mallowstreet University Investment Focus: Opportunities in Fixed Income

Speakers

• Frank Meijer, PhD Head of the European ABS and Mortgages team

  Frank Meijer, PhD joined Aegon Asset Management in 2005. Frank is head of the European ABS and Mortgages team. He is also a member of the Asset Liability Committee of Aegon Bank and a permanent guest lecturer at the Amsterdam VU University. Prior to his current role, he was also responsible for the Quant Group and has set up the Structured Credit Desk. Before joining Aegon Asset Management, Frank worked at ABN AMRO in the Credit Risk Modelling & Product department. Frank holds an MSc in Physics, cum laude, from University of Groningen and a PhD in Physics from Delft University of Technology.

• Gregory Peters

  Gregory Peters is a senior portfolio manager for Core, Long Government/Credit, Core Plus, Absolute Return, and other multi-sector Fixed Income strategies, in addition to having oversight of the firm's investment strategy function. Prior to joining PGIM Fixed Income in 2014, Gregory was the Chief Global Cross Asset Strategist at Morgan Stanley, responsible for the Firm's macro research and asset allocation strategy. In addition, he was Morgan Stanley's Global Director of Fixed Income & Economic Research and served on the Firm’s Risk, Investment, Asset Allocation, Global Credit, and Global Fixed Income Operating Committees. Earlier, he worked at Salomon Smith Barney and the Department of U.S. Treasury. Gregory has been recognized by Institutional Investor magazine for his efforts in macro, fixed income, high yield and investment grade strategies. He was also recently recognized as Business Insider's Top Analysts and CEO World’s Top Analyst's to Watch. Gregory earned a BA in Finance from The College of New Jersey and an MBA from Fordham University. He is also a member of the Fixed Income Analyst Society and the Bond Market Association.
  

• William J. Adams
  • Chief Investment Officer - Global Fixed Income
    
  • Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
    
  • Serves on MFS Investment Management Committee, Global Fixed Income Management Team.
    
  • Joined MFS in 2009; previous positions include Director of Fixed Income Research; Director of Corporate Credit Research; Portfolio Manager; Corporate Credit Analyst.
    
  • Previous experience includes 3 years as Senior Securities Analyst at Conseco Capital Management; 3 years as Lending Officer at Mellon Bank, N.A.
    
  • Joined MFS in 1997 as a Corporate Credit Analyst and departed the firm in 2005. Returned to MFS in 2009 as the Director of Credit Research.
    
  • Affiliations include CFA Institute, CFA Society of Boston.
  • Indiana University, MBA
  • Indiana University, MA
  • La Salle University, BA, cum laude
• Keith Patton Head of Multi-Strategy, Fixed Income, BMO Global Asset Management

  Keith Patton joined BMO Global Asset Management in 2012 and plays a leading role in managing multi asset strategies and developing unconstrained fixed income solutions across the group. Keith has over 25 years’ fixed income and asset allocation experience holding senior positions in some of the leading investment managers, including Deutsche Asset Management and Aberdeen Asset Management. Prior to joining the group in 2012 and after a brief period at Brevan Howard (the macro hedge fund) he became the global head of fixed income for UBS Wealth Management in Zurich and a member of the global asset allocation committee within the investment office.

Program

1. 8:30 AM Registration, Tea and Coffee

2. 9:00 AM Welcome & Introductions

   Stuart Breyer, CEO of mallowstreet

3. 9:10 AM Investment Masterclass I: Finding opportunities in a low yield environment | MFS Investment Management

   From a cyclical perspective, global growth has improved, but inflation has remained benign and a number of secular headwinds to higher growth and inflation remain. This background suggests that interest rates could stay lower for longer, creating continued challenges for UK Pension Funds. Broadening the opportunity set, active and flexible allocation, and security selection may help deliver better potential total returns. In this session William J Adams, Chief Investment Officer for Global Fixed Income at MFS will talk about some of the less exploited, but in our opinion underappreciated segments of the global Fixed Income markets including high quality segments of high yield, taxable municipals, defensive deleveraging credits and cross-currency relative value issuers.

4. 9:50 AM Investment Masterclass II: Fixed income – Market index or absolute return? | BMO Global Asset Management

   A market cap bond index that weights its constituents by their market value results in allocating more assets to the most indebted issuers; an approach we deem sub-optimal. In this session, Keith Patton, Head of Multi-Strategy, Fixed Income at BMO Global Asset Management, will explore why a traditional approach to fixed income may no longer be appropriate and how an unconstrained strategy (typically with a cash benchmark and targeting an absolute return) can exploit many more opportunities, potentially providing greater certainty of returns in a more controlled risk framework.

5. 10:30 AM Coffee, Tea and Networking

6. 10:55 AM Investment Masterclass III: The ABC of ABS | Kames Capital

   Most UK-based institutional investors have extensive allocations to government and corporate debt. Relatively few have diversified into consumer credit, an attractive sub-sector of the global fixed income market. Asset-Backed Securities (ABS) offer exposure to a diverse range of collateral secured by, for example, mortgages, automotive loans and credit card receivables. In this session Frank Meijer of Aegon Asset Management will discuss the opportunities offered by ABS, including: • Attractive yields - European ABS offers higher yield than most other global fixed income asset classes; • Diversification of risk - ABS bonds have low correlations with most other major asset classes and diversify exposure to consumer debt, compared to just traditional government and corporate debt markets; and • Inflation protection - ABS bonds have short interest-rate duration. Kames Capital’s sister company Aegon Asset Management has a dedicated team of 16 ABS professionals, which manages €18 billion globally, of which €5 billion is in European ABS.

7. 11:35 AM Investment Masterclass IV: Managing Uncertainty Amid Optimism—Seeking Alpha in Multi-Sector Fixed Income | PGIM Fixed Income

   In an environment where markets are driven by heightened political uncertainty, changing central bank policies and positive growth expectations, achieving solid returns in traditional, benchmark-driven fixed income strategies may become more challenging. While multiple opportunities to achieve alpha will likely still exist, the constraints of a benchmark may be limiting. This presentation will identify some of these potential alpha opportunities and discuss how an unconstrained multi-sector fixed income strategy can provide the flexibility to navigate the changing marketplace and capture these alpha opportunities.

8. 12:10 PM Lunch and Networking

9. 1:00 PM End