january

Rates, regulation and redistribution are all increasing. Are investors entering a new regime of higher inflation and volatility? What impact does this environment have on valuations, particularly as central banks reduce their influence? What investment style is most conducive to this market regime?

A capital allocator’s dilemma in a zero-yield world with higher inflation is how to construct a robust, balanced portfolio that can also withstand equity-market sell-offs.

Alternative strategies can be incredibly useful as a flexible tool to solve risk and return problems, but they are largely under utilised by asset owners in Australia. Alternative strategies form a key part of the Future Fund’s portfolio toolkit. This session examined how the use of hedge funds and alternative strategies has evolved over time for Australia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Market inefficiencies can erupt due to temporary supply and demand imbalances, regulation, information asymmetries and market psychology among other reasons. This session explored how to exploit these opportunities in a market-neutral manner.

Managing a portfolio during a bull run is easy. The challenge comes in protecting clients during severe market downturns. What does the design and implementation of portfolios that can withstand market surprises look like?

Prior to joining Blackstone, Joe Dowling led Brown University’s endowment fund, as chief executive and previously a chief investment officer. Over trailing three, five, and 10-year periods, Brown endowment is placed in the top ventile of its peers, according to data maintained by Cambridge Associates. This session drew on his experience to discuss the lessons learned for using hedge funds to enhance long-term risk-adjusted return.

As the role of bonds as a diversifier dwindles, what are the alternatives? This session looked at the replacements for bond strategies including volatility strategies, and the benefits and challenges associated with this path.

The Your Future Your Super (YFYS) reforms challenge the use of absolute return funds. In this exclusive keynote David Bell, executive director of The Conexus Institute, released new research on how funds can not only live with the YFYS performance test, but demonstrate a pathway forward which is consistent with asset owner best practice, namely total portfolio management.

The Your Future Your Super reforms have created challenges for absolute return funds. This session covered the impact from the suggested benchmarking to passive indices reforms and the unintended consequences. It looked at how industry is facing into these challenges and what the path ahead for the asset class looks like.

Welcome remarks from Brett Clark at TAL Australia.

This session considered the challenges faced by the whole insurance industry, both locally and abroad. Further analysis will consider the role for international best practice, AI and behavioural economics in improving engagement.

• Is there an ongoing role for group insurance within superannuation?
• Can insurance ever move beyond being a grudge purchase?
• What innovations can we expect around products, experience and affordability?

A perennial challenge in making life insurance well understood and embraced by the public is the perceived gap between the promise and what is ultimately delivered when it comes time to claim. This session explored the gaps and how a more universal approach or innovations in terms can help to reduce complexity.

• How does group insurance sit alongside other worker compensation schemes?
• How do we make sure consumers understand the risks when part-time or unemployed?
• Would enforcing the voluntary code improve member outcomes?

In its role as prudential regulator for insurance and superannuation, APRA oversees both sides of the provision of group insurance in superannuation. Recently APRA released a letter critical of how insurers and super funds are working together. This session explored the regulatory framework for provision of group insurance in super, with respective specialists from the two APRA divisions. This session explored the overarching regulation of provision of group insurance in superannuation. It also explored the challenges of the current environment, particularly those associated with the stapling aspects of the Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) reforms.

China’s growth an evolution as an economic super power is a critical long-term issue for institutional investors. This session examined the risks and opportunities in the Chinese equities markets and how investors can best gain access.

Opening this event, which brings delegates back together in-person, CIOs will share the risks and opportunities they have been exploring and how they are positioning for the portfolio of the future. This session includes roundtable discussion.

How will Your Future, Your Super impact the way that super funds manage member’s money? We work from investment strategy through to implementation and reporting. We consider the degree of constraint created by the test and consider the impact on member outcomes. This session includes roundtable discussion.

This session will look at the processes, people and governance that marks best practice for very large asset owners, and for Australian investors it discusses the path to getting there. This session includes roundtable discussion

A total portfolio approach overcomes the governance, benchmark and inertia drags inherent in strategic asset allocation and can add up to 100 basis points above SAA, according to its proponents. This session examines the benefits of TPA including improved dynamism and why Australia’s asset owners should be embracing it. This session includes roundtable discussion.

This session examines some specific examples of how the regulatory regime is impacting investments. This session includes roundtable discussion.

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was limited to a disruption to the Chinese economy, Warwick McKibbon explored seven different scenarios of how the virus might evolve and using his own modelling technique examined the impacts of different scenarios on macroeconomic outcomes and financial markets. He discusses that model, which is now being used by many central banks around the world, and what the ongoing pandemic means for the global economy. This session includes roundtable discussion.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Norman Swan became of the face of the ongoing health crisis and how we all need to adjust to living with COVID.

The Future Fund embarked on an ambitious project instigated during the COVID crisis which includes a reconsideration of investment assumptions and a questioning of key themes as the investment team endeavours to navigate an environment that includes lower for longer, greater geopolitical risk, inflation risk and changing asset class correlations. This session looks at that project including a re-evaluation of the board’s appetite for risk, a review of investment beliefs and the fund’s comparative advantages.

This session outlines the key characteristics of the current policy environment and the implications for markets, and examines a flexible but comprehensive framework for portfolio management that can be applied to improve the stability of returns and engineer for outperformance.

China is a simultaneous threat and an opportunity for investors. This session, with insights from one of the world’s foremost experts on geopolitics, looks at how to navigate a worsening geopolitical situation and what it means for economic growth. Is the current course a steady state, or are big shocks, for the better or for the worse, possible and even likely? This session includes roundtable discussion.

This session will look at the intricate details of the merger between Sunsuper and QSuper. It will discuss the philosophical motivations, the various cost savings and investment opportunities of a large entity, and the investment model of the future.

In a special conversation, the Minister for Superannuation and the shadow assistant treasurer will discuss their focus and priorities for the sector in 2022 and engage in an open Q&A with fund chairs.

APRA’s newly appointed executive board member will provide an insight into the regulator’s priorities for 2022 and beyond.

As China continues to take steps towards strengthening its standing as a global superpower, one of the world’s authorities on geopolitical tensions with a historical context weighs in on the situation with Taiwan and implications for the rest of the world.

With the Federal Reserve and government stimulating and spending in an effort to kickstart the world’s great consumer-driven economic engine following prolonged periods of lockdown, this discussion will consider what a return to normal might look like and the possible implications for investors around the world.

Reflecting on what could end up being the seminal climate discussion of our time, experts, policy advisers and investors bring an on the ground perspective of COP26 as well as put into context the likely implications for Australian funds in the years to come

As the baby boomers move through the process of retirement - the super funds, which have been designed to provide the best possible savinging and investment process need to morph - into the funds that provide them the best possible retirement - Andrew Inwood from CoreData looks at why smaller funds are outperforming in this area and the core lessons from international successes

It’s not just investment risk superannuation boards need to consider as their assets grow and obligations to society broadens. Changing consumer trends, rapid development in technology, increasing pressures from regulators and the unintended consequences of industry consolidation are creating a unique set of pressures for fund chairs to grapple with.

A greater need for transparency and higher expectations for evaluation and measurement of member outcomes will push trustees to be more equipped and more accountable for their own actions as well as the decisions made by their executives and fund employees more broadly. This session considers what it takes to be a trustee director in a new age of accountability.

Decision making at critical moments is an essential component of leadership particularly within large and complex organisations in finance and investor organisations. This session explores theories and models of decision making as well as puts to the test practical tools chairs can apply to tacking thorny decisions.

Norman Swan has become a familiar face and voice in Australian living rooms during the pandemic through nightly news broadcasts and his ABC podcast Coronacast. In this session Dr Swan will unpack his thinking on how this pandemic played out and consider what’s next along-side variables likely to contribute to uneven recoveries across the world such as political fracturing, environmental degradation, extreme poverty and low standards of public health.

In this case study, Border to Coast chair Chris Hitchen gives a unique insight into the governance charters and joint committee structures that underpin the partnerships its undertakes to manage £55 billion for pension fund partners.

Influential consultant Marc Levy will provide his interpretation of long term ‘forces at work’ in the industry and some scenarios of what the industry might look like in 2032, challenging chairs to consider what they can do differently now to achieve a better future for their members.

Influential consultant Marc Levy will provide his interpretation of long term ‘forces at work’ in the industry and some scenarios of what the industry might look like in 2032, challenging chairs to consider what they can do differently now to achieve a better future for their members.

In this Q&A discussion, renowned Australian ethicist Simon Longstaff calls out the cost of ethical failures and considers how ethical decision making, business models and frameworks can be adapted to make a more efficient and economical use of resources, human and intellectual capital.

What will the super landscape look like in 2030 and what key changes lie ahead for investment operations? This session brings together industry thought leaders from different parts of the industry to discuss the mega trends in superannuation from industry consolidation, data and tech disruption through to post-retirement and the heightened focus on transparency and accountability.

Against the background of ongoing mergers, a wave of new regulatory requirements, the shift to insourcing investment as well as key discussion points raised in the opening session, three heads of investment operations will drill down on the challenges and opportunities they face and the best way forward.

This session will provide a global perspective on trends and approaches to the critical operational areas of tech transformation and data management.

The regulatory requirements in superannuation and the demand for data has never been greater. In this session, APRA and ASIC will outline their expectations around key developments.

In a new paper on the Your Future Your Super reforms, David Bell explores the far-reaching impact on investment operations including performance reporting and attribution, risk and tracking error management, SAA determination and reporting, and the overriding demand for data.

This session provides an update from the Australian Custodial Services Association on key industry issues, engagement and medium-term strategy. This session will also include the ACSA awards and the Conexus lifetime achievement award.

There are mounting industry concerns that a shallow talent pool and widening skills gap in investment operations is a threat to innovation and growth. This session will examine these challenges as well as the profound impact of COVID lockdowns on work practices and employee retention.

The COVID disruption of 2020 saw renewed regulatory focus and public scrutiny on the valuations of unlisted assets. This session brings together industry experts to explore how the enhanced valuation requirements in APRA’s SPS 530 will impact valuation frequency, the governance framework, unit pricing and more.

With the increased regulatory and public scrutiny on ESG, how should super funds be sourcing, measuring and tracking? What is the best approach to tackling the challenges around taxonomy and gathering data from different assets and sources?