2025 Fiduciary Investors Symposium VIC

Investors are adjusting to a new world order that encapsulates an unpredictable Trump administration that is reshaping global trade, leading to new bilateral trade agreements and a focus on national interests, including greater expenditure on defence. Meanwhile, the transformative impact of AI could be a positive force for productivity or derail the global economy by slashing jobs. This panel will discuss how asset owners are tackling these macro themes and consider the latest strategies for building portfolio resilience.

Includes table discussion

In this keynote, Alicia Gregory will explore how geopolitical risk, capital flows and a multi-polar world are reconfiguring private markets and investor behaviour. Drawing on her experience at the Future Fund and Blue Owl, she will outline the impact of these forces over the next decade, the changing nature of specific private market assets, and the future of the US as the world’s home of innovation and the deepest capital markets.

The accelerating momentum of renewable energy investment is reshaping long-term portfolio strategies for asset owners, even as the US political and regulatory landscape grows more complex in the world’s largest economy. This panel will examine what the recent spate of Australian asset owner-backed deals means for the local energy transition, the political and regulatory landscape, and the evolving balance of valuations, opportunities, and risks in the sector.

This keynote address will explore the evolution of climate investing approaches, including low-carbon strategies and climate solutions, Paris-aligned and climate transition benchmarks, and forward-looking climate transition focus and engagement. It will demonstrate how these approaches can be implemented in portfolio construction alongside achieving risk-adjusted returns in line with investors’ requirements.

Emerging markets have historically fared poorly during heightened periods of volatility, but recent geopolitical shifts are challenging that assumption as investors reallocate capital away from the US. This panel will consider whether underlying EM fundamentals are accelerating and which regions could benefit in this new environment. It will also consider EM opportunities beyond equities and look at how asset owners are managing risk through a new lens.

The world is rapidly changing as entrenched historical and media narratives, as well as economic and diplomatic structures, are reshaped by the unorthodox Trump Administration. Professor Stephen Kotkin, a renowned expert on geopolitics and authoritarian regimes, will examine the concept of US exceptionalism, alongside his outlook on international relations, war and peace in the world.

Includes table discussion

Against a chaotic background of high and rising government debt burdens, a US tariff assault on top of heightened geopolitical risks, and the Fed in the political crosshairs government bonds have struggled to keep up with cash while credit has delivered strong returns. Will this continue, or is it time for a rotation to duration?

Passive, low-cost strategies dominate today’s equity portfolios given the long-term underperformance of active equity managers and high levels of market concentration. However, a more volatile market environment, a return of market breadth, and the rise of big data and AI, are once again opening up the possibility of extracting alpha from public markets. A look at the latest asset owner thinking in world still constrained by Your Future Your Super for super funds and a range of competing considerations for all institutional investors.

A future environment of potentially persistent inflation, rising interest rates and rising geopolitical uncertainty threaten to change the investment landscape and unseat traditional equity-bond correlations. This panel will explore the latest thinking on how various hedge funds strategies can improve portfolio resilience and diversification given a long history of mixed sector performance and concerns over fees and transparency.

Unlisted assets continue to deliver for investors over the long-term. A look at the rising demand for real assets including infrastructure and real estate by region and asset class, and the ways asset owners are managing the risks, including in the evolving energy transition sector.

Includes table discussion

As it grows, the superannuation system faces – and may even be an accelerant or cause of – a number of systemic risks. This interactive session will present latest evidence-based research on super fund investing processes, with a view to collective problem solving.

Includes table discussion

John Pearce has overseen UniSuper’s growth from assets under management of just over $20 billion in 2009 to almost $158 billion today. This fireside chat will draw on Pearce's broad financial market and industry experience as he shares his view on markets, the strategies he has employed to grow the fund, and what drives him as an individual.

In a candid conversation, philanthropist and anti-firearms campaigner Walter Mikac will share his personal story and strategies to inspire purpose in the face of loss and tragedy.

The foundational role of digital infrastructure in a data-driven world is more critical than ever, with exponential growth in cloud computing and AI driving unprecedented demand for data centres. This session will dive into the investment strategies and fundamentals underpinning this revolution via a behind-the-scenes look at Australia’s largest ever data centre deal: Blackstone’s $24 billion acquisition of AirTrunk. It will reveal how asset owners should value and consider digital infrastructure – which can combine elements of real estate, private credit, and traditional infrastructure – as well as the outlook for the booming centre sector. It will assess opportunities and risks including power procurement, grid access, and hyperscaler concentration.

This session will assess whether and where a US sharemarket fuelled by AI and Magnificent Seven hype can offer pockets of value. It will provide a candid overview of dynamics in global equities and suggest traditional value investing may provide institutional asset owners with an antidote to increasing concentration and geopolitical risk in their portfolios.

Includes table discussion

Super funds are in many ways shaped by their chief investment officers, particularly in an environment of structural change. This session will feature an in-depth interview with Mercer Super CIO Graeme Miller, unpacking his approach to investment leadership and governance, with a focus on harnessing competitive strengths and disadvantages, alongside his reflections on both Mercer Super and his previous role leading TelstraSuper’s investment functions.

This session looks at the ways asset owners are building portfolios that can deliver sustainable retirement income while managing sequencing risk and volatility that can derail a lifetime of saving.

Stanford Professor Stephen Kotkin returns to examine the societal and geopolitical implications of artificial intelligence amid a US–China technological arms race and emerging environment of strategic competition. This keynote address will consider how AI can be harnessed responsibly for maximum benefit and draw on pertinent lessons from history, including how regimes use power.