Risk Days Europe 2012

Tuesday, 27 March 2012: 08:30-18:00

Indexation and Passive Investment Conference

ETFs in Institutional Investment—EDHEC-Risk European ETF Survey:
Unveiling the results of an exclusive survey of European institutional investors
• New trends in ETF usage
• Perceived benefits and drawbacks of ETFs by asset classes
• Perceived investment risk for asset owners using ETFs

ETFs Roundtable: Perceived Risks and Benefits of ETFs Investments and Regulators’ Considerations: Towards More Regulation for ETFs?:
• Differences between ETFs and other exchange-traded products
• Risks of synthetic replication versus physical replication of ETFs
• Are ETFs increasing systemic risk?
• Potential consequences on regulation

Afternoon workshops

Afternoon stream sessions:
• Dynamic Allocation Strategies with Exchange-Traded Funds
• Building New Benchmarks Suitable for Institutional Investors: The Case of Equity Indices with Low Sovereign Risk
• Passive Investment: Considerations when Including SRI Factors
• Beyond 1/N
• Liquidity in ETF Markets

Investing in New Forms of Equity Indices:
• Representativeness versus efficiency: optimality conditions of the different forms of equity indices
• Diversification of new forms of indices
• How to manage investment risk within the new weighting scheme?

Day Two

Global Institutional Investment Conference

Pension Fund Roundtable - Pensions at Risk: How to Protect Investors from Pension Fund Risk?:
• How to ensure protection of investors from the default risk of a pension fund or its sponsor
• Is prudential regulation sufficient to cope with pension fund default risk?
• How to protect the assets of a corporate pension fund when the sponsor defaults
• Which insurance strategy for pensioners?

Morning stream sessions:
• The Case of Hybrid Pension Schemes in Europe
• Dynamic Investment Strategies for Corporate Pension Funds in the Presence of Sponsor Risks
• PhD Forum

Afternoon workshops

Afternoon stream sessions:
• What are the Preferred Options of the Fund Management Industry Regarding Non-financial Risk Management?
• The Benefits of Sovereign, Municipal and Corporate Inflation-Linked Bonds in  Long-Term Investment Decisions
• PhD Forum

Solvency II Benchmarks:
• How to limit the capital cost of equity investment with dynamic asset management of budget risks
• Conceptual principal of Solvency II benchmarks
• Solvency II benchmarks as part of an internal model for equity investing


Day Three

Thursday, 29 March  2012: 08:15-17:30

Alternative Investment Conference

Hedge Fund Roundtable: Is the AIFM Directive Really Guaranteeing Better Protection for Investors?:
• Do the new rules in terms of depositary responsibility actually take into account the lessons of recent hedge fund failures?
• Are the new obligations in terms of transparency and reporting on risk sufficient to guarantee the information and protection of investors?
• Is the AIFM directive truly structuring a competitive market and securing alternative investment funds in Europe or is it obsolete given the development of Newcits?

Morning stream sessions:
• The Impact of Long-Short Commodity Investing on Risk Management and Regulation
• Idiosyncratic Volatility Hedging for Better Management of Portfolio Volatility
• Non-parametric Hedge Fund Modelling and Implications for Hedge Fund
Performance Evaluation and Asset Allocation Decisions

Afternoon workshops

Afternoon stream sessions:
• Idiosyncratic-Risk-Based Commodity Strategy
• High Frequency Trading: Consequences and Recent Developments
• Skewness as an Asset Class
• Intelligent Commodity Investing and Trading
• Determinants of Private Equity Investments’ Returns