the World?

The world's 100 largest asset owners control about $29.3 trillion. A guide to who tops the list — sovereign wealth funds and pension funds — and why they matter.

UAO Editorial · Jun 12, 2026
Portfolio Strategy

The Total Portfolio Approach, Explained

The total portfolio approach judges every investment by its contribution to the whole fund's goal rather than to an asset-class benchmark. A guide to how TPA works and who uses it.

UAO Editorial · Jun 12, 2026
Sovereign Wealth Funds

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Explained

ADIA is Abu Dhabi's roughly $1.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund and one of the world's oldest and most diversified global investors. A guide to how it is run and how it invests.

UAO Editorial · Jun 12, 2026
Private Markets

Infrastructure as an Asset Class, Explained

Infrastructure has become a core institutional allocation, prized for stable, inflation-linked cash flows. A guide to how asset owners invest in it and what returns to expect.

UAO Editorial · Jun 12, 2026
The Daily Brief

The morning briefing for the people who allocate long-horizon capital.

Research, charts, video and podcast analysis for the institutions investing at the scale of the world.