The world is changing – major global secular dynamics have important implications for long-term investors. The war in Ukraine and geopolitical instability more broadly; shifts in globalisation and trade patterns; climate change and energy transition; technology; labour and mass migration; the impact of rising inflation; and, of course, COVID-19 recovery around the globe. In this session, our panel will discuss what they see as the major global secular themes, and how investors should be thinking about these issues in terms of investment strategy.

Be it politicians responding to voters’ cost-of-living concerns, unions arguing for wage hikes or central bankers ruminating on the transitory nature of supply chain constraints, it seems like everyone is worried about inflation. This session explores the current surge in inflation, how it is driving a shift in monetary policy and the significant implications for investment portfolios.

In 2020, Frontier’s Responsible Investment team finalised our “Manager ESG Assessment Toolkit”. The Frontier Equities team has now scored over 50 different active and passive strategies using this Toolkit. We will share our findings on the components of Responsible Investment that equities managers are doing best and worst, as well as contrast the results we have seen from different sub groups such as Australian versus global managers, and broad cap versus small cap managers.

Real estate has historically offered a hedge against inflation. Uncertainty post COVID-19, rising labour and building costs and supply side disruptions are testing tenants’ balance sheets and sentiment. Our panellists review the relationship between inflation and real property returns and look at lease structures and rent escalators across Australia and USA.

The panellists will discuss the current challenges and opportunities facing short and long tail insurers, with the aim of exploring investment opportunities that may provide more sustainable real returns under a range of future economic scenarios. The session will also showcase Frontier’s three-dimensional risk surface, which visually depicts an insurer’s trilemma of risks; that is, investment return, drawdown risk and capital insolvency.

After being heroes in the noughties and through the GFC, liquid alternatives have undoubtedly experienced a challenging decade. Central bank intervention and quantitative easing across the world contributed to a period of unusually benign markets making it difficult for alternative strategies to meet expectations. However, the post-COVID world of higher inflation, the withdrawal of central bank support and higher interest rates could result in the "lemon" investment of the past decade being the "lemonade" of this one.
This session is designed for decision-makers who would like to understand more about liquid alternatives and the role they can play in a portfolio. These investments may help asset owners address the challenging markets ahead.

Emerging market debt markets have journeyed through some tumultuous events causing underperformance versus other debt asset classes over the last two years.  This session looks to examine how managers have navigated the volatility and considers the market opportunities that have arisen in sovereign bonds  and credit markets from idiosyncratic events such as the war in Ukraine and China’s property developer sector collapse.

In November 2021, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) issued its Prudential Practice Guide, CPG 229, on managing the financial risks related to climate change risks. APRA’s focus on the financial risks arising from climate change reflects its evolving view of how climate change may impact its mandate to support a stable, efficient and competitive financial system. This session aims to explore what this means for asset owners along with broader climate risk management considerations.

The convergence and maturation of key DeFi and Web3 technologies, including Blockchain, Social platforms, Digital Wallets and Artificial Intelligence, are re-imagining the relationship between business and consumer marketplaces, through disintermediation of centralised authorities and disrupting traditional incumbents. This segment will explore what this means for the investments industry and where disruptive innovation is likely to appear and how the industry can benefit from these networked effects.

Making a rapid transition from polluting energy generation to clean forms of energy is vital to reduce the negative impacts of global warming. But achieving this outcome is much more complex than simply building more renewables. This session will consider where we are at in this transition and some of the risks, opportunities and challenges that will arise for investors.

Towards better investment decision-making: who is at the table and whose voice is heard? This session explores some of the dimensions of diversity and how to leverage cognitive diversity within a team to make better investment decisions.