PP Investment Conference 2016: Keynote speaker announced

clock • 1 min read

Professional Pensions has unveiled the keynote speaker for this year's PP Investment Conference.

The Economist coined the phrase ‘Maple Revolutionaries' to describe Canada's largest public pension fund groups which are paving the way for innovative investment strategies.

This year's investment conference will meet of those revolutionaries - Morgan McCormick, the managing director of the private markets group at OPTrust, a Canadian pension plan with C$18.4bn (£10.7bn) in assets and almost 87,000 members and retirees.

Even though the fund is smaller than some of its compatriots - with assets under management similar to those of a large UK scheme - OPTrust embarked on a hugely ambitious private markets program in 2006 to build diversified private equity and infrastructure portfolios.

It has since established offices in London and Sydney, and its private equity and infrastructure investments have grown significantly - now making up 22% of the scheme's net assets.

Performance of these asserts has been remarkable. Since inception, its infrastructure portfolio has generated a net annual return of 17.5% and its private equity portfolio has achieved a net annual return of 5.9%.

But how does a relatively small fund build and run such a diverse investment strategy that has helped it remain fully funded?

In his keynote speech at the PP Investment Conference, McCormick will talk about the key to the scheme's success - outlining how the fund's private market investments have grown to date, detailing the scheme's innovative investment strategy and share its outlook for the future.

The Professional Pensions Investment Conference 2016 is free-to-attend for the key decision makers within public and private sector pension schemes.

To book your place at the conference, visit the PP Investment Conference website.

To view the programme in full, click here.

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