IFA Magazine’s latest Webinar held in September, entitled ‘Has high inflation been a game changer for multi-asset?’ was a clear success with our readers and viewers. In fact, it’s been our most popular webinar ever! In this overview, we summarise the key elements of the conversation between our expert panellists, LGIM’s Andrzej Pioch and Premier Miton’s Neil Birrell with Chair JB Beckett.
With hundreds of viewers tuning in live on the day, the webinar, which took place on Tuesday 19th September, was expertly chaired by the highly engaging JB Beckett. JB is an ex-fund selector and asset allocator himself, and no stranger to interrogating fund managers about what’s really going on in the global economy, in markets and within their funds – as he demonstrated all too clearly during this webinar.
JB was joined by our two expert panellists, Andrzej Pioch, Fund Manager at Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) and Neil Birrell, Chief Investment Officer at Premier Miton.
Two managers, two viewpoints
We were extremely grateful to JB and also to our two great panellists, both of whom are not only hugely knowledgeable in their field – but great communicators too. Whether it was about what’s going on in markets, in the global economy, in regard to managers’ and advisers’ changing obligations under the new Consumer Duty, managing risk, dealing with diversification/asset allocation headaches, correlations between equities and bonds , use of investment trusts, private assets or a plethora of other topics which JB so expertly put to them, they were willing to share their insights in such a candid way. Even better, it was a thoroughly engaging conversation which used terminology that everyone could understand despite the complexity of some of the issues involved. And of particular interest was how Andrzej and Neil managed to convey some of the challenges they face, navigating today’s complex world in a context of managing a multi-asset strategy along with their teams. Whilst in some ways the two managers’ approaches clearly differ, in others there was synergy.
Full three sixty insight
To help IFA Magazine readers to gain a full three sixty view of what is going on out there in the markets, what are the main threats and opportunities and how such decisions might be impacting your clients’ portfolios, this was a really useful conversation. There was plenty of genuine and honest insight from Neil and Andrzej into today’s market conditions and what might be coming down the line for multi-asset – as well as for investments more broadly.
Not only did we receive a rush of great listener questions to close off the webinar on the day, but the feedback we received from our IFA Magazine audience following the event was incredibly positive too.
Catch up with the conversation
IFA Magazine readers can download the webinar free of charge in order to view the conversation between JB, Andrezj and Neil.
Access the webinar recording here
About Andrzej Pioch
Andrzej is a fund manager in LGIM’s Multi-Asset Funds team. His responsibilities cover the portfolio management and ongoing development of both institutional and retail multi-asset funds and he leads on the management of the award-winning L&G Multi-Index fund range. Prior to joining LGIM in July 2014, he was a fund manager at Aviva Investors. He is a CFA charterholder and completed the MSc programme in Finance at Bocconi University in Milan. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and social science from Utrecht University. An ESG advocate, Andrzej holds GARP’s Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate and lectures at Queen Mary University of London on Portfolio Construction and Asset Allocation.
About Neil Birrell
Neil is Chief Investment Officer & lead manager of the Premier Miton Diversified fund range. He joined Premier Miton in January 2013 from Elcot Capital, where he was part of the team responsible for managing multi strategy investments. Neil was previously Chief Investment Officer of Framlington Investment Management.
About JB Beckett
In over 25 years, JB Beckett has never been far from the contentious or the taboo in our industry. A devotee to the left-field, JB has spoken around the world on the dysfunctions of our industry, challenging the conventional. In 2015 JB wrote ‘#NewFundOrder’ and ‘NFO2.0‘ in 2016 and has co[1]written a number of books on digitalisation of asset management. Since 2020 JB has hosted the New Fund Order podcast. NewFundOrder.Buzzsprout.com is available on all good podcast platforms. JB has continued to educate colleagues through learning materials and train fund research teams. Until 2018 JB was a fund gatekeeper at Lloyds and Scottish Widows, part of the team that selected the world’s largest asset tender in history, he remains Emeritus of the Association of Professional Fund Investors and external specialist for the CISI.
