12:00 PM | Registration Opens
1:00 PM | Opening Keynote Address: On the Horizon: Exploring the Economic & Geopolitical Outlook for Pension Funds
The global pandemic has changed the way pension funds operate and navigate through volatile financial markets and dramatic economic impacts. The full impact of this economic turmoil is yet to be seen, and exceptional market turbulence tested asset managers’ investment skill and adaptability. This keynote will explore the current climate, identify the dominating key economic and geopolitical trends, and highlight how these will impact investing in a global economy.
Speaker:
Oleg Mogilny, Managing Director of Public Market Alternatives, IMCO
1:30 PM | Shifting Your Approach: Balancing Risk & Optimism In the Pursuit for Emerging Asset Classes
Alternative investments are projected to grow exponentially by 2025, as more investors increase their allocations in this market. As alternative allocations expand, where should asset managers seek new opportunities, and what are the emerging trends? Where does risk tolerance and investment strategy most align in these emerging assets? Join this session as our panelists discuss how they have tailored their funds to these trends, highlight optimal asset classes, and delve further into how the balance between risk and optimism should be considered.
Moderator: Elliot Starr, Head of Alternatives – Institutional Business Development, Cidel
Speakers:
Christian Hensley, Senior Managing Director, Equities and Credit, IMCO
Gilles Horrobin, CIO, Societe de Transport de Montreal
Nelson Lam, Senior VP, Equity & Alternative Investments, Trans-Canada Capital
Thomas Cahill, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
2:15 PM | Networking Break
2:45 PM | Spotlight Session: Uncertainty, Inflation, and Gold’s Strategic Role
Examining the strategic benefits gold provides diversified portfolios in context to the current backdrop of economic uncertainty, record inflation, and market volatility.
Speaker:
Maxwell Gold, CFA – Head of Gold Strategy, State Street Global Advisors
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3:15 PM | Spotlight Session: Will Infrastructure Provide The Expected Stability Amid Market Volatility?
Among the reasons to invest in infrastructure, we often hear about the diversification benefits due to lower correlation with other asset classes and the protection against inflation. In these volatile markets, will infrastructure perform as it is expected? How does responsible investment and the rising interest environment impact this asset class?
Moderator: Natalie Bisaillon, Vice-President, Business Development and Client Relations, DGAM
Speakers:
Christian Felx, Manager and Head of Responsible Investment, DGAM
Hugo Gagné, Senior Advisor, Funds and Co-investments, Infrastructure, DGAM
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3:45 PM | Case Studies in Portfolio Construction for a New Era: Investing for the Future & Capitalizing on Unpredictability
The past year’s challenges - geopolitical volatility, inflation, disruptions in supply chain and global markets - proved that preparing for the unexpected can be daunting and overwhelming. Many investors are moving away from the traditional 60/40 model in an effort to balance growth and protection, but how else have investors prepared for the unexpected? These experts will discuss how risk mitigation affected their investing decisions, how they positioned their portfolios differently for a volatile market, and provide examples of long term sustainable opportunities.
Moderator:
Thomas Suter, Senior Analyst, Investment Management, VIA Rail Canada
Speakers:
Michael Bonazza, Director, Portfolio Construction Group, OPTrust
Amit Prakash, Chief Investment Strategy Officer, AIMCo
Arthur Heinmaa, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Investment Officer. Cidel Asset Management
Vincent de Martel, Head of Index Client Solutions, Invesco
4:30 PM | Networking Reception
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5:30 PM | Close of Day One
8:00 AM | Registration & Networking Breakfast
9:00 AM | Keynote Address: Future of Alternative Investments - 2023 and Beyond
The allocation to alternative investments is expected to grow exponentially in the next year. What will be the fast growing asset sector? What outliers will become mainstream, and what non-traditional assets are transitioning to traditional investment strategies? This keynote will explore what the future of alternative investments could look like, next year and beyond.
Speaker: John Hurley, Chief Investment Officer - Alternative Investments, WorkSafeNB
9:30 AM | Considering the Dominance of the Industrial Sector and Alternative Real Estate Sectors
Investor interest in the industrial real estate sector has grown, as the rise in e-commerce warehouses, last-mile storage spaces, and logistics shifts created new demand and higher returns. However, with significant increases in industrial prices, supply chain issues, and competitive bidding, can the industrial sector maintain its stronghold? Or should investors be exploring alternative real estate classes such as data centres, medical offices, or even single family rentals? What alternative real estate asset will dominate the industry next?
Moderator: Natalie Voland, Président & Chief Vision Officer, GI Quo Vadis
Speakers:
Erkan Yönder, Associate Professor of Real Estate and Finance, Concordia University
Marianne Duguay, Senior Vice-President, Asset Management – Real Estate, Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ
Kevin Henley, Chief Investment Officer, Canadian Net REIT
10:15 AM | Networking Break
10:45 AM | Spotlight Session: Secondary Private Equity: Tailwind in the Current Environment
In this session, Simon Oak will provide a secondary market update and examine how several factors, including re-up pressures, public market volatility, and economic uncertainty are creating an attractive environment for secondary market participants.
Speaker:
Simon Oak, Principal, Lexington Partners, a Franklin Templeton company
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11:15 AM | Best Practices: Opportunities in Private Debt & Alternative Credit
Private corporate debt is currently one of the most attractive and fastest-growing alternative asset classes, specifically direct corporate loans to core middle market and lower-middle market companies. Join this session as expert panelists highlight the advantages of these markets, examine the largest challenges in this space, and provide best practices to analyze opportunities in alternative debt and credit.
Moderator: Pascal François, Professor of Finance, HEC Montréal
Speakers:
François Rozon, Managing Director, Private Investment Risk, PSP Investments
Susan Kasser, Co-Head of Private Credit, Portfolio Manager, Neuberger Berman
Carrie Leonard, Portfolio Manager, Orchard Global Asset Management
12:00 PM | Spotlight Session: Private Lending in an Era of Rising Interest Rates
This session will explore how private lending has been affected during a period of market dislocation, and will also examine how yesterday’s lending standards are defining today’s opportunities.
Speaker: Daniel Leger, Managing Director, MGG Investment Group
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12:30 PM | Networking Luncheon
1:45 PM | Spotlight Session: Total Portfolio View
To remain viable and seize investment opportunities, institutional investors know they need to graduate from an obsolete silo model to a holistic, total portfolio view that provides comprehensive insight into their entire portfolio so they can actively manage it in real time. This session will outline how pension plans can visualize/navigate their investments across public and private assets using better oversight and operational tools; including a discussion on strategies around a) Data b) Technology c) Service.
Speakers:
Melanie Pickett, Executive Vice President and Head of Asset Owner Segment (Americas), Northern Trust Corporation
Eduard van Gelderen, Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, PSP Investments
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2:15 PM | Identifying Liquid Alternatives During Volatile Cycles
Liquid alternatives can be a complementary asset to portfolios by offering increased diversification and risk management. As risk assets trend toward illiquid in risk-off cycles, where can investors find liquid alternatives that will mitigate risk and correlate with their alternative investment strategies? This session will explore liquidity cycles, the most common liquid alternative vehicles, and how to find liquidity in a volatile environment.
Moderator: Franck Yansounou Goussanou, Independent Consultant and Lecturer
Speakers:
Patrick Murray, Head of Alternatives, Senior Portfolio Manager, CEOS Family Office
Mark Webster, Director, BMO Global Asset Management
3:00 PM | Spotlight Session: Is Synthetic Credit the Most Flexible Tool to Navigate Market Cycles ?
Synthetic credit has been very popular from its creation early 2000’s up to the GFC in 2008 where all the flaws due to an exponential growth have been put under the spotlight (Lack of transparency, no standardization, too much leverage, no clearing…). Since then, a lot have been learned and fixed to rebuild this market slowly from the start to become one of the most liquid alternative products in the fixed income space with hundreds of billions traded daily. The pure credit exposure with no interest rate duration, the easiness to be either short or long and the ability to target specific risks beyond being just long or short, like convexity, volatility, or default risk, make synthetic credit an essential product in one’s portfolio, especially during volatile periods.
Speaker: Michael Hattab, Head of Credit, LFIS Capital
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3:30 PM | Keynote Address: Driving Meaningful Change and Building For the Future
Many asset managers are starting to focus on impact investing with the intention of generating positive and measurable social, economic and environmental outcomes as well as a financial return, but is that enough? This keynote will discuss how investors can push the needle and drive meaningful change both internally within their organization and externally, and provide some real-life examples of successful changes.
Speaker:
Bethany McNeill, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, MB Pension & Benefits Group Inc.
4:15 PM | Networking Reception
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5:15 PM | Gala Dinner
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8:00 AM | Networking Breakfast
9:00 AM | Driving ESG Initiatives in Emerging Markets: Accessing New Opportunities & Avoiding Future Pitfalls
With many pension funds expected to push forward and make meaningful strides with their ESG initiatives, It is becoming increasingly common for investors to look abroad for sustainable investment opportunities. However, this comes with challenges of its own and range from credibility to data transparency. Join this session as our speakers share why ESG investments in emerging markets have a strong upside, how to decide which markets to utilize and how to effectively determine the risk factors.
Moderator: Olivier Dufresne, CEO and Co-Founder, ESG Natural Resources
Speakers:
Jeff Chan, Senior Portfolio Manager, ESG Investing, Canada Post Corporate Pension Plan
Hugh Smith, Manager, ESG Investment Risk, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
9:45 AM | Spotlight Session: Alternative Credit Investing
In this session, Brian Manley of Orchard Global will provide an overview of the alternative credit landscape with a focus on the firm’s approach to the following alternative credit investment strategies: risk transfer, credit derivatives, CLOs, litigation finance, and other opportunistic public and private lending.
Speaker: Brian Manley, Portfolio Manager, Singapore, Orchard Global Asset Management
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10:15 AM | Don’t Forget about G! How Pension Fund Governance is Evolving in an ESG Era
The impact of ESG in investing has shown that it is now a priority, not a fad, for pension funds, and fund governance needs to evolve to meet these priorities. The pressure is on for pensions to include more diversity in their trustee boards and management teams, be transparent in ESG ratings, and increase sustainable allocation. This panel will examine how pension fund governance is changing to meet these pressures, as well as the challenges of an ever-evolving regulatory landscape.
Moderator: Catherine McCall, Executive Director, Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG)
Speakers:
Patricia Romanovici, Assistant Vice-President and Managing Counsel, Sun Life
Sanjeev Dhawan, Senior Legal Counsel, Hydro One Networks Inc.
11:00 AM | Closing Keynote Address: The Future of Sustainable Investing – ESG in the Next Decade
The opportunities for sustainable institutional investing are expanding, as more asset classes branch out into green alternatives. This keynote will explore the future of ESG investments as carbon zero trends heat up.
Speaker:
Sean Cleary, Chair of the Institute for Sustainable Finance, CFA, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University