Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This session explores a mix of perspectives on the outlook for real assets, global absolute return debt, and Australian and international private credit.

Real assets, including direct lending, core real estate, and infrastructure, can help improve overall portfolio efficiency by offering positive returns during periods of economic contraction and high inflation.

After more than two decades of an ever-present central bank demand backstop, we're now entering a global fixed income market devoid of price insensitive demand, challenging the risk/return profile going forward.

As demand for private credit has grown over the past five years, so too has the availability of offerings such as the US Business Development Companies (BDCs). The current balance of risks tilts toward a favourable risk/return profile.

Headlines highlight the growing demand for power generation, largely driven by digitalisation, AI, robotics, and automation. The undersupply of infrastructure needed to support it provides a real market opportunity for investors.

Post-GFC, banks trimmed corporate credit risk from their balance sheets, creating a direct lending boom. We are now in the early innings of Asset Backed Finance filling a similar capital void.

Powerful cyclical, secular and structural changes are reshaping the outlook for asset classes and opportunities abound for those able to reorientate investment portfolios accordingly. This session explores a diverse mix of perspectives on the outlook for on the outlook for global equities and liquid alternatives.

We are living in an age of exponential change and radical uncertainty. We must prepare ourselves (and our portfolios) for the seismic societal and economic shocks that are hurtling our way – we're witnessing the mother of all disruptions.

Markets are not capitulating. They are re-calibrating. Yet beneath that surface stability, assumptions are being quietly rewritten. We are operating in a whole new world (again)!. Not because growth has collapsed. But because capital is being redeployed under a different set of structural constraints.

Markets are not breaking. They are repricing assumptions. What stands out most right now is not recession panic, nor speculative euphoria - but transition. The more useful question is not “Are we heading into a downturn?” It is: “What regime are we moving toward - and which portfolio assumptions quietly depend on the old one?”

What defines the current environment is not fear, but discrimination. Markets are no longer rewarding participation by default. That shift from belief to verification may be the most important signal of all.

Together, these two articles shed light on important micro and macro challenges facing the growth of ethical responsibility in investment and wealth management.

This paper looks at the impact of repetition on our perceptions of unethicality and truth. It finds that the more times we hear about a wrongdoing, the more we may believe it - but the less we may care.

Rather than treating ethical decision-making as a cognitive issue, investment professionals should develop "ethics muscle memory", increasing the chances of successfully navigating moral predicaments in the moment.

Individual investors have long responded to the public communications of well-placed, popular investment experts. This paper offers a new understanding of how the rise of "finfluencers" is reshaping the information landscape.

Whether your clients are looking for enhanced income, greater capital appreciation, or balance & diversification, alternatives may allow you to build portfolios to better pursue these outcomes together.

Backed by decades of outperformance, private market assets can serve as powerful tools to diversify return streams, providing ballast to portfolios.

Private credit may represent a simple and direct way to offer clients exposure to private markets and help them pursue investment goals, whether they are savers, spenders or growers.

Less than 5% of individual portfolios are allocated to alternative investments. Yet, private markets have outperformed their public counterparts over the long term.

By understanding the fundamentals of private capital, investors can make more informed investments, potentially unlocking paths to greater diversification, attractive returns, increased income, and lower volatility.