Investment Conference - Regional Chartered Body Alliance CPD Event (3)

Following the success of our previous investment conferences, held in conjunction with the CISI, our next event will be held on Tuesday 19th June 2018 at St David's Park.

Places will be limited so please book early to avoid disappointment

Speakers and presentation details:

- 1st speaker: Alex Wheelan, Business Development Manager at Vanguard

Alex has been with Vanguard in the UK since 2011 and is responsible for business development with Financial Planners and Wealth Managers in the North West of England. He has more than 18 years of Intermediary experience working previously with major life offices and wealth management companies.

'The Power of “AND” ' – Putting Active and Index Management together

In the US, there is a significant transfer of assets from active to passive funds. This has not built up momentum in the UK, but the pattern is emerging. Why is this happening? On average, active fund managers will tend to outperform their prospectus benchmarks. But it is fund managers, through fees, who tend to reap the rewards rather than investors.Are we framing the argument in the right way? Are investors moving from active to passive, or from high cost to low cost? We think the latter. Alex will share Insight to what the market is doing. In the second part of the session we will introduce a process to support the Investment management & financial advice market in shaping the choice of Active AND Passive in Portfolio Construction.

- 2nd speaker: Nicky Snow, Senior Sales Consultant at Rowanmoor

Nicky is a pensions specialist with over 29 years of financial services experience in administration, sales and relationship management roles, spanning both individual and corporate pension schemes. Before joining Rowanmoor Nicky was Corporate Account Manager at Legal & General, supporting clients throughout the introduction and implementation of auto enrolment and prior to that had a very long and successful career at Scottish Life.

'Rowanmoor Defined Benefit SSAS: A more valuable pension benefit'

Her presentation will provide an overview of the structure, benefit shape & supporting legislation, how are increased contributions possible (versus Money Purchase SSAS), an understanding of the ideal client scenario using case studies and highlight current market opportunities.

- 3rd speaker: Alexander Davey, Director of alternative beta and systematic equity strategies at HSBC Global Asset Management

Alexander joined HSBC in 2014. He has over 20 years of industry experience having held both sales and investment-focused roles with Barclays Global Investors, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and most recently, Barclays Wealth and Investment Management. In his career at Barclays Global Investors, Alex was involved in the development of their European money market fund business, the launch of ETFs in the UK market and the development of Barclays passive and active franchises in the wholesale market. He also ran the UK third party sales teams. At Morgan Stanley he was a portfolio specialist for the quantitative and structured solutions team covering their currency, commodity and portable alpha products with institutional and wholesale clients globally. At Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, Alex was a London based private banker.

'Confession of a smart beta specialist: Is it smart? Is it beta? Why should we care?'

In his session he will seek to try and find some common ground in the thousands of strategies that now consider themselves as ‘smart beta’. Some of the discussion will focus on the various differing specialists involved in this – index providers, asset managers (active and passive), investment banks. What are the opportunities and critically the pitfalls of this segment and how might it be effectively used within a portfolio.

- 4th speaker: Chris Marshall, Head of Investment Strategy at Dragon Investment Managers

Chris is responsible for developing global market insights and actionable investment advice across all major asset classes. Chris is also responsible for representing Dragon IM’s investment views across all channels. In addition to his national awards for both investment management and strategic planning, Chris has also contributed to the development of Behavioural Finance: conducting research to understand how we make decisions under an environment of risk as part of his MSc with Manchester University.

'Money for nothing'

Chris’ talk takes the perspective that we are, and have been for some time, been investing in extraordinary times. ‘Money for nothing’ explores this fascinating topic further, looking at the period both pre and post QE, as well as tracing why many of the metrics and ratios – as well as Modern Portfolio Theory – now provide investors with a very skewed perspective; and how we can correct our investing compass to take such factors into account.

(Note: CISI members should book via the CISI website to avoid being charged the attendance fee)