First out on the day was Mussie Kidane, CIO of Pictet North America Advisors who shared his personal journey from selector to allocator. In his keynote, he also shared some of the “secrets” of how to be a good fund selector:
“Meet and get to know as many managers as possible.”
“The beauty of the role is you can ask even stupid question. As a matter of fact, you are paid to ask questions.”
When describing the move from selector to allocator, Mussie Kidane says: “Fund selection is about selecting the right players and asset allocation is about coaching a successful team”.
In his keynote, Sander Van Stijn, head of mandate management at Dutch PGGM Investments, walked us through their transformation from index tracker to conscious investor. Their approach boils down to knowing what you own. “If you don’t know what you own you can’t take action on sustainability, risk and return,” he said.
Sander Van Stijn also showed how asset owners can put pressure on asset managers who vote against shareholder initiatives.
It remains to be seen if more asset owners will move towards a more concentrated portfolio, managed by a few external managers, rather than just having a broad global index like portfolio. PGGM Investments has decreased the number of individual securities in their equity portfolio by some 80 per cent but at the same time showing a tracking error of 1,3 per cent and a beta of 0,99. In the new portfolio they also decreased the number of companies with high ESG risks by 90 per cent and the carbon footprint by 70 per cent.
During the investment seminar, we also heard from four different fund managers with Will Prentis, an investment specialist at Wellington Management, talking about credit opportunities in Europe. In his presentation he pointed to the importance of instrument selection and timing.
Jeroen Hagens, client portfolio manager at Robeco, talking about how they deliver enhanced index solutions by looking at value, momentum, analyst revisions, quality and short-term signals.
Richard Brown, a client portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, focused on small cap investing. He highlighted the fact that the asset class is priced at an historical low compared to large cap and that small caps can perform well even when interest rates remain high.
Grant Bughman, head of client portfolio management at Vontobel Asset Management, talked about AI and the impact on US equity portfolios. We didn’t get an answer to the question if AI is a bubble or not. Instead, Vontobel is looking at creating a portfolio with different growth categories: leaders, defenders and opportunistic investments.
During the Awards dinner, author Johan Norberg shared insight from his new book; What could we learn from the rise and fall of golden ages. Asked if he would describe our current time as a glass half full or half empty, he said: “The question is not if the glass is half full or half empty because we can always re-fill it”.
At Tell Media Group, we of course hope that the golden time for investing is still to come!
First out on the day was Mussie Kidane, CIO of Pictet North America Advisors who shared his personal journey from selector to allocator. In his keynote, he also shared some of the “secrets” of how to be a good fund selector: “Meet and get to know as many managers as possible.” “The beauty of the role is you can ask even stupid question. As a matter of fact, you are paid to ask questions.” When describing the move from selector to allocator, Mussie Kidane says: “Fund selection is about selecting the right players and asset allocation is about coaching aIf you’re new to Tell Media Group, create an account.
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