2026 Fiduciary Investors Symposium NSW

Central banks around the world are balancing inflation control, financial stability and growth amid persistent uncertainty and increasing threats to their independence. This opening session will tease out the key macroeconomic issues facing institutional asset owners including the outlook for inflation, productivity and labour markets in an age of geopolitical volatility and challenged monetary policy.

Investors are adjusting to a new world order that encapsulates an unpredictable Trump White House that is reshaping global trade and accelerating economic nationalism. This panel will discuss how chief investment officers are tackling the big secular trends in global markets and societies and building portfolio resilience through asset allocation and organisational strategy and human resources.

Includes table discussion

The global energy transition is accelerating, driven by rising power demand. Across the electrification ecosystem, there are significant opportunities in and around high-growth segments such as data centres, renewable generation, power transmission and battery storage. This session explores how private capital at scale can benefit from multiple long-term secular trends reshaping the global economy and create attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors.

Rising member expectations and tightening regulatory scrutiny are accelerating funds’ decarbonisation agendas. But funds’ climate transition pathways are now encompassing a whole-of-portfolio approach, including public and private equity, real assets and – critically – credit markets. This panel will examine how investors are underwriting transition pathways at issuer and sector level, what decarbonisation means for credit selection and spread resilience, and how stewardship, measurement and transition finance can translate into alpha and portfolio diversification.

Australian institutional investors are increasingly embedding AI into the heart of investment and operational workflows to speed up decisions and generate alpha in new ways. But the shift also raises questions about governance and accountability to ensure that the guardrails fundamental to fiduciary investing remain robust in an increasingly automated landscape. This panel will interrogate the application of AI technologies to investment processes, and consider how these advancements ultimately shape member experience and outcomes.

Includes table discussion

As the private credit market matures, the traditional direct lending playbook is being rewritten. With spreads tightening and the lines between public and private markets blurring, institutional investors are exploring a range of new options to maintain yield and diversification. In this session, a global leader in alternative credit will discuss the opportunity asset-backed finance as both a 5,000-year-old asset class and the “next big thing” in markets.

This panel will examine the rapid growth of private credit in Australia, focusing on credit cycle outlook, evolving risk dynamics and the regulatory landscape shaping the market. It will interrogate demand among institutional asset owners and the nuances of manager selection, valuations and governance in this controversial but popular asset class.

The era of US exceptionalism is giving way to a more volatile world defined by mercantilism, shifting trade blocs and stark monetary-policy divergence. As institutional portfolios expand their global footprints, currency has shifted from a secondary consideration to a primary risk driver. With hedge ratios back under scrutiny – and the scale of the industry testing counterparties’ capacity to intermediate risk – this session will unpack a weakening US dollar and FX hedging strategies.

The central private equity issue for asset owners is not whether to allocate, but how to justify allocations under fierce scrutiny from members, regulators and governments. This session will examine valuation discipline in a higher interest rate environment; transparency and liquidity risk; fee alignment; and potential concentration risk as capital pools grow. It will provide a candid reassessment of private equity’s role in portfolios, its performance, and the opportunity cost in an environment of inexplicably bullish public markets.

Australia’s energy transition is accelerating, creating an evolving opportunity set across renewable generation, storage, transmission and enabling infrastructure. But much to the Albanese government’s chagrin, demand from offshore institutional investors seems to outstrip local asset owners. This session will provide an update on the emerging policy and economic certainty in renewable energy and the question of its suitability for institutional asset allocation.

Home bias has long been a normalised feature of portfolio construction, even as large asset owners increasingly push offshore. This panel will consider the merits of investing in Australia, even as geopolitics and policy risk reshape capital flows, forcing asset owners to reassess what “domestic” and “global” really mean, and whether the traditional US anchor still earns its place. It will assess the health and hygiene of Australia’s equity and credit markets.

Includes table discussion

Reflecting on his experience leading one of the pioneering Australian super operations abroad, this investment leader will discuss his approach to asset allocation, leadership and competitive advantages of running a nimble super fund investment program in a competitive market.

A damning Special Commission report handed down in 2020 concluded the state of New South Wales had “inadequate” public policy in place to deal with an epidemic in substance abuse, especially methamphetamine or “ice”. This session will provide a thought-provoking interrogation of the harm minimisation and zero tolerance approaches to drug policy, while asking broader questions around law reform, medical science and the culture wars.

Includes table discussion

The final session of the symposium will see investment leaders take sides in a formal Oxford Union-style debate on the motion “that funds need to embrace a total portfolio approach to deliver good investment outcomes in this new market environment”.

Adjudicator: Dr Geoff Warren, research fellow, The Conexus Institute; Honorary Associate Professor, Australian National University