Agenda

Global Investment Conference

September 21-23, 2021 | JW Marriott The Rosseau Resort, Muskoka, Ont.

Tuesday, September 21

7:00 AM: Breakfast (Cottages Restaurant)

9:15 AM: Transport to the Rock Golf Course (meet outside front lobby)

10:00 AM: Tee off (Rock Golf Course)

Note: Lunch will be provided directly after golf (The Grill Patio)

3:00 PM: Return from the Rock Golf Course to hotel

5:00 PM: Speaker Rehearsal (Rosseau Ballroom)

6:00 PM - 9:30 PM: “Picnic under the stars” registration, welcome cocktails and dinner (Lakeview Lawn Terrace)

Dress: Casual

Wednesday, September 22

7:00 – 9:00 AM: Breakfast (Teca Restaurant)

9:00 AM: Opening remarks (Rosseau Ballroom)

9:05 AM: Ice breaker activity

9:30 AM: Cutting through the ESG greenwash: A sustainable approach for corporates and investors

Investors, advocacy groups, politicians, and the 200 chief executive officers of the US Business Roundtable are amongst those asking corporations to take on an added purpose beyond pursuit of shareholder value. In response, many companies now issue ESG (environmental, societal, and governance) reports. These reports, however, are often greeted with scepticism for their high fluff-to-substance ratios. How can we fix ESG reporting so that it meets the very real needs of investors and society to address challenges like climate change and global inequality?

Professor Ramanna’s presentation first covers key traps that corporations fall into when preparing ESG reports. Next, he offers ways in which corporations can overcome those traps by providing an explicit framework to help them make the trade-offs inherent in underlying ESG actions. Then, he will cover strategies for robust corporate reporting and auditing on ESG. Finally, he discusses principles for investors to consider as they evaluate ESG reports for their own stewardship indices.

Speaker: Karthik Ramanna, professor, business and public policy, Oxford University

10:30 AM: Coffee break

10:50 AM: The (not so) long winding road to net zero

Reducing carbon emissions is ever more urgent in the face of our planet’s growing climate. How should asset owners consider the transition and what should they ask of their investment managers? Join this session as Andrew Parry, head of sustainable investment at Newton Investment Management, evaluates what role investment managers can play in this transition whether challenging investee companies, but also in terms of offering innovative investment solutions.

Speaker: Lloyd McAllister, head of ESG research, Newton Investment Management

11:20 AM: Ice breaker wrap-up

11:30 AM: Positioning for what’s next: China’s expanding opportunity set

Join T. Rowe Price Asia ex-Japan Equity Strategy Portfolio Manager, Anh Lu, as she shares why China is too big to ignore. The speed of change and the inefficiencies that exist within China’s large and liquid markets present a fertile ground for alpha. 2021 can be viewed as a year of normalization for China’s economy, earnings growth, financial markets, and policy after the preceding pandemic disruption. Anh will provide investment perspective on what the future holds with respect to China’s five-year plan and highlight potential trends, like shifting consumption patterns and areas where innovation is transforming industries. She will identify cyclical, post-COVID opportunities, and compare the investment appeal of Chinese equity markets to other global markets.

Speaker: Anh Lu, portfolio manager, T.Rowe Price Hong Kong Limited

12:00 PM: Lunch (Lakeview Terrace)

1:00 PM: Tomorrow's world, here today

Private companies can teach us about the future that is already here. The science fiction writer William Gibson is credited with saying, ‘The future has arrived – it’s just not evenly distributed yet.’ The technological and structural forces that will shape the public markets tomorrow can already be seen in the high-growth private markets today. Join Chris Evdaimon, Private Companies Investment Manager, as he looks at some of the structural changes keeping companies private for longer, and explores the organizations that have the potential to shape the world over the years to come.

Speaker: Chris Evdaimon, investment researcher, Baillie Gifford

1:30 PM: EM currencies: When will the tailwind become sustained?

Schroders' senior EM portfolio manager, Fernando Grisales, will discuss the prospects for EM currencies, a key component of both EM debt and equity returns. He will focus on performance of this asset class throughout the pandemic, the debt profiles of prominent EM countries post-lockdowns and stimulus and the prospects for the US dollar.

Speaker: Fernando Grisales, senior portfolio manager, Schroders

2:00 PM: Coffee break

2:20 PM: Tactical fixed income allocation strategies post-pandemic: Providing diversification and flexibility for pension plans

With yields near historical lows, many investors are looking to make their fixed income portfolios work harder, but in a risk-controlled fashion. This presentation will illustrate how tactical fixed income allocation strategies can help achieve this goal by:

Providing the ability to diversify away from risk-free duration when appropriate
Tactically manipulating a wide variety of investment levers to generate alpha
Exploring correlations, volatilities and compounding to provide enhanced return to a plan’s risk-seeking allocation
Adding duration as a tail risk management tool

Speaker: Jeffrey Moore, portfolio manager, Fidelity Investments

2:50 PM: Pension investment and the use of leverage: A tax perspective

This presentation centres on the Canadian tax restrictions on borrowing by Canadian registered pension plans. It will cover:

The distinction between “economic leverage” and true borrowing, as only the second is restricted under Canadian tax rules
Exceptions to the borrowing prohibition: 90-day borrowing; real estate borrowing; any borrowing during Covid-19 moratorium period
Tax tips and traps relating to borrowing in connection with common private and public markets strategies
The future of the tax borrowing restriction – including potential amendment by Government in consultation with industry

Speaker: Matias Milet, partner, taxation, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP

3:30 PM: Closing remarks

6:00 – 9:00 PM: “Fall in Muskoka” cocktail reception and dinner (Port Carling Terrace and Port Carling Room)

Dress: Business

Thursday, September 23

7:00 – 9:00 AM: Breakfast (Teca Restaurant)

9:00 AM: Opening remarks (Rosseau Ballroom)

9:05 AM: Ice breaker activity

9:30 AM: Kindleberger cycles & economic growth: Method in the madness of crowds?

The diffusion of new technologies accounts for about 80 per cent of long-run growth in developed economies. Despite this, innovation is chronically underfunded because its internal rate of return to innovators averages less than 25 per cent of its social rate of return. Intellectual property and research and development subsidies are not effective at encouraging innovation and are often counterproductive. Economic historian Charles Kindleberger documents an irregularly recurring mania, panic and crash cycle in high-income economies' stock markets. Each cycle inundates a big new thing, typically a new technology, with capital. Noise traders who lose money in each crash serve society by financing big new things rational markets would not. Competition between economies selects for Kindleberger cycles whose social value exceeds their social costs. In this presentation, Prof. Randall Morck will discuss the geopolitical consequences and investment implication of Kindleberger cycles.

Speaker: Randall Morck, professor of finance, University of Alberta

10:30 AM: Coffee break/check-out of resort

11:00 AM: Lessons learned from the pandemic: A plan administrator’s perspective

This presentation will outline the operational and investment challenges faced through the pandemic, lessons learned, and the opportunities ahead for one of Canada’s largest pension plans.

Speaker: Graeme Hay, chief investment officer, Teachers’ Retirement Allowances Fund

11:30 AM: How green is my pension: Managing risk, opportunities, investor expectations and fiduciary responsibilities in the ESG era

As pensions make larger and larger allocations toward environmental, social and governance-themed investment opportunities, the response from plan members, press officers and the general public has been, broadly speaking, enthusiastic. Among plan sponsors, however, the situation is more nuanced. For one thing, as fiduciaries, many fear that by focusing on doing good, they may lose focus on doing well. For another, it is not in the nature of serious investors to hop on bandwagons. The more that hype surrounds ESG opportunities, the more experienced investors begin to feel queasy. But are these concerns justified? And if so, what signs would augur the imminent collapse of an ESG bubble? Most importantly, what can plan sponsors do to ensure that their funds' investments do not land them in hot water?

Speakers:

Angela Lin Reeve, senior portfolio manager, pensions, Royal Bank of Canada
Alain Malaket, chief executive officer, InBenefits

12:00 PM: Closing remarks

12:05: Lunch (Lakeview Terrace)