United Kingdom

Aon 2019 Investment Breakfast Series

Our 2019 Aon Investment Breakfast Series is designed to help trustees explore investment ideas and opportunities for their pension scheme. We will cover a range of topical investment areas and the events will provide a participative environment in which trustees can explore the challenges they face with their peers.

These free to attend events, open to those involved in the management of DB and DC pension schemes, all take place at the Aon Centre in London from 7.45-9.00am.

Spaces are very limited so please register early to avoid disappointment.

The full list of events is shown below and further information will be added as details become available.

Register Now

12 June 2019

Alternative credit: a source of income and growth

As pension schemes continue to face challenges such as funding level volatility and cash-flow negativity, alternative credit is playing an increasingly important role in portfolios. At our next Investment Breakfast, we will look at alternative forms of credit and how accessing investment opportunities across the credit spectrum can help address such challenges.

In particular, we will explore:

  • The role of alternative credit (covering liquid and illiquid strategies) in pension portfolios
  • Why trustees should consider investing now
  • Where we see the current opportunities
  • How to sensibly construct alternative credit portfolios

Don’t miss out and register your place today.

13 November 2019

Cost Transparency

The cost of running a pension fund

From October 2020, Trustees will be required to formulate and publish their policies for evaluating asset manager remuneration and transaction costs. The Work and Pensions Select Committee and recommending regulation is taken even further having found ‘worrying evidence that some trustees are making investment decisions without a clear understanding of how much these decisions cost’. There are reasonable expectations but how confident are you that you are on top of ALL of the investment costs incurred by asset managers on your behalf?

Pension funds seeking this information have historically had major challenges in obtaining it, in particular on a consistent and standardised basis. At this breakfast, we will explore how investors can understand, contextualise and ultimately challenge their asset management costs:

  • Should pension schemes care about the level of asset management costs being incurred?
  • What constitutes a reasonable policy for evaluating investment costs?
  • What have similar initiatives achieved elsewhere?
  • Is there a collective responsibility on asset owners and their advisers to make this work?
  • Will my costs reduce?

We are delighted to be joined by Christopher Sier, Chairman of ClearGlass (a cost data collection and analysis service). Having Chaired the FCA’s Institutional Disclosure Working Group, Chris has been a vocal campaigner for improved disclosure of the charges that impact retail and institutional asset owners for many years. Chris will share insights on how pension schemes are achieving better deals from their asset managers.

Register Now

View our previous sessions

11 April 2019

How might Brexit affect your long term Real Assets decisions?

With UK markets facing potential headwinds in 2019 as Brexit uncertainty and weak economic growth threaten returns, investing in domestic markets pose some risks. We believe it is the opportune time for investors to consider whether their alternative portfolios are utilising all the options available.

This Investment Breakfast will explore:

  • the market outlook for alternative investments
  • impact of Brexit on your property and infrastructure programme
  • considerations when diversifying your alternatives exposure
  • potential opportunities provided by Global investments
  • different ways in which you can access these opportunities

31 October

Costs Transparency: Mission Possible?

Many pension scheme trustees and sponsors can be unaware of the nature and magnitude of the costs they incur in having their assets managed. This is in spite of asset management costs being one of, if not the, largest cost they incur in running their scheme.

This breakfast will explore:

  • The latest developments in cost transparency, in the industry and at Aon
  • Benefits of improved cost transparency and what this means for trustees
  • Next steps for investors

Chair - John Belgrove

Speaker: Neil Smith

10 October

Rethinking Real Assets

Investors with exposure to UK property investments have, typically, enjoyed attractive returns in recent years – but, how long will this continue? Is now a good time to consider diversifying your existing property investments, perhaps by adding an element of Global property or real assets exposure to your portfolio?

In our next Investment Breakfast, we will explore:

  • the market outlook for property and real assets,
  • the potential opportunities provided by Global investments
  • the different ways in which investors can access these opportunities

Chair - John Belgrove

Speakers: Nick Duff, Oliver Hamilton

14 June

Responsible investing: how much does it matter?

Responsible investing is moving further up the priority agenda for investors. Recent regulatory developments have highlighted that non-financial risks should be considered and may have a meaningful impact on financial performance: this is driving pension scheme trustees to consider integrating responsible investment to meet their investment objectives.

Our investment specialists will explore topical areas within responsible investing including:

  • The drivers of responsible investment
  • The various components of responsible investment including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) integration and Impact investing
  • Why ESG factors may be significant drivers of future risk and return
  • How you can incorporate ESG into your investment analysis and decision making processes

Chair - John Belgrove

Speaker: Tim Manuel

22 May

The Cashflow Crunch

Our investment specialists will explore topical areas within cashflow management including:

  • Types of cashflow management strategies available
  • When a cashflow driven investment (CDI) approach should be considered
  • The various CDI assets available and their characteristics

Chair: John Belgrove

Speaker: Louis-Paul Hill

19 April

Factor Investing – a smarter way to invest?

Our investment specialists will take a deep-dive into some of the areas within factor investing including:

  • The benefits of a factor investing approach
  • A look into the ‘factor zoo’ and how we find a ‘true’ factor
  • Which factors we believe to be the most robust
  • Where factor investing fits into equity portfolios
  • How to implement and governance considerations

Chair - John Belgrove

Speakers: Andrew Peach and George Carvounes

22 February

Seeking Returns for your DB Scheme

This session will introduce a range of topical ideas including:

  • seeking extra return from your matching assets
  • the benefits of factor-based investing
  • how illiquid can we be
  • the best places to pay for chasing alpha

Speakers: George Carvounes & Mike Rogers

Chair: John Belgrove

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