• International change drivers
• Investment markets – what’s hot and what’s not
• How will tax reform and KIWI saver affect the asset allocation landscape in NZ?
• Innovation and change – new strategies and best practice
• Forecast for the future of the region

• The current and prospective global economic trends in asset allocation
• The impact of macro factors on allocation
• Alternative investments – are the new asset classes and approaches suitable for all?
• Challenges in identifying the best performing asset classes

• Investment strategies being used in the New Zealand’s asset allocation market
• What are the local market opportunities
• Where is there room for development?
• The future of New Zealand’s market

Senior Executive, Mercer Investment Consulting

• CalPERS approach to setting strategic asset allocation
• Implementing new asset classes
• Investing in alternatives - commodities and infrastructure
• Managing illiquid asset classes
• Approaches to risk management

Senior Executive, CalPERS (Subject to final confirmation)

• Reflecting the Fund’s distinctive characteristics
• Implications of being a long horizon investor
• The challenge of incorporating ‘alternative’ assets
• Challenges ahead - style bets and dynamic asset allocation

• Assessing fund objectives: short term pain versus long term gain
• Innovations in asset allocation models - death of the traditional model?
• Are benchmarks obsolete?
• Risk budgeting - how much risk can be justified?
• Assessing suitability of alternative asset classes, strategies, and managers
• Implementation costs: scale and agency costs

• The predictability of long term returns
• Managing risk over the medium term for higher returns 
• Whose responsibility is DAA?
• Size and nature of positions away from the SAA benchmarks
• Building consensus upon which to act

• How have tax reforms and the introduction of KIWI saver changed the investment landscape?
• How has it affected the way you do business?
• Its impacts on your approaches to SAA and TAA
• Will returns be sustainable in the long-run?

• Identifying fund objectives and what could threaten the achievement of these objectives
• Similarities and differences of funds with specific liabilities versus broad objectives
• How fund objectives / liabilities affect the definition of risk and the appropriate asset allocation mix
• Total fund risk
• Risk budgeting

• Risk: allocation, investment horizon-matching and diversification
• Diversification is king – will it always reign?
• Risk management for alternative investments
• Adjusting risk exposure with derivatives
• Where do you allocate risk in a high-fee environment?
• Performance and risk monitoring

• New approaches to asset allocation
• Innovations in traditional allocations
• How much focus should you put on innovation
• What are the barriers to innovation in practice?

• What are the benefits?
• Where are we in separating alpha and beta?
• How are investors considering portable alpha?
• What tools are needed for its implementation?
• Where does it fit with the asset allocation?
• What are the issues that need to be considered?

• To what extent is innovation in investment strategies taking place in the NZ market?
• What are some success stories?
• What are the barriers to innovation in practice?
• Where are the opportunities?

• How do new paradigms affect strategic asset allocation
• How do you separate alpha from beta?
• Relevant beta benchmarks: what do you use?
• Organising the alpha-generating process efficiently
• Skills, analysis, products – how do you access alpha?

• The evolution of absolute return investing
• Performance measurement: are benchmarks obsolete?
• Supply and demand of absolute return products and strategies
• Fees and risks of absolute return investing

Anthony Limbrick, Chairman, New Zealand Absolute Return Association, Chief Investment Officer, Pure Capital, Director, 36 South Investment Managers

• How effective is using less liquid alternative assets to meet long-term institutional portfolio objectives?
• How do you incorporate atypical risk-return characteristics?
• How do you get access to the top alternative investment managers?
• Benchmarking: what indices are available for allocation to alternatives?
• What are the costs of implementing alternative allocation?
• Performance-based fees: thumbs up or down?

Round table 1: Private market opportunities – accessing equity, debt, property and infrastructure

Nikki Brown, Council Member, NZVCA, Partner, Mvision Privat Equity Advisers (London)

Round table 2: Hedge Funds – fund of hedge funds versus multi-strategy

Anthony Limbrick, Chairman, New Zealand Absolute Return Association, Chief Investment Officer, Pure Capital, Director, 36 South Investment Managers

Round table 3: Investing in Property - Opportunities and challenges

• Contrasting governance to management
• Is there an optimal degree of delegation for internal and external resources?
• Where are additional returns coming from? Manager skill or actual asset classes?
• Implementing, selecting and assessing manager requirements in new classes
• Achieving an efficient transition from an old structure to a new structure
• Management of agents and potential conflicts of interest
• Communication between trustees and managers, and trustees and clients and trustees and sponsors 
• Environmental, social and corporate governance (EGS) analysis integration

• What are the criteria for sustainability and how do you apply them?
• Opportunities in carbon trading and clean energy markets
• Alternative energy and the environment -can pension funds be drivers of reform?
• Operating within regulatory constraints
• Invest in blacklisted companies - where do you draw the line? 
• Future directions