L&G Talks Asset Management

Unfortunately, and as much as we might like it to be the case, there is no miracle elixir for defined benefit schemes. Rather than hoping for magic, we’ve identified some tried and tested methods for making sure schemes run like well-oiled machine – mixed metaphors aside.  Studies have long shown that asset allocation is hugely important, typically accounting for the vast majority of the variation in portfolio returns over time. So focusing on asset allocation, alongside rigorous risk management and cost control within a strong governance framework, is what will drive improved outcomes for schemes. That in turn can create a more stable corporate balance sheet and improve benefit security for members. However, we often see significant time spent picking lots of different investment managers – either directly or via a fiduciary manager – who come with the promise of added value, despite there being no comprehensive evidence either way. In this conversation, we discuss the key ways defined benefit schemes can improve their effectiveness. ·         Lisa Purdy, Head of Fiduciary Distribution ·         Mark Vickery, Client Director ·         Eliza Grimond, Content Manager We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

Her path from sports to asset management is a fascinating one – from her first job in Dublin, to London where international clients would mistake her for French because of her distinctly un-Irish name! After having been recruited into recruiting by a recruiter at asset manager M&G, she saw how this world is about connecting with talent and how do we as a company and an industry present ourselves as a place where people can be themselves. Her passions lie in communicating a company’s culture and values, and capturing people’s hearts and minds in creating a more inclusive workplace.To kick off LGIM’s ‘Inclusion Week’, this conversation covers the whole range of issues surrounding diversity – which have often only been talked about in silos – and why culture matters; it underpins every part of our working lives and is essentially to creating that sense of belonging.·         Colette Comerford, Head of Inclusion & Culture·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content ManagerWe want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered.This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

E-commerce has changed the way we shop in a rapid space of time, growing at an annual average of 17% according to ONS calculations. But our demand for quick, reliable delivery has driven up the demand for logistics-capable properties closer to urban centres and this has reinvigorated the once ‘steady and dull’ industrial real assets sector. Prologis estimates that e-commerce logistics requires three times the floorspace of conventional logistics – a clear opportunity for investors’ capital.But investors piling into the urban logistics trend risk overpaying. A careful consideration of both macro location (growing populations, supportive density, and improving consumer spending) and micro location (which side of the low-emission zone will be best for business?) is key for performance.Our conversation this week dives into the ways this investment theme has developed over the years, why it’s likely to keep growing and also the risks investors should consider before going in guns blazing. Read Bill’s blog on the subject here: https://futureworldblog.lgim.com/categories/insights/urban-logistics-externalities-and-opportunity/?cid=lgimtalks ·         Bill Page, Business Space Research Manager, Real Assets·         Tim Packer, Assistant Fund Manager, Real Assets·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content ManagerWe want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered.This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

 The last decade has transformed the investment grade credit market. It’s not just that the size of the market has grown immensely, it’s that the average credit quality is much lower, meaning that risk of ‘fallen angel’ downgrades from investment grade to high yield rating is much higher. When the team stress-tested the investment grade market, the results were surprising: the number of expected downgrades could reach levels not seen since 2016.  We interview Madeleine about the research, why investor’s earlier fears about company over-leveraging have softened as balance sheets improved and why a hard Brexit might not drive up the number of UK downgrades as you might think. ·         Madeleine King, Co-Head of Pan-European Investment Grade Research ·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content Manager We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

 When contemplating what the final months of 2019 might have in store, we are probably similar to many other investors in feeling somewhat apprehensive, given the challenges we face: trade tensions, slowing growth, policy uncertainty and, of course, Brexit. Global growth has cooled over the last year and so the key question is whether the world economy has the underlying strength to prevent a number of key risks – from trade tensions, to a manufacturing slowdown, to Brexit – from tipping it towards recession. This week, Sonja Laud and Emiel van den Heiligenberg discuss the their outlook for markets, their expectations for inflation and why, even in this uncertain environment, the Asset Allocation team still prefer equities to credit. Read the full outlook here: http://www.lgim.com/uk/en/knowledge/thought-leadership/?cid=lgimtalks  ·         Sonja Laud, Chief Investment Officer ·         Emiel van den Heiligenberg, Head of Asset Allocation ·         Max Julius, Head of Content We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

We’re promised so many different things that are going to ‘change the world’ – from ever-smarter smartphones to space tourism. And investing for the long term means that each of us in the market are trying to assess what are the most meaningful changes, the impact they might have on our portfolios and where the new investment opportunities might be. But a question we’re so often asked by allocators and advisers is what’s a genuine long-term investment trend, and what’s a flash-in-the-pan investment fad?In this conversation, we put together a method investors can use to differentiate the two and ask our guest experts their thoughts on some very esoteric topics, from vaping and cryptocurrencies to electric vehicles and e-sports. Not to be done all at the same time though.·         Howie Li, Head of ETFs·         John Roe, Head of Multi-Asset Funds·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content ManagerWe want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered.This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

With an August bank holiday hitting the mid-thirties, it feels like summer is going out with a bang. That’s why we thought we’d record a summer special episode of our own while we’re joined by some incredibly talented work experience guests at Legal & General Investment Management. Following our episode on millenials and how they’re saving and investing, we took the opportunity to ask these members of Generation Z how they’re looking at money, what are the financial features that most appeal and what they wish was taught more about personal finance in schools.·         Blessing Verrall, Work Experience·         George Bentley, Work Experience·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content Manager, LGIM·         Eliza Grimond, Content Manager, LGIMWe want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered.This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

Christine Lagarde has a CV that makes many of us jealous: partner at the prestigious law firm Baker McKenzie by age 31, finance minister for France during the financial crisis, Chairman of the G20 in 2011 before becoming Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and most recently, nominated to the presidency of the European Central Bank.  In this episode, we’re discussing how investors can look at changes of central bank leadership and why they matter for dealing with both the ‘five minutes to midnight’ problems and the much less pressing but no less important structural issues facing developed economies. Where many have praised Lagarde’s (small-p) political skills, how can we contrast this to market fears about Jerome Powell over at the Federal Reserve? And here at home, what can we expect from the as-yet unknown replacement for Mark Carney? Read Hetal’s post on Lagarde’s appointment on our Future World Blog: https://futureworldblog.lgim.com/categories/insights/ecb-the-changing-of-lagarde/?cid=lgimtalks ·         Hetal Mehta, Senior European Economist ·         Chris Jeffery, Strategist ·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content Manager We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

We’ve unintentionally created a series in the past few months on the podcast. From the episode with Richard Romer-Lee which touched on the importance of communication with customers to the one with Helena Morrissey about how technology can help advisers reach more of the ‘uninvested’, these form a theme about how we as an industry are communicating with clients. This week we’re continuing that conversation by inviting Andy O’Shea, Investment Director and Head of Fund Solutions at Pharon IFA, to talk to us about the ways he’s managing client conversations about risk and return expectations, how diversification is important but can easily confuse customers, the burgeoning role of thematics and alternatives, and how we need to look beyond headline costs to an investment’s fundamental value. Also joining the podcast is Senior Investment Sales Manager, Matt Kemp, to provide his experience of the retail market and briefly discuss his West Ham fanzine, Over Land and Sea. Read Matt’s latest insights on our Future World Blog: https://futureworldblog.lgim.com/authors/matthew-kemp/?cid=lgimtalks   ·         Andy O’Shea, Investment Director and Head of Fund Solutions, Pharon IFA ·         Matthew Kemp, Senior Investment Sales Manager ·         Mark Chappel, Senior Content Manager We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.

While his distinctive Canadian twang might give him away, but Howie came to the UK to study law and fell in love with the place. A lawyer by training, he saw that would provide a useful structure of skills for transferring to a more commercial industry.  From his time advising hedge funds to his current role as Head of ETFs, Howie has seen the index industry transformed over the years. Just 10 years ago, many investors’ first question about ETFs was what they were – now it’s so much more exciting where investors looking at the whole range of indexing opportunities such as thematic and factor-based investing. Howie loves to travel with his family – especially to Italy on account of the food – but having moved to London has meant that his earlier passion for cars is a touch impractical… Find out more about our ETF capabilities here: http://www.lgimetf.com/institutional/uk/en-gb?cid=lgimtalks ·         Howie Li, Head of ETFs ·         Robert StGeorge, Content Manager We want to hear from you! Email us at mark.chappel@lgim.com with your thoughts on the podcast and any suggestions of the guests or types of content you’d like to see covered. This podcast is intended for investment professionals, and shouldn’t be shared with a non-professional audience. This podcast should not be taken as an invitation to deal in Legal & General investments. Any views expressed during this recording belong to the individuals and are based on market conditions at the time of recording, and do not reflect the views of Legal & General Investment Management. Legal & General Investment Management is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Legal & General Investment Management, One Coleman Street, London, EC2R 5AA. Register in England no. 2091894. All rights reserved. No part of this audio may be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Legal & General Investment Management.