170 professionals from within the fund selection industry were gathered for the 4th edition of FundsEvent, held last Tuesday at Chamber of Commerce, to overview the topical issues of the sector and benefit from privileged conferences, debates and experts workshops.
The conference program was opened by Joanne Gilbert, Fixed Income Investment Specialist at Aberdeen Asset Management on the topic "an old solution to new challenges" before introducing Darren William (AllianceBernstein) presentation about Global Economic Outlook: Preparing for a Return to Normality.
Darren William began his speech by making an overview of what he called the (not so) great moderation. This period was characterised by low inflation. However, there was great volatility in financial markets and asset prices.
To maintain certain stability, in particular under the 2008 financial crisis, central banks have applied unconventional monetary policies. One analysed by Darren William: the quantitative easing. This policy consists in pushing long-term rates lower and to make borrowing even easier. According to him, it is a great monetary experiment but it cannot happen here because of printing money and hyperinflation. He illustrated his theory through the rise of hyperinflation in Germany during the interwar period (1914 – 1923). As a consequence, to build up strong basis, the recommendation would be to put a floor under asset prices and establish a base for recovery.
Within this framework, Darren Williams focused his presentation on three core topics: the Fed tapering and the outlook for global bond yields; Europe after the German election- is the crisis over? and the reconsideration of the inflation/deflation debate.
To complete his presentation, he was joined by Marco Paolucci (SEB) and Jean-Marc Vittori, Editorial writer for Les Echos as moderator; the discussion was extended to the topic: new normality: what will be the rule of the game? and several angles have been studied. Among the different themes, key problems in Europe with Germany as example were discussed; in particular the downturn trend of the demographic curve leading to a lack of taskforce in EU. Then what will be the solution? Erase borders, let everything circulate freely or even include Asia / Latin America to our community. Another issue was the debate related to the possible ways to solve government debts. Indeed, internal demand for solving debt is high but to whom does it belong to? For instance, 30% of the United States national debt is owned by China, which also raises another question: the increasing power of emerging countries. When the dollar has a lower value, it benefits Renminbi and creates new opportunities for the country. Roles reverse and the rules of the game too, the solution will be to maintain the balance and make countries solve their own problems. As noted by Darren Williams: “we passed the worst, it is getting better”.
Later in the morning, another panel discussion was launched on the topic Post crisis: bet or pray?
Also moderated by Jean-Marc Vittori, Charles de Lamaestre (BGL BNP Paribas) and Wouter Gesquiere (KBL EBP) were there to talk about the post cris trends to be adopted. Shall we bet, and invest on ‘risky’ markets based on mega trends, or pray and remain prudential and keep on working with low risks products? Some megatrends have been reviewed by our panel and the interest was to know if they will invest in future trends and what they thought about it. Hence, the megatrends addressed were: 3D printing, Big data, Mobile phone (4G-mobile payment and banking), Basel III, FATCA and what is brewing now at the OECD (bilateral automatic exchange of financial datas), the Internet of things, Corporate social responsibility, Emerging multinational corporation, Infrastructure financing.
In the afternoon, Sandra Crowl, Member of the Investment Committee from Carmignac Gestion introduced Anja Hochberg (Credit Suisse) speech on the topic Where next after the fixed income bull market? Through detailed graphs and a depth analysis, Anja Hochberg demonstrated, under different aspects, how much normality we could live with and what we could expect for the future of the fund industry.
From her point of view, the “normalization” is therefore found in Business cycle, inflation and monetary policy.
Regarding medium- to long term yields, the curve is expected to increase but for now, we have reached a plateau. Volatility in on the rise but stable risk premiums remains.
Anja Hochberg also dealt with fixed income and highlighted that they could be interesting in four cases: when duration risks are managed, government bonds are mixed with other FI sub assets, the «right» credit niche are invested in and when the currency risk is managed.
Her most preferred asset class? “Equities, especially with focus on Europe.”
Along with these high professional conferences, people enjoyed from elitist networking moments but also attended several master classes. Indeed, the event used to propose to the audience rows of master classes during which each attendee had the choice between 3 different presentations.
Workshops that had the most attendance where dealing with: Generating Alpha in the U.S Equity Markets by Jay Feeney, Robeco; European Equities: High Alpha – Low Volatility. Identical twins or polar opposites by Michael Fraikin, Invesco; and Opportunities and challenges for Luxembourg investment fund sector by Pierre Oberlé, ALFI.
The other themes that have been presented ranged from Marking the most of ETFs in asset allocation to Increasing Your Yield From Sovereign Debt, passing by Global fine-tuning on US-rate normalisation.
Then, a last debate on Regulation VS Yield: how to reach the right balance? was opened and to answer, key professionals intervened and gave their point of view. Thus, Jean Marc Vittori gave the words to Anja Hochberg who took lessons from the past to give more precisions about the importance of the role of the market regarding regulations and the arbitrage whereas Claude Hirtzig (BCE Asset Management) preferred to involve management issues since it affects human resources and have a look at the consolidation of the asset management industry. Finally, Steve Lasar (CBP Quilvest) turned his speech toward delocalisation vs protection and the cost of these initiatives.
The day wrapped up with the traditional networking cocktail giving the opportunity to funds selection professionals to meet once again and improve their lead around a drink.
We kindly invite you to discover some of the presentations in the Download section: www.fundsevent.com Sponsors:
Aberdeen – AllianceBernstein - Amundi Asset Management - Amundi ETF – Carmignac – Ethenea – FIL Luxembourg – ING Investment Management – Invesco Asset Management – Robeco – ALFI – FIABCI 65 Partners:
AGEFI Luxembourg – Banque&Finance – Business Mir – CFO World – Chronicle.lu – Entreprises magazine – ETF Express – Expert Investor Europe – Family Office – Funds Europe – Funds Global Asia – Funds Global MENA – Funds People - Global Fund Media – Hegde Week – IAIR – Institutional Asset Manager – Les frontaliers – Lëtzebuerger Gemengen – Magazine Décideurs – PREMIUM – Private Equity Wire – Property Funds World – Wealth Adviser Event partners:
Angels Event Agency - Renault – rms.lu – Studion Press contact:
Charlotte Boutelier/ (+352) 26 27 69 26/ charlotte.boutelier@farvest.com
UPCOMING FINANCE RELATED EVENTS:
CFO World Gala - 28 November 2013 - gala.cfoworld.lu
PrivateBanker - 6 February2014 - www.privatebanker.lu (2013 version at the moment)
Morningstar Fund Awards Luxembourg – FundsEvent - 3 April 2014 - www.fundawards.lu
65th FIABCI World Congress - 17-22 May 2014 - http://www.fiabci65.com/
