Myners: Herd instinct

Is Paul Myners guilty of flip-flopping on private equity? Six years ago, the UK government’s former pensions tsar authored a report urging pension trustees to consider investing more of their funds in private equity. Now he’s accused of saying publicly that they may be investing too much. Pundits have been quick to level the charge of inconsistency. But that’s not really fair. The point Myners was making in 2001 wasn’t that pension trustees should simply pile into private equity. It was that the...