Agenda
08.30 – 09.00: Registration and refreshments
09.00 – 09.10: Chair’s opening remarks
Andy Cheseldine, Professional Trustee, Capital Cranfield
09.10 – 09.35: 2024 Pension Trustee Research Results
Barnaby Low, Portfolio Manager, Charles Stanley Fiduciary Management
Be the first to hear the key findings from Charles Stanley’s wide-ranging 2024 survey of professional trustees.
09.35 – 10.00: DB consolidation: better together?
Emily Rowley, Associate Director, Sackers
David Taylor, Executive Board Member and General Counsel, Pension Protection Fund
2023 saw the announcement of the first DB superfund transfer. Following that, in 2024, the DWP consulted on a proposal for a public sector consolidator. In this session, Emily and David will discuss the process and legal considerations around consolidation options for DB schemes and latest developments in this area.
10.00 – 10.25: Delivering administration services to different size schemes
Anish Rav, Director of Global Pensions Policy, Capita Pension Solutions
This session will look at the challenges and opportunities of administering schemes of different sizes, including:
- How smaller schemes have often struggled to get the same benefits as larger schemes, due to the lack of scale and resource.
- How technology is transforming the pension administration landscape, enabling schemes of all sizes to access more efficient, flexible, and tailored solutions.
- Innovations in administration and the products and services to help schemes achieve their goals and deliver better outcomes for their members.
10.25 – 10.50: Fireside chat: Governance in focus: Unlocking opportunities with an OCIO
Lara Edmonstone-West, UK OCIO Business team, BlackRock
Michele Hirons-Wood, Professional Trustee, Capital Cranfield and Head of Pensions, UK Power Networks
Pension schemes and trustees are navigating increasingly complex challenges in today's market. Decision-making, governance models, regulation and risk reporting continue to pressurise the industry, whilst many schemes are now approaching their endgame and exploring their options. Amidst the current market noise, this session will unpick the challenges being faced and explore how an OCIO model can help unlock opportunities and provide effective solutions for trustees.
10.50 – 11.20: Coffee break
11.20 – 11.45: The Evolving Role of Securitised Credit
Paul Mitchell, Senior Investment Specialist, Global, Securitised and Sterling Fixed Income, HSBC Asset Management
Allocations to securitised credit and other asset backed securities have been growing in popularity among UK pension schemes. This differentiating asset class offers portfolios several benefits including portfolio diversification and a significant yield premium when compared to traditional fixed income instruments. We will look at the role securitised credit can play in pension scheme portfolios, particularly in this post-LDI crisis environment. We will discuss how pension scheme usage of these assets is evolving; look at which areas of the market are showing opportunities; and evaluate the risks involved in the assets and how they can be minimised by managers.
11.45 – 12.10: The need for a new, more sustainable approach to capital management in private equity, infrastructure and real assets
Hugo Llewelyn, Founding Principal and CEO, Newcore Capital
There is a clear need for a new, more sustainable approach to capital management in private equity, infrastructure and real assets, encompassing a social contract as well as a legal contract between investment managers and their stakeholders.
Stewardship of assets core to the UK’s social and economic infrastructure needs to be low-levered, lower paid (no carried interest to managers for core risk) and run for the long term, with clearly accepted principles of capital expenditure from operating cashflow (or within the context of that low leverage).
If there is one key lesson to take away from the Thames Water debacle, it is that private equity managers focused on real assets and infrastructure, and the investors who back them, need a three-dimensional understanding of sustainability – social, environmental, of course but crucially, financial – to navigate the coming cycle. Given we are in the business of managing other people’s money, this may seem blindingly obvious, but quantitative easing and ultra-low interest rates warped industry perception of risk and led to a short-term asymmetric culture of risk and return to managers.
The chances of interest rates falling to levels where another asset boom occurs are minimal. This alongside the artificial suppression of gilt rates by the Bank of England and a severe lack of Government regulation in private equity markets in relation to risk has left many managers and their stakeholders in a dire state.
More and more institutional investors are waking up to this reality and to what defines a truly sustainable fund management service. This will hopefully dictate where capital will flow for the next decade.
12.10 - 12.35: Beyond Diversification – the benefits of systematic investing in credit
Scott Richardson, Director of Systematic Credit, Acadian Asset Management
Systematic investment approaches are a growing segment of the corporate bond space, harvesting alpha from overlooked parts of the market. While the active returns are diversifying vs. discretionary peers, the benefits of a systematic approach extend beyond the “free lunch”. Systematic approaches can offer greater transparency to the asset owner as well as capitalize on the asset class’ fragmented trading market. These benefits are achievable, and we believe will continue to revolutionize the corporate credit market.
12.35 – 13.00: Fireside chat: Administration analytics: how to make data insights work for your members
Stephen Blakesley, Proposition Manager, Aptia
Sue Doughty, Partner, Aptia
As one of the UK’s biggest pensions administrators, Aptia generates data that enables valuable insights into members’ behaviour and experience. Stephen Blakesley and Sue Doughty will discuss some of Aptia’s key analytics - and how they can be applied to strengthen engagement with your scheme members and policyholders.
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch break
14.00 – 14.25: Keynote speaker: The Pensions Dashboards Programme: Progress Update and What's Next
Chris Curry, Principal of the Pensions Dashboards Programme, Money and Pensions Service
Chris Curry will provide updates on the latest progress from the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) and what's to come for the rest of 2024 and beyond, including connection to the dashboards ecosystem and recently updated dashboard standards. He will also cover the pensions dashboards user experience and user testing progress, and will be pleased to take any questions.
14.25 – 14.50: Ensuring Pensions Dashboards Success: Practical Case Studies
Scott Blurton, Head of Pensions, Bupa
Andrew Lowe, Executive Pensions Consultant, ITM
Maurice Titley, Chief Innovation Officer, ITM
Join ITM and Bupa for an insightful session as they present case studies showcasing pension schemes ready for dashboards. This session will explore the critical steps schemes have taken, including ISP implementation, enhancement of matching capabilities, and resolving the benefit processes for dashboards. Gain practical insights on ensuring your scheme confidently meets government requirements before the fast-approaching deadlines.
14.50- 15.15: Calling into an empty forest – turning ineffective communications into the launchpad for good member outcomes
Ryan Sales, Delivery & Creative Director, Landscape
Helping members to live the life they imagine after work is reliant on a good understanding of their pension through effective and engaging communication.
So do you know your communications are reaching the right people, with the right message so that they make the right decisions for their circumstances?
Is every pound you spend on communications working as hard as it could?
In this session Ryan will outline the steps to auditing pension communications so that schemes can be assured about the impact of their activity for every generation of savers.
15.15 – 15.40: Superfunds and Insurance: compare-and-contrast and why they are complementary
Matt Wilmington, Client Transactions Officer, Clara Pensions
With the first two superfund transactions now announced, Matt will draw on his experience working for insurers and now a superfund to discuss the key similarities and differences between transferring assets and liabilities to a superfund and transferring to an insurer. Matt will cover a range of topics including the economics of each option, the member experience and the ‘what if it doesn’t work out’ scenarios and will finally discuss why, in his view, these two approaches are completely complementary.
15.40 – 16.05: Closing keynote: Lessons we can learn from global pension systems
Michelle Ostermann, CEO, Pension Protection Fund (PPF)
As the government looks beyond the UK as part of its pensions review, Michelle Ostermann, the Chief Executive of the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and Chair of the International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM), will leverage her extensive global experience to look at what we can learn from international pension models to create a system that generates both economic growth and value for members while building a better society for all.
16.05 - 17.05: Close of conference and drinks reception
