The Dublin Roadshow: Accessing Investment Returns for Pension Funds

At this morning workshop, we will examine some of the questions trustees should be focusing on in the current environment, new tools to evaluate risk, and where to find return. This is a FREE event for pension decision makers and their advisors.

The Dublin Roadshow is available for CPD accreditation by the Pensions Management Institute.

Speakers


Program

  1. Registrations, Breakfast and Networking

  2. The Themes of Risk and Return - Stuart Breyer, CEO, mallowstreet

    An update on some of the relevant current themes on mallowstreet.com, and an open discussion on how pension funds should be measuring, monitoring, and hedging risk.
  3. Session I: Alternatives to Diversified Growth Funds (DGFs) - James Lindsay and Barnaby Wiener | MFS Investment Management

    Equity market returns with half the volatility? Sounds too good to be true? It was, is and always will be. The blame is often laid at feet of the DGF managers for making such promises to begin with. But there is a deeper issue here - the investment world is riddled with Principal-agent conflicts. Principals want to protect their capital and agents want to protect their jobs. We overuse benchmarks that serve the practitioner (agent) but not the client (principal). We are encouraged to measure performance over the short term and allowed to claim success if “only” down '40%' when the benchmark is 50%. We know that – through the “miracle” of compounding - if you grow at 7% per annum for ten years you double your money. However, lose 50% and you need to double your money just to break even. And yet the entire industry is incentivised to fully invest clients' money at all costs. We believe that there is another way. The discussion will focus on what an investment portfolio looks like when capital preservation is just as important an objective as capital growth.
  4. Tea, Coffee and Networking

  5. Session II: The Context of the Dublin Pensions Market - Eddie Hobbs, Independent Advisor

    Solving the retirement dilemma isn’t merely a question of addressing a structural or economic question in isolation but requires addressing deeply political questions that go to the heart of the Irish version of crony capitalism and its deep state. We must face the hard question about why Ireland’s pension system is on course to fail over half its working population and under-deliver for many of the remainder. The truth is that public sector contracts and a shrunken number of fully funded DB schemes are all that remain of pensions. The rest is not a pensions industry but savings industry with a tax break on a pot of assets which are on the front line for appropriation of capital during State financial crises. Ireland has a two-tier pensions system between the insiders and outsiders, the latter bailing out the former through tax transfers. This presentation will investigate a number of these questions and offer some potentially radical solutions to this growing problem.
  6. Making the most of your membership & Close

    Stuart Breyer, CEO, mallowstreet
  7. Lunch and networking

  8. End