Paul Niven, manager of the FTSE 100 constituent F&C Investment Trust, explores whether equity markets can remain resilient in the face of high interest rates and moderating economic growth, and discusses opportunities within markets for investors.

Workshop objectives:
•  Understand the global macroeconomic environment.
•  Understand how “higher interest rates for longer” may affect performance for equities.
•  Understand the balance of growth versus value investment themes in such an environment.

The transition from analogue to digital has been underway for some time, with this only set to continue. Supporting this digital revolution is critical physical infrastructure, the concrete and cables enabling our digital interactions.
From data centres to telecom towers, logistics warehouses supporting e-commerce, to fibre optic networks, Gravis will explore the opportunities for predictable long-term income that can be found by investing in the companies which own these physical infrastructure assets, vital to the transition to a digital world.

Objective: Investigate potential long-term investment prospects in companies that own and manage essential physical infrastructure assets crucial for facilitating the digital transformation from analogue technologies.

Company Profile: The Gravis approach to fund management is perfectly depicted by the company’s tortoise logo: slow, steady, and consistent. We specialise in Funds that do something a little different, providing investors with exposure to the more stable and predictable side of many of today’s exciting themes, resulting in reliable, long-term income from alternative sectors.

Based on the work of Professor Shiller, the Barclays range of CAPE indices, accessible though Ossiam UCITS ETFs, offers a good risk-return profile on US, Europe & Global large cap equity universes. Experts from Barclays and Ossiam will walk you through the investment process, both in terms of sector selection and ESG features.

Workshop Objective: Present the meaning and usefulness of the Shiller CAPE ratio for equity sectors Explain the construction methodology of the Barclays Shiller CAPE indices Demonstrate the added value of ESG integration with such an approach.

Company Profile: Ossiam is a specialist asset management company that develops and manages investment funds, including exchange-traded funds (ETFs), based on systematic investment processes. Ossiam is headquartered in Paris, France and is a subsid- iary of Natixis Investment Managers. Ossiam’s total assets under management amounted to €7.8 billion at the end of 2022.

 Company Profile:Barclays is a consumer and wholesale bank, supporting individuals and small businesses through our consumer banking services, and larger businesses and institutions through our corporate and investment banking services. Our Corpo- rate and Investment Bank is comprised of the Investment Banking, International Corporate Banking, Global Markets and Research businesses; it provides money managers, financial institutions, governments, supranational organisations and corporate clients with services and advice for their funding, financing, strategic and risk management needs.

After a decade of passive approaches dominating Emerging Markets Equity investments, valuation and dispersion dynamics provide evidence-based and tangible reasons to reconsider active opportunities in this space. 

The RAM Emerging Markets Equities Fund offers a solid, diversified core solution for this attractive region, having consistently captured fundamental inefficiencies within for close 15 years.

Artificial intelligence has become an essential aspect in continuing to do so – and RAM AI’s technological infrastructure has been built with the aim to capitalise on novel opportunities arising from this paradigmatic shift. From Deep Learning models to unstructured data and beyond.
Discover how RAM AI integrates artificial intelligence tools into a fundamental, multi-dimensional bottom-up active management approach for Emerging Markets.

Company Profile: RAM Active Investments (RAM AI) is a Geneva-based systematic asset manager created in 2007 with the conviction that harnessing data, technology and human experience is pivotal to delivering sustainable returns and fulfilling investors' needs for innovative and active solutions.
With research at the forefront of their disciplined investment approach, RAM AI harnesses scientific data analysis and risk-led portfolio construction techniques to identify and exploit new market inefficiencies. Committed to providing a clear sustainable objective to stakeholders, the company has progressively integrated Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) elements across its strategy range, recognising the escalating environmental issues and the potential unique investment opportunities. The company manages EUR 2bn across ten strategies and three categories: Systematic Equity, Alternatives and Fixed Income.

 India is the world’s 5th largest economy and forecasted to be the 3rd largest by 2028; A vibrant nation currently undergoing simultaneous transformation across social, economic, and political spheres, driving unprecedented economic growth. The widespread adoption of digital technologies, embraced by both the government and the Indian populace, plays a pivotal role in fuelling this transformation. 
Furthermore, India's youthful demographic, with a median age of just 28, is a key driver behind the projected six-fold increase in GDP-per-capita, expected to surge from $2,279 in 2021 to $15,000 by 2050. 
With domestic consumption constituting about two-thirds of GDP, India's bottom-up growth model is set to reshape the nation and offer enduring investment prospects for long-term investors.

Workshop Objective: Understand why India can’t be ignored as part of your strategic asset allocation.

Company Profile: UTI International represents the offshore interests of UTI Asset Management Company Limited (UTI AMC), helping global investors invest into India. Current investors include private banks, wealth managers, family offices, insurance companies and pension funds.

UTI AMC, the parent entity, founded in 1964, is the oldest asset manager in India and was listed on BSE and NSE in 2020

With a robust investment process and one of the largest investment teams entirely based in India, the group currently has a combined AUM of over USD 200 billion (July 2023), making it one of the largest domestic Indian asset managers with more than 11 million clients. UTI AMC’s major shareholder is T. Rowe Price International, holding 23% of the company.

With the outlook for global bond markets in the balance, investment-grade credit is one of the most compelling segments of fixed income, with higher starting yields, central banks that are likely nearing the end of their hiking cycles and a weaker global economy that is not yet recessionary. However, with a number of risks still on the horizon, a disciplined, risk-managed approach is key to consistently deriving alpha from the asset class.
The Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund is managed by Vanguard’s Fixed Income Group with Sarang Kulkarni as lead portfolio manager, and is the top performer in its peer group. Sarang is a credit specialist portfolio manager with more than 30 years’ investment experience. As part of Vanguard’s Fixed Income Group, Sarang employs a security selection-focused strategy that leverages the expertise of Vanguard’s 60+ in-house credit research analysts to find undervalued securities. 
This approach has helped the fund’s managers generate more than 80% of the fund’s alpha from security selection, and it stands in contrast with the strategy adopted by many active credit managers who attempt to generate returns by taking excessive bets on the broad direction of bond markets. Vanguard believes sourcing alpha from security selection is a more consistent and repeatable way of delivering value to investors. Come and hear from Sarang about how he and the 130-strong global active fixed income team plan to approach this environment.

Workshop Objectives: Why the managers of the Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund favour a security-selection-focused approach rather than taking excessive bets on the direction of bond markets to generate returns;

Why current market conditions make investment-grade credit one of the most compelling segments of the bond market at present;

How Vanguard’s 130-strong global active fixed income team are approaching the current bond market environment and where they believe the best selection opportunities for bond portfolios can be found.

Company Profile: Vanguard is a different kind of investment company. It was founded in the United States in 1975 on a simple but revolutionary idea: that an investment company should manage its funds solely in the interests of its clients.

This is a philosophy that has helped millions of people around the world to achieve their goals with low-cost, uncomplicated investments.
It's what we stand for: value to investors.