portfolio audio: Recent Episodes
Portfolio Institutional
Portfolio Institutional has a 20-year track record of providing market insight, in-depth analysis and expert opinion to institutional and semi-institutional investors in the UK and Germany.
Our mission has always been to inform asset owners and their consultants on the trends emerging in the financial markets.
Our market knowledge and wealth of contacts in the UK and Germany have established us as an essential source of information for the decision-makers in some of the world’s largest professional investors.
Constructing a debt portfolio without boundaries has many benefits. Picking fixed income assets regardless of type, jurisdiction or rating could, depending on the manager, provide investors with the nimbleness to move to where the risk-return profile is more attractive if markets change. This is what multi-asset credit (MAC) funds are designed to do. Yet there are concerns.
Did these funds perform as the marketing claimed they would during the Covid-induced economic disruption we saw last year. How can managers be expert on the entire fixed income universe? And how can they include ESG into such portfolios? We brought together those who invest in, manage and advise on such funds to discuss these questions and more.
Editor, Mark Dunne, discussed Fixed income derivatives with Natacha Blackman, CFA, Vice President, fixed income product strategist for iShares ETFs and Srichandra Masabathula, Associate Director in the Indices team at IHS Markit
Editor, Mark Dunne is joined by Justin Wheeler, Director, Head of the UK Asset Owner distribution team for iShares EMEA to discuss how institutional investors are using ETFs in their bond portfolios.
Editor, Mark Dunne interviews Natacha Blackman, CFA, Vice President, fixed income product strategist for iShares ETFs and Smadar Shulman is Managing Director, head of Index Product Management EMEA at IHS Markit.
A green bond is a simple concept. Investors lend money to corporates, governments or banks which use the capital to fund projects that create a positive environmental impact.
Investors are bullish with a record $650bn (£470bn) of the debt expected to be issued in 2021, 32% higher than was offered to investors in the previous year. But, like a lot of things in life, there are issues. So, we sat down with asset owners, investment managers and a consultant to find out if such products are fit for purpose and to look at how the market is developing.
Read the roundtable: https://bit.ly/3rPEU9W
Coming out of the pandemic, the global equity outlook is positive. We sat down with asset owners, an investment manager, a consultant and a trustee to assess the situation.
Read the roundtable here: https://bit.ly/3zScorg
Emerging markets are expected to continue driving the world’s economy and much of this growth is funded by debt. We brought a panel of experts together to find out how investors are approaching these markets.
For professional investors only.
This panel took place at portfolio institutional's ESG Club Webinar in May 2021.
Active investing: Has its time come? Seeking alpha in a low return, post-Covid world.
Panelists included:
James Brooke Turner, Investment Director, Nuffield Foundation
Isabel Reuss, Global Head of SRI Research, Allianz Global Investors
Mitch Reznick, CFA, Head of Research and Sustainable Fixed Income, Federated Hermes
Abbie Llewellyn-Waters, Head of Sustainable Investing, Jupiter Asset Management
This panel took place at portfolio institutional's ESG Club Webinar in May 2021.
Index engagement: How index managers are driving change.
Panelists included:
John Howchin, Secretary-general of the Council on Ethics at the Swedish National Pension Funds
Lauren Wilkinson, Senior Policy Researcher, The Pensions Policy Institute, (PPI)
Matthieu Guignard, Global head of product development and capital markets at Amundi ETF, Indexing & Smart Beta
This panel took place at portfolio institutional's ESG Club Webinar in May 2021.
Alpha activism: The new voice of stewardship - Why engagement should not be limited to ESG Strategies.
Panelists included: Matthias Lomas, Engagement Manager, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation
Jennifer O’Neill, Senior member of Aon’s Responsible Investment team
Michael Herskovich, Global Head of Stewardship, BNPP AM
Peter Mennie, Global head of ESG Integration and Research, Manulife Investment Management
This panel took place at portfolio institutional's ESG Club Webinar in May 2021.
Divestment: No path to a net zero world - Why investing in carbon intensive companies could help achieve environmental targets.
Panelists include:
Oliver Hart, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University
Catherine Ogden, Sustainability & Responsible Investment Manager, Legal & General Investment Management
Randeep Somel, Fund Manager, M&G Investments
Lloyd McAllister, Responsible investment analyst, Newton Investment Management
Visit our ESG Hub: https://bit.ly/3hH1XRi
Emerging market debt is a big topic for investors in a low-yield world. In 2019, debt issued in the emerging world accounted for more than a fifth of the world’s total, while emerging markets were projected to drive more than half of the globe’s economic growth.
However, last year the pandemic took hold, uncertainty kicked in and investors dumped bonds issued in the emerging world. But what happened next? We as- sembled a panel of experts to find out.
Investing to earn a return while making a positive environmental or social impact is a growing market. Indeed, more than £500bn globally was working to make a difference in 2020. To find out how investors are approaching such strategies, we brought asset owners, consultants and analysts together to discuss the market.
These are interesting times for bond investors. Indeed, inflationary pressures, low interest rates and rising default fears mean there are many obstacles for investors to consider when building a fixed income portfolio.
To find out how institutional investors are approaching this market’s many challenges, we brought asset owners together with a bond manager, a professional trustee and a consultant for an online discussion.
The national lockdowns ordered in response to the Covid pandemic a year ago have caused economic uncertainty. Many businesses, such as high street retail and leisure, have been hit hard as many were forced to stop trading. The uncertainty has left market watchers to question if some corporates can afford to repay their debts. If not, downgrades could be on the way. Marks & Spencer, Heinz and Virgin Money are just some household names that have lost their investment-grade status in recent years and are now graded as fallen angels as they are now classed as high yield. Could others be about to join them at the risker end of the spectrum and if so, how can investors spot a bargain? To find out, we brought asset owners and asset managers together with consultants and a credit strategist to examine the fallen angel market.
Are strategies that aim to avoid leaving a negative impact on society and the environment nothing more than PR?
The events of 2020 gave those who promote such strategies a chance to prove otherwise.
We brought institutional investors, asset managers and a consultant together to find out what impact the pandemic has had on attitudes towards responsible investing.
Five years after Osborne’s announcement to merge LGPS assets, portfolio institutional brought Laura Chappell, CEO of Brunel Pensions Partnership, Rachel Elwell CEO of Border to Coast, Kevin McDonald, interim director of the ACCESS Support Unit and Mike Weston, CEO of LGPS Central together to discuss how their plans are progressing.
Asset owners’ commitment to responsible investing and the effectiveness of such strategies are being tested like never before. Banking crises, stock market crashes and recessions have all happened since responsible investing’s popularity started growing across the institutional investment industry, but it has faced nothing like Covid.
People becoming prisoners in their own homes to avoid the virus led to the UK economy contracting by a fifth in the space of a month. A lower than expected recovery and record rise in redundancies are further evidence that these are unprecedented times.
Will asset owners ease the pressure on their portfolio companies to adopt sustainable practices during tough economic times, or is responsible investing needed now more than ever before?
We brought five asset owners together to discuss the impact that the pandemic is having on their responsible investment strategies.
Covid-19 has hit emerging markets hard. At the start of 2020, developing nations were driving more than half of the world’s GDP thanks to envious growth projections, but the pandemic changed that.
Now government and corporate finances are under pressure and the five defaults we have seen in emerging markets so this year could be the start of trend, rating agencies predict.
There was a huge sell-off in March, but investors have since backed new issuances, so why do investors still believe in emerging markets. In October, we spoke to a group of asset owners to find out.
Deputy editor, Mona Dohle interviews David Stewart, chief investment officer at British Airways Pensionsabout taking the reins weeks before the lockdown, being hard-wired for optimism and why now is not the time for tactical calls.
Doug Heron, CEO at £8bn Lothian Pension Fund tells portfolio institutional why despite the recent stock market plunge, his team has not changed the strategic allocation towards equities. With the majority of its equities being managed in-house, the Local Government Pension Fund plans to take an increasingly active role as a shareholder.
NN Investment Partners portfolio manager Bram Bos tells Mark Dunne about why investors should include green bonds in their fixed income portfolios, how the asset class is performing during the pandemic and what will happen in the second half of the year.
Interest rate cuts and a huge rise in the national debt have done little to clear the uncertainty surrounding the impact that the Covid pandemic is having on the economy, so how are investors reacting?
Kevin Wesbroom and Andy Cheseldine, professional trustees at Capital Cranfield speak to Mona Dohle about the impact of Covid-19 on pension funds.
- How has the lockdown affected the quality of trustee meetings?
- How widespread in the impact of contribution suspensions and should they face tougher scrutiny?
- Are markets moving to more active investment strategies?
The trustee director at Ross Trustees discusses how the pandemic has impacted his schemes and how they are managing through this crisis.
With DC assets growing at double the rate of those managed by DB schemes, portfolio institutional brought asset owners, investment managers, the regulator and consultants together to discuss if the Covid pandemic will cause long-term damage to the industry.
The Covid pandemic has highlighted the importance of ESG’s social pillar. To take a closer look at why, and how the crisis has impacted his work, we spoke to Danyal Sattar, chief executive of Big Issue Invest, the Big Issue’s investment arm that funds sustainable social enterprises and charities.
These are unprecedented times. Equity markets have lost billions of pounds of value in a single day, the oil price fell into negative territory at one point and interest rates were cut twice in a week. Even ESG is changing.
Marketed as a long-term strategy that reduces downside risk, the pandemic means that although attitudes remain bullish on ESG, the main topics of conversation is changing.
We brought pension scheme and charity investors together with an asset manager, a consultant and campaigner to find out how the approach to ESG is evolving during such unprecedented times.
Barry Kenneth, CIO at the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) shares insights into managing rapid asset grows and the opportunities Covid-19 volatility offers for credit investors.
Richard Butcher, managing director at PTL and chair of the PLSA highlights the challenges Covid-19 poses for schemes' covenants and how investors can separate the market noise caused by emotional reactions from hard economic facts.
In the latest edition of Portfolio Briefings, Stuart Trow, credit strategist and trustee at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development discusses how the lockdown has affected him operationally, the impact of Covid 19 on global fixed income markets and the potential investment risks and opportunities.
Portfolio Institutional spoke to Vineet Sood and John Wilson of Dalriada Trustees about how their schemes are responding to the economic impact of COVID-19 and what their Plan B is if income targets are missed.
We brought asset owners, fund managers and advisers together to see if CDI is withstanding the COVID-19 test.
Richard Tomlinson, CIO at Local Pensions Partnership (LPP) tells portfolio institutional, in this edition of portfolio briefings, how his team copes with the Corona crisis, investment risks and the outlook for the global economy.
Various players in the institutional investment industry discuss how ESG is being integrated into fixed income portfolios.