P&I Conference Calendar

P&I DC East Coast Defined Contribution Conference

The Year of Transition Management

It’s never top of any pension fund plan sponsor’s list of favorite things to do, but this year, hiring a transition manager will definitely be part of the must do list of many sponsors. After a year of wildly fluctuating markets, many plans are finally starting to make the changes that they were unwilling to consider when markets were in crisis. This may involve a total reassessment of the plan’s asset allocation structure, a manager clear-out or a simple rebalancing exercise. However, all of these involve moving assets – and when assets move, plan sponsors seek assistance, in this case in the form of a transition manager.
The logic of transition management has always been clear. These professionals are trained to control risk and minimize cost when assets are moving from one manager to another, or one strategy to another. But the benefits are highest when markets are volatile and the transition manager can demonstrate the costs associated with an unmanaged transition. In a year when volatility remains steadily high, expect to see plan sponsors needing to understand how best to manage their asset transitions.

Revisiting the 401(k) Investment Line-Up

It's been a year of many changes, as many participants in defined contribution plans have seen the value of their pension pot drop. The turbulent financial markets have made many plan sponsors reconsider the range of investment options available within their DC plans, in order to ensure that their participants have a better experience in the future. This wholesale review is bringing to light a number of issues - and a range of novel solutions. This conference will examine the changing DC investment line-up.

Revisiting the 401(k) Investment Line-Up

It's been a year of many changes, as many participants in defined contribution plans have seen the value of their pension pot drop. The turbulent financial markets have made many plan sponsors reconsider the range of investment options available within their DC plans, in order to ensure that their participants have a better experience in the future. This wholesale review is bringing to light a number of issues - and a range of novel solutions. This conference will examine the changing DC investment line-up.

Risk Management in a New Era

Many investors entered 2008 thinking that they understood risk management, and its close cousins’ risk budgeting, monitoring and reporting. With funding levels generally high after dips earlier in the decade, pension funds felt secure. A year and a half later, after diversification assumptions went awry and the number of fat-tail events multiplied, few investors feel quite as complacent. The questions are many and varied, and plan sponsors, asset managers and consultants – not to mention financial academics – are only just beginning to come to some consensus on what risk management best practice will look like in the future.
This series of conferences will consider where the debate remains and where some new practices are gaining traction. It will ask how plan sponsors are altering risk management practice at the portfolio level, asset level and operational level. It will consider what information plan sponsors need from their managers and what questions they should be asking about counterparty risk and liquidity. What risks are managers hedging – inflation, liquidity, interest rates, tail risk? And it will consider how confident plan sponsors are of their ability to measure, monitor and manage risk in today’s investment environment.

Risk Management in a New Era

Many investors entered 2008 thinking that they understood risk management, and its close cousins’ risk budgeting, monitoring and reporting. With funding levels generally high after dips earlier in the decade, pension funds felt secure. A year and a half later, after diversification assumptions went awry and the number of fat-tail events multiplied, few investors feel quite as complacent. The questions are many and varied, and plan sponsors, asset managers and consultants – not to mention financial academics – are only just beginning to come to some consensus on what risk management best practice will look like in the future.
This series of conferences will consider where the debate remains and where some new practices are gaining traction. It will ask how plan sponsors are altering risk management practice at the portfolio level, asset level and operational level. It will consider what information plan sponsors need from their managers and what questions they should be asking about counterparty risk and liquidity. What risks are managers hedging – inflation, liquidity, interest rates, tail risk? And it will consider how confident plan sponsors are of their ability to measure, monitor and manage risk in today’s investment environment.

2010 Endowments & Foundations Symposium

After some years of financial turmoil, endowments and foundations are reassessing their overall investment and risk management strategies, and commitments for the future. It is a process that requires transparency and clear-sightedness, to understand what went wrong and what went right during 2008-9. As new strategic directions emerge, so too will new investment outlooks. They will be particular to the perpetual nature of the endowment and foundation world. Asset managers understand that the needs of this investor group require products and solutions designed specifically for them. Issues such as liquidity management and new approaches to risk management that incorporate a desire to minimize downside risk are part of the new offerings. Others are continuing to emerge, including new approaches to investing in alternatives and overall risk management.

Liability Driven Investing Conference

Although take-up of this compelling strategy by defined benefit plans hit a bit of a hiccup as a result of the financial crisis, the question around liability driven investing is no longer ‘if’, but ‘when.’ Plan sponsors large and small have become convinced over the past few years of using assets and liabilities to organize their portfolio management, rather than the now outmoded asset-only approach. But LDI is not an easy or a quick strategy to implement, as it involves reconsidering far more than just investment strategy, also risk management, reporting and importantly communicating to stakeholders. The conversation today therefore is about implementing LDI, and understanding the unique challenges that each plan and plan sponsor bring to the process. As more plans turn back to the opportunity to implement LDI, after a year in which other considerations may have seemed more important, this series of conferences will focus not only on the initial issues, but also on those that crop up later, as LDI needs to be managed and monitored dynamically over time.

Liability Driven Investing Conference

Although take-up of this compelling strategy by defined benefit plans hit a bit of a hiccup as a result of the financial crisis, the question around liability driven investing is no longer ‘if’, but ‘when.’ Plan sponsors large and small have become convinced over the past few years of using assets and liabilities to organize their portfolio management, rather than the now outmoded asset-only approach. But LDI is not an easy or a quick strategy to implement, as it involves reconsidering far more than just investment strategy, also risk management, reporting and importantly communicating to stakeholders. The conversation today therefore is about implementing LDI, and understanding the unique challenges that each plan and plan sponsor bring to the process. As more plans turn back to the opportunity to implement LDI, after a year in which other considerations may have seemed more important, this series of conferences will focus not only on the initial issues, but also on those that crop up later, as LDI needs to be managed and monitored dynamically over time.

2010 Global Pension Symposium

In this, the fourth year of this important international symposium, Pensions & Investments and Nomura Securities will be bringing together the world’s foremost plan sponsors, consultants and academics to consider the state of global pension investing. With a focus that is at once theoretical and practical, it is an opportunity for Japanese plan sponsors to better understand the activity of their peers in the pension community, while also hearing from global plan sponsors who face the same issues about meeting the retirement promises of plan participants. The two-day conference offers in-depth presentations by consultants and academics on subjects as wide-ranging as investment practice, fiduciary responsibility and risk management.