Infrastructure as an investment for insurance companies and pension funds

Mon 10 Oct 2022 -
12:30 - 14:00

The IFoA's Infrastructure Working Party, led by Chris Lewin, will present its new introductory guide to infrastructure investment, which will be published on the IFoA web-site prior to the webinar. Those readers whose institutions have already taken the plunge into infrastructure will know that it is a highly complex and diverse field of activity. This guide does not explore all the matters which investors take into account, but it does discuss many of the more important points, including the risks and past returns, benchmarking, and ESG and SDG considerations. Attendees will be invited to comment on the guide and share their own experiences.

You can access the new introductory guide here.

Featured Speakers

An actuary by profession, I have been the chief executive of several of the largest pension schemes in the UK, in both the public and private sectors. My skill-set includes institutional investment and risk management.

From 1998-2019 I led the risk-management initiative between the actuarial and civil engineering professions. This resulted in the publication of the RAMP Guide, which deals with the management of risks in major projects, including the strategic and financial aspects. The 3rd edition emphasises the need for systematic management of uncertainty and of the social and environmental risks in major infrastructure projects around the world. In 2017 we published Major Infrastructure Projects: Key Front-end Issues, which sets out a check-list of 82 issues that need to be considered deeply by senior people involved with new projects. In 2021 I prepared some of the evidence on resilience which the actuarial and civil engineering professions submitted to the UK Government.

For the last 7 years I have been the chairman of the Infrastructure Working Party of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, which aims to explore the risks and returns for financial institutions that invest in infrastructure.

Simon joined the PRI in June 2018, and leads the organisation’s work on real assets. He works with real assets investors to support their understanding and incorporation of environmental, social and governance factors in their investment processes. Recent work has included projects focused on diverse topics such as climate change, the Sustainable Development Goals, and human rights.

Prior to joining the PRI, Simon worked for over 10 years at Control Risks, where he led a team providing political and social risk advisory support to investors and corporate clients in Latin America. This often involved carrying out pre- or post-transaction due diligence for major investments and operations in the region, as well as assessing clients’ social risk management and governance frameworks and performance.

Simon holds a MSc in Latin American Politics from the University of London (Institute for the Study of the Americas) and a BA in Modern Languages (French and Spanish) from the University of Bristol.

Peter joined the UK Infrastructure Bank as its Chief Risk Officer in September 2022, shortly after the Bank’s first anniversary. He was previously Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management at the Green Investment Group, part of Macquarie. And, prior to that, was Chief Risk Officer then Chief Financial Officer of the UK Green Investment Bank, which he joined at its launch in 2012, and scaled to a global business with 500 employees, now under Macquarie’s ownership. Peter is highly experienced in impact investing and has been involved in the acquisition and execution of over 150 infrastructure projects over the past decade across equity and debt. He was Group Head of Operational Risk at Standard Chartered Bank and has broader investment experience through positions with JP Morgan Chase and Robert Fleming. He is a Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chair at the Scottish National Investment Bank.

Monica Rossi is an investment professional with over 10 years’ experience across asset management, multi-management, investment product development and balance sheet optimisation in emerging markets. She has also served on various investment committees for alternative investment funds. She holds an honours degree in Actuarial Science specialising in Quantitative Finance, and the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification. Monica is enthusiastic about sustainable finance, impact investing and the role of innovative finance in mobilising private capital for sustainable investment. She is a member of the Infrastructure Working Party of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (UK).

Hemal has over twenty years’ experience across investment management and advisory, having worked for large asset owners and investment managers across the globe. These include the British Steel Pension Fund, one of Europe’s internally managed pension funds, where he formulated and managed the alternative investment strategy, and as Head of Investment and Actuarial at the Government Employees Pension Fund of South Africa, one of the world’s largest pension with over $150 billion in assets. He currently serves as Chief Investment Officer of SouthBridge Investments, a pan African investment management firm with offices in Abidjan, Casablanca, Kigali, London and Paris.

Hemal also serves on the Principles for Responsible Investing Infrastructure Advisory Committee, as an Investment Committee member of the World Health Organisation, and as a Trustee of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Foundation.

EDHECinfra

Oliver joined EDHECinfra in January. He leads the business development efforts for the UK serving stakeholders with exposure to unlisted infrastructure. He is engaged with clients on use-cases including strategic asset allocation, benchmarking, and asset valuation.

Prior to joining EDHEC he worked with PATRIZIA on a start-up project which aimed to digitise debt origination around real assets. His clients included European asset managers and banks’ lending at the fund and asset level.

At MSCI, Oliver worked with the leading investors in private real estate to help them solve performance and risk problems across their portfolios. Typical use-cases included performance attribution and risk management for direct real estate and funds.