Citywire MPS Allocators 2026

Emerging markets Equities have staged a strong comeback, but today’s EM universe looks very different from the one investors remember. Country leadership has shifted, sector exposures have evolved, and dispersion has widened materially across markets and stocks.

This session, investment specialist James Latimer-Butler will explore what has changed structurally within emerging markets, where opportunities and risks may now be mispriced, and why traditional EM frameworks may be less effective in this environment. He will illustrate how combining quantitative discipline with fundamental insight can help investors navigate an increasingly broad and dynamic EM universe, and build portfolios that are better aligned with today’s realities. 

Workshop Objectives: Equip participants to navigate today’s transformed emerging markets universe by examining shifting leadership, widening dispersion, and how integrating quantitative discipline with fundamental insight supports more effective, resilient EM equity portfolio design.

Company Profile: AllianceBernstein is a leading investment-management firm with $867 billion in client assets under management, as of 31 December 2025. 2025. With a unique combination of expertise across equities, fixed-income, alternatives and multi-asset strategies, we aim to deliver differentiated insights and distinctive solutions to advance investors’ success. Across our global network, we’re fully invested in delivering better outcomes for our worldwide clients, including institutional, high-net-worth and retail investors. By embracing innovation, we seek to address increasingly complex investing challenges and opportunities. And we pursue responsibility at all levels of the firm—from how we work and act to the solutions we design for clients.

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This session will explore the rising popularity of defined outcome strategies, explaining how defined return funds are structured, how they work in practice, and why they are increasingly being adopted within model portfolios. With more probable outcomes and predictable investment journeys becoming increasingly important for asset allocators seeking to construct resilient portfolios, the discussion will examine the drivers behind their growing appeal, the trade-offs investors should consider, and how these strategies can be used to deliver more predictable outcomes across different market environments.    

Workshop objectives: 
•    Understand how defined outcome and defined return strategies are structured and how they work in practice.
•    Identify the key benefits and trade-offs driving the growing adoption of defined outcomes.
•    Examine how defined outcome strategies can be used within model portfolios to manage risk and improve predictability.

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Well established in investors’ minds is the ability of active fixed-income managers to generate returns through directional rates and credit positioning, as well as the value added by rigorous bottom-up fundamental analysis. Far less, however, is often said about relative value strategies — yet these have become an increasingly important driver of performance within actively managed fixed income strategies. The breadth and variety across fixed income sub asset classes, combined with the dispersion that persists across curves, markets and sectors, means that fixed income relative value opportunities are plentiful. We explore the multiple performance levers available to active fixed income managers and how the use of a combination of strategies is essential for delivering consistent, attractive, risk adjusted returns throughout a full market cycle.

Learning Objectives:
1.    Understand the variety, and depth of current opportunities across the global fixed income universe
2.    Recognise how asynchronous credit cycles and the rate–credit correlation shape returns
3.    Why active management and a broad opportunity set can enhance fixed income risk adjusted returns

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The US equity market has delivered an extraordinary run in recent years, powered by resilient earnings, rapid innovation and one of the strongest economic recoveries in the developed world. But this success has also created challenges: valuations in several areas, especially mega cap technology, now sit meaningfully above their long term averages and at a clear premium to other global markets. For investors, this raises an important question: how do you participate in America’s ongoing growth story without simply buying into its most expensive corners? As one of the longest running US equity strategies, Capital Group Investment Company of America seeks to harness this next chapter of America’s growth in diversified and disciplined way.

Learning objectives:

1. Understand why the US remains a powerful engine for long term equity returns

2. Explore the wide range of broadening opportunities across sectors that are driving the next phase of US market leadership

3. Learn how a core, diversified and research driven approach can best capture these trends by balancing resilience, participation and long term compounding

Making the case for Trend following as a portfolio diversifier.

Join us as we explore the strategy and its key characteristics of compelling long-term returns with low correlation to traditional and alternative investments.

Furthermore, as evidenced by the high level of dispersion of returns amongst managers, what factors lead to better outcomes? 

Workshop Objectives: To learn about trend following and how it can help improve client portfolio outcomes whilst avoiding some of the most common pitfalls.

Company Profile: Capital Fund Management (CFM) is a global asset management company based in Paris with offices in New York, London and Toronto. CFM takes a scientific and academic approach to finance, using quantitative and systematic techniques to develop alternative investment strategies and products for institutional investors and financial advisers. CFM has 481 employees worldwide and manages approx. $24 billion (as at 1st Apr 2025).

This presentation will explore the benefits of dividend investing through periods of elevated uncertainty, as well as protracted market rallies. It will also highlight that there’s more than one way to invest in dividends – each with their own merits and drawbacks. We will unpack the various benefits and contrast two time-tested dividend investment styles against the current market landscape. 

Workshop Objectives: The objective is to provide investors a comprehensive understanding of the benefits of dividend investing through periods of uncertainty, as well as the differences between two distinct approaches.

Company Profile: First Trust is a privately owned U.S. based financial services firm established in 1991. Our mission and approach are simple. We aim to offer investors a better way to invest by providing transparent and innovative solutions - through knowing what we own, investing for the long term, employing discipline and rebalancing our portfolios. 
 
These core principles are taken into consideration in all aspects of our business and are the building blocks of our reputation. It is through these principles that First Trust’s specialist investment managers apply a robust and disciplined approach to a range of methodologies. We have a strong track record in providing a variety of rules-based, thematic, and actively managed strategies investing across a range of equities, fixed income and alternatives. 

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Following a difficult start in the 2020s the stars have aligned for emerging markets debt: fundamentals are improving while macroeconomic tailwinds have attracted inflows after 3+ years of outflows. Opportunities diverge across risk factors and countries: sovereign local currency debt appears attractive relative to sovereign and corporate hard-currency debt, while individual country and corporate selection is arguably more important than ever. Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s emerging markets debt team has the experience, resources and competitive advantages to harness the opportunities that exist and deliver them to clients in a range of benchmark-agnostic and –aware strategies.

Workshop Objective: Understand the current and longer-term risks and opportunities emerging markets debt 

Company Profile: MSIM, with $1.8 trillion in assets under management as of September 30, 2025, is a client-centric organization dedicated to providing investment and risk-management solutions to a wide range of investors and institutions including corporations, pension plans, intermediaries, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, endowments and foundations, governments and consultant partners worldwide. 

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European equities have been overlooked and unloved for a decade, making it rich in opportunity for the deep value investor. We will make the case for value investing in today’s Europe, discuss the parts of the market we find most attractive and explain the process we have to exploit them. We’ll also set out how learning and insights from the team’s proprietary data archive is helping us make the most of what’s on offer.

Workshop Objectives:

1.  By the end of the session, participants will be able to define “deep value” in the context of listed equities 
2.  Participants will be able to explain at least two structural or cyclical factors that have contributed to European equities being out of favour over the past decade and outline two potential implications for risk and return expectations.
3.  By the end of the session, participants will be able to describe a high-level workflow for using historical datasets in equity research (data sourcing, cleaning, testing, and monitoring) and list at least three limitations or risks (e.g., bias, overfitting, regime change) that can affect conclusions drawn from proprietary or archival data.