[i3] Insights - Investment Innovation Institute

Experimenting with Uncertainty

Michael Kollo, Chief Executive Officer of Evolved.AI

Factors Underwater

Traditional factor portfolios have had a tough time before and during the pandemic. This is an excellent opportunity for the industry to accelerate its innovation toward alternative data and AI.

James Davis, Chief Investment Officer, OPTrust

Risk Mitigation Helps OPTrust Limit Losses

Asset Owners, Chief Investment Officers, Financial Crisis, Private & Alternative Markets

Canadian fund OPTrust employs a risk mitigating portfolio to help protect the fund from the worst of the volatility that can be experienced in growth assets, and it has proven quite resilient during the recent turmoil.

Steve Laipply, US Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs for BlackRock

Fixed Income ETFs Pass Liquidity Test

Financial Crisis, Fixed Income & Credit

As bond markets froze up in March of this year, when the scale of the pandemic became clear, fixed income ETFs remained liquid and experienced record trading volumes. We speak to BlackRock’s Steve Laipply to see how these ETFs held up under their first real life stress test.

Brent Snow, Associate Portfolio Manager Responsible for Infrastructure and Real Asset, First State Super on investing in chickens and almonds

When Chickens Come Home to Roost

Asset Owners, Private & Alternative Markets

Chicken farms and almond plantations are perhaps not the first things that come to mind when thinking about investments. But these agricultural investments have proven to be quite a find for First State Super.

Wouter Klijn, Director of Content at the Investment Innovation Institute [i3]

Rio Tinto – A Test Case for ESG

Editorial, ESG

As Rio Tinto destroys a unique piece of cultural heritage will asset owners’ ESG policies enable them to respond, or will it just be business as usual?

Helen Rowell, Deputy Chair at APRA on the superannuation industry

Superannuation Industry ROR at Record Low

Asset Allocation & Strategy, Risk and Regulation

Super industry has experienced its lowest rate of return in the March quarter since APRA started data collection.

Eyeing Distressed Investments

Financial Crisis, Fixed Income & Credit, Private & Alternative Markets

Asset consultant bfinance surveys distressed and opportunistic strategies and finds frantic capital raising activity. But not all strategies are equal, as the pandemic means a lack of track records and increased competition in some sectors.

Mark Aarons, Head of Portfolio Risk and Solutions for VFMC talks about hedging and risk management

Hedging with Hindsight at VFMC

Asset Owners, Private & Alternative Markets, Risk and Regulation

What if you could design your hedging strategy with 20/20 hindsight? We asked VFMC’s Mark Aaron how to best address this question.

Geoffrey Wong, Head of Emerging Markets and Asia-Pacific Equities at UBS Asset Management

Diversification through China A-shares

Emerging Markets, Equities

One of the reasons to invest in China A-shares is diversification. So how have these equities held up during the current pandemic-driven financial crisis? We speak to UBS AM’s Geoffrey Wong to find out.