Australian cash rates will stay low for decades. Low interest rates mean high asset prices, which means much lower returns ahead. Our client communications must be in tune with this new environment.

A recent independent study into retirement from the perspectives of over 1,500 older Australians found that financial advisers are the keystone to retirees' well-being.

Regulation states that fund managers must not mislead clients. While prescribed scales exist for risk, analysis shows inconsistent application.

As investors themselves, investment advisers can suffer from the very biases they attempt to combat within their clients, risking the delivery of optimal client outcomes and deepening relationships.

Quantitative easing has inflated the price and risk of asset classes. Private debt prices in this risk and offers investors the capital protection they deserve.

Investors are concerned about investing in assets with exposure to carbon emissions. However, regulated electric utilities will be a significant beneficiary in a greener world.

Many assume there are two kinds of business decision makers - those who are ethical and those who are not. However, most of us are both.

Trust is the product of two judgements clients make about us - our competence and our benevolence. So trust could, at least partly, be won without being earned. So is it ethical to try?

In the 1990s and 2000s, investors were largely able to ignore the macro picture. But macro forces have reawakened and matter more than ever for portfolios to succeed in meeting client goals in the years ahead.

All markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. We must rethink the relationship between market and civil society to return to a more secure and stable economic plane.

With attractive valuations and global investors underweight the asset class, the case for a dedicated Emerging Market Debt allocation is growing ever stronger.

Style matters when constructing portfolios, but there are other characteristics in a manager that are as - if not more - important in generating consistent returns over the long term.

Private debt essential to modern investment portfolios. If the end objective is an attractive risk-adjusted return, then private debt is the means to get there.

We need to consider an expanded set of solutions including hedge funds and private markets so portfolios are truly the ends to the means.

Portfolio construction practitioners have access to a broader array of investment research, strategies and tools than ever before - yet obstacles to meeting clients' long-term financial goals are equally numerous.

There is no point in building wealth for the future if that future is one of frequent and catastrophic climate events that undermine our way of life.

In retirement, investors seek to convert their savings into a sustainable salary replacement with access to growing capital. The metric for success must also shift to accommodate these trade-offs.

Total return portfolios can support retiree spending strategies while removing the temptation to increase risk - in the end, producing better outcomes for retirees.

As the Baby Boomer generation continues to transition to retirement and life expectancies rise, portfolio construction practitioners must ensure retirement solutions meet client goals right to the end of their days.

Companies that are solving the world's greatest challenges - environmental or humanitarian – often have near term imperfections that see them starved of capital. A pragmatic approach embraces imperfections and focusses on the potential for positive societal impact.