The IPE Conference & Awards comprises in-depth and highly topical debate sessions, featuring inspiring keynotes and practical panels.  With typically 300 top executives from pension providers in attendance, the event brings together influential decision-makers from across Europe.

Monday 27 November

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Young Pensions Leaders Roundtable (invitation only)
MAK Lounge

IPE is pleased to hold its first roundtable dedicated to promoting future pensions leaders. This session is an opportunity for young industry specialists from pension funds across Europe to exchange ideas on a range of topics including how a younger perspective provides diversity of thought and encourages long-termism, why our industry particularly suits younger people and how some of today’s most pressing challenges, including the climate and biodiversity emergencies are calling out for new thinking. If you are under 40 and work in the pension industry, contact Jakub Janas at jakub.janas@ipe.com about joining this roundtable. 

Please note that this is not a standalone session and you will be required to attend the IPE Conference & Awards on 28-29 November to qualify.

4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Registration for IPE Quest Boardroom Summit
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
IPE Quest Boardroom Summit (invitation only)
MAK Lecture Hall

An informal environment where investors can share investment strategy experiences and best practices with peers. Together around 25-30 investors to keep the discussion as productive as possible and the meeting is held under the Chatham House Rule. Please contact Jayna Vishram at jayna.vishram@ipe.com for further details.

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
IPE Welcome Drinks
MAK Column Hall

IPE Welcome Drinks with a museum gallery tour will be open to all attendees. They will be held at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK)

Tuesday 28 November

8:00 AM - 9:45 AM
Registration, networking and coffee
9:00 AM - 9:40 AM
Research Forum: ESG Investing - The next stage of its journey
Park Suites 9 & 10

After its recent travails, the current ESG model will have a big makeover that will make it more robust and investor-centric. This is the conclusion of the latest annual Amundi-CREATE pension survey to be launched at this session. 

9:45 AM - 11:45 AM
PLENARY CONFERENCE SESSIONS
Grand Klimt 1-3
Making Sense of a World in Conflict

From Russia - Ukraine and China to the Middle East and more, global geopolitics have rarely been as fraught, unstable or consequential.  One of the United States’ most influential national security advisers gives us an overview of current situations and potential outcomes.

The Role of Carbon Markets in the Energy Transition: Opportunities and Constraints

While the formation of comprehensive carbon markets may support sustainable development and usher in a net-zero future, questions remain about how to ensure the transition in a just and equitable one for people and communities around the world, particularly in the Global South.

Panel: Investment Leaders Respond to Global Challenges

The programme has so far focused on geopolitics, economics and climate. Our panel of investment leaders is responsible for billions in pension investments with the retirements of many millions of people at stake.  How do these experts synthesise competing priorities into coherent investment strategies? 
Olivier Rousseau - Co-Chief Executive Officer, Member of the Management Board, Le Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR)

LGIM

Park Suite 4

Investors in emerging market debt have not had an easy time. Negative US Treasury returns and the impact of a stronger dollar have weighed on the asset class. But LGIM believes 2024 will be the year when emerging market debt comes back onto investors’ radars. Given the firm’s view that we are nearing the peak in US interest rates, it thinks the opportunity to lock in yields – and hence income – at these levels is rare. Thus, receding inflation and favourable emerging market growth prospects, relative to developed market peers, make for an interesting macroeconomic environment.

Amundi Asset Management

Park Suite 8

Active management may offer opportunities to align portfolios with investors’ net-zero goals. Demonstrating a practical approach to achieving net zero across asset classes, Amundi Asset Management explains the short and long-term impacts of net-zero transformation on portfolio characteristics, both active and passive portfolios and how to actively contribute toward additional decarbonisation.

Xtrackers by DWS

Park Suite 5

Passive strategies encompassing innovative themes, more granular exposures and increased focus on ESG showed their worth in the latest bear market. From the perspective of pension investors, DWS assesses both drawbacks and opportunities for allocation using both active and passive building blocks, while identifying the largest areas where development is still required.

FTSE Russell

Park Suite 2

The sustainability-linked bond (SLB) market is growing, giving investors more choice with regard to ambitions, objectives and potential outcomes. FTSE Russell examines the newest trends, ideas and best practices in SLBs and discusses whether they should become a prerequisite for all capital raising in certain industry sectors.

Mercer

Park Suites 9 & 10

A recent survey of over 60 large asset owners with individual asset under management greater than $5bn focused on market trends, governance considerations and allocation plans for the next three years. Evolution in operating models, allocations to private markets and ambitious sustainability goals were just some of the notable observations. Mercer's panel breaks down the findings.

Timo Löyttyniemi, Chief Executive Officer, State Fund Finland

Ofi Invest Asset Management

Park Suite 3

Low-carbon energy is not made of wind or sun, but from a transformer, usually made of metal, that converts wind or sun energy into electricity. The energy transition will therefore require massive additional demand for metals, potentially providing a rare investment opportunity.

12:40 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch and networking 
12:40 PM - 1:30 PM
Pensions Scholarship Trust Research Showcase Lunch
Park Suite 7

The Trust, which financially supports young researchers in the pensions field hosts its second research showcase lunch.

Follow-on effects of risky pensions investments 
How do households adjust their non-retirement portfolios when pension funds invest more in risky assets? Do they follow suit, or do households reduce their risk exposure?

1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
Who Cares What Members Think?
Grand Klimt 1-3

Trends, and in some cases, legislation, are encouraging pension funds to take beneficiaries’ preferences into account when making investment decisions. With engagement typically low and ‘fake news’ obscuring information, how can we accurately gauge members’ ideas and put them into effect? And, is ‘the wisdom of crowds’ any way to run a pension fund?

AXA Investment Managers

Park Suite 5

With yields unseen since the GFC, credit is clearly back on investors’ radar. Discussions around net-zero investing have accelerated, but have never been more polarised. Our experts will shine light on the current market environment, discuss 2024’s credit outlook and show how institutional investors can build more resilient credit portfolios, while advancing their net-zero goals.

Bloomberg

Park Suite 4

Investors are realising that fixed income can offer a clear link between climate investment strategy and real-world outcomes. Bloomberg presents recent research on climate strategies and data sets, alongside best-in-class solutions for fixed income products including, green, social and sustainability bonds. The use of indices utilising pathway data and sovereign climate information is also discussed.

Franklin Templeton

Park Suites 9 & 10

Last year, institutional investors joined Franklin Templeton to think about the long-term waves set to transform the investment landscape: geopolitics, demographics, technology, debt and climate change. This year the debate dives deeper into two of the waves – geopolitics and debt – and discusses how the five waves can help investors assessing nations’ individual structural positioning and risk.

Northern Trust Asset Management

Park Suite 3

The twin crises of biodiversity and climate present systematic risks as well as investment opportunities that may reshape the economy and investment portfolios. Clearly, the ‘how’ has become more critical than the ‘why’. What are some practical, actionable ways that pension funds can address a wider spectrum of environmental considerations in their core portfolio?

Prudential Financial

Park Suite 2

Funded status is high, uncertainty and volatility are persistent, and there is appetite to de-risk, so pension funds, insurers and re-insurers are ready to act. This alignment is driving global de-risking markets into uncharted territory. We will discuss how the market participants are navigating these new roads ahead.

Universal Investment

Park Suite 8

Institutional investors have the opportunity to invest profitably in interest-bearing products again. This marks a new chapter for alternative investments. Universal Investment takes a closer look at how to develop and implement (un)successful solutions for private market products, focusing on European markets.

3:10 PM - 3:40 PM
Coffee and networking break
3:40 PM - 6:00 PM
PLENARY CONFERENCE SESSIONS
Grand Klimt 1-3
Focus on the IORP II Directive 

Occupational pensions play an important role in closing pension gaps. As European pensions mature, their governance must evolve to cover emerging topics such as the continued shift from DB to DC schemes as well as broader societal and economic changes. EIOPA’s chair discusses key points of the planned revisions to IORP II and also explains how diversity and inclusion have come to the fore.

Panel: Diversity and Inclusion

Pension funds have the ability to promote diversity and inclusion initiatives within their own organisations and their portfolios.  Should they incorporate a D&I agenda and if so, how should they decide which aspects to include?

Keynote: Investment Strategies in the New World Order

If investors can no longer take basic requirements such as rule of law and a well-regulated marketplace for granted, how can they face up to the threats from within, such as populism which may lead to crony capitalism where the plundering of investors’ assets is acceptable? The very future of ESG investing may also lie within this conundrum.​​​​​​

Future of Europe’s Security: Ukraine Reconstruction and the Role of Institutional Investors
Keynote – Exploring Ukraine’s Post-war Identity

One of Europe’s leading political scientists examines the Russia/Ukraine war, including how its length reduces the chances that Ukrainians return home, Ukraine's potential post-war identity and seemingly external factors, including forthcoming US elections, that may impact the outcome.

Panel discussion

Much of Ukraine will need to be rebuilt after the war, with whole new cities created and industrial centres moving from the east to the west.  Can Ukraine be investable? What are the opportunities for institutional investors, and how will they withstand the repercussions of the war?

6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
IPE European Pension Fund Awards 2023 drinks reception
Hofburg Vienna
7:30 PM
IPE European Pension Fund Awards 2023 dinner and ceremony
Hofburg Vienna

Join us for dinner as we reveal the highly commended investors and winners of this year's IPE European Pension Fund Awards at the magnificent Hofburg Vienna

Wednesday 29 November

PENSION TRACKING FORUM
Park Suite 7

European Tracking Service, Dashboards and Data Protection 

9:30 AM
Welcome and introduction
9:35 AM
What is the Role of the Pension Overview?

Why is an individual pension overview needed for citizens to deal with their old age provision? What is the context of financial literacy and adequate provision, and how should the overview be designed?

9:45 AM
National and Pan-European Pension Dashboards – Case Studies and Practical Examples

Case studies from Sweden, The Netherlands and France on how dashboards work on the national level. What are the opportunities and challenges of holistic, cross-pillar overviews, and functioning of Tracking Services?

10:30 AM
Data Protection and Cybersecurity

Pension data is incredibly valuable and can cause financial destruction to individuals and organisations if it falls into the wrong hands.  At the same time, cyberattacks have become increasingly sophisticated.  How can pension professionals ensure members’ data is protected? 

11:15 AM
Coffee break and networking
IMPACT INVESTING FORUM
Park Suite 8

Vision, Action and Investment Across Asset Classes

9:35 AM
Keynote: Are European Pension Funds Embracing Impact Investing?

Are pension funds allocating more money to impact investing? How is the asset class evolving, and what are the major trends? What are some of the challenges that pension funds are currently grappling with in the impact space, and how are those being addressed? What are some of the key learnings and insights that can be passed on? 

9:55 AM
Virtual Fireside Chat: A Vision for Impact

When a global top 10 pension fund makes impact investing a cornerstone of its strategy, the world takes notice. We’ll hear from the architect of that strategy, who will explain why impact is mission-critical in meeting scheme members’ future needs.  

10:15 AM
Presentation: Impact Investing in Action

How does a pension fund actually ‘do’ impact and what considerations must be taken?  The essential principles of impact investing, including the risks it can and cannot address will be fully interrogated by a leading impact practitioner.  

10:35 AM
Panel: Impact Across Asset Classes and Themes 

Impact investment strategies and anticipated outcomes vary across asset classes and themes, while always aiming to provide financial returns and generating a measurable social or environmental gain. This sessions discusses the most recent thinking on impact within various investment scenarios.

11:15 AM
Coffee break and networking