Defined Benefit Pension Panel

New regulations, confusing capital markets, and deteriorating plan financial positions pose new challenges for pension investment managers. Questions arise such as What are realistic investment expectations? Where are better risk-adjusted investment opportunities? Are standard analytical tools like Mean-Variance or VAR still viable? Should there be a re-think of the various dimensions of pension risk to plan participants and corporate shareholders? To tackle these issues you have to develop short-term tactics and long-term strategies. Attend this program to hear solutions from leading defined benefit plan investment practitioners.

Panelists will also discuss the challenges of employing various options driven by recent regulatory reforms, starting with the 2006 Pension Protection Act, and implementing Liability Driven Investing (LDI) during the “Perfect Storms” created by the capital markets since 2008, extending to today. Topics covered include investment strategies to hedge plan surplus from adverse interest rate exposure, choosing effective alpha generators, internal plan reporting, managing cash flow, and interaction with Wall Street pension consultants, money managers, and security analysts.

After this program, you will be able to develop answers to the following questions:

In the short run:

• What is the outlook for the major asset classes and alternative investing?

• What are the prospects for significantly larger cash contributions in 2012?

• Are there valuable short-run trading opportunities in today’s volatile markets?

• How much additional time needs to be dedicated to analyzing political risk?

• How do volatile markets influence performance evaluation of money managers?

• Do we need to step up the frequency of plan monitoring in 2012?

For the long run:

• When and how do defined benefit plans add to fixed income exposure to mitigate interest rate risk? What are some good fixed income hedging tools?

• What is the likelihood for a major pickup in inflation given all the recent liquidity added to financial markets by central bankers? What inflation expectations are TIPS signaling? How do COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) provisions in pension plans affect investment strategy?

• What is the current long run “glide path” to phase out frozen plans?

• What additional regulatory reforms should we lobby for?
  
  

Who should attend

Defined benefit pension plan sponsors, consultants, investment managers, corporate CFOs, CIOs, CEOs, and treasurers. Those interested in solving today’s significant defined benefit plan investment issues such as coping with volatile equity markets and low interest rates to achieve defined benefit plan funding goals, manage corporate cash flows, and support plan sponsor equity values.

Biography

Caitlin Long is head of Morgan Stanley's Corporate Strategies Group and Pension Solutions Group, both of which are part of Global Capital Markets. Her groups advise corporate clients on topics ranging from the impact of macroeconomic trends on corporate decision making to corporate finance, and pension funding, risk management, and risk transfer decisions. Long has 18 years of financial services experience. Earlier in her career she was a top-ranked equity research analyst for the life insurance sector. She also reported directly to the co-CEOs of Credit Suisse Group to assist with the 2002–2003 restructuring of Credit Suisse's then-troubled insurance and pensions subsidiary, Winterthur Group, in Zurich. Long holds a JD from Harvard Law School, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from the University of Wyoming. 

Frank Melaccio, CFA, is currently working as a director of investments for EmblemHealth, a New York– based health insurance company, with over $2 billion of investment assets in corporate and pension assets. He is responsible for monitoring portfolio investments, developing risk-based metrics, benchmark selection, credit analysis, and asset allocation. Prior to joining EmblemHealth, Melaccio was a manager in the Structured Finance Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP responsible for new structured product issuance modeling, securities valuation, and consulting. He also worked for The Bank of New York Mellon in the Corporate Trust Division. Melaccio holds an MBA in finance from Hofstra University and a BS from Fordham University in finance and economics. Mr. Melaccio is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts and a CFA charterholder.

Neil Roache joined The Exelon Investment Office in May, 2010 as director of public markets and investment strategy.  The Exelon Investment Office oversees approximately $24B in NDT, VEBA, Pension, and Employee Savings Plan assets.  Neil and his team are responsible for equity, fixed income, and hedge fund mandates as well as strategy across the different trusts. Previously Neil was the director of public markets at a Fortune 100 company where he led the construction and funding of a direct hedge fund manager allocation and the development of the public markets team.  He also spent five years at a family office overseeing several investments in emerging markets. 

John J. Tus, vice president and corporate treasurer, is responsible for Honeywell's investing and financing policies and activities, including corporate finance, trade and customer finance, cash management, and risk management. Tus joined Honeywell in 1995 from KPMG LLP and was formerly Honeywell’s corporate controller. Tus is a graduate of George Washington University and is a certified public accountant.