TBA
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower, 22 Adelaide St W #3400, Toronto, ON M5H 4E3Chief Executive Officer
Farm Lending Canada
Managing Director
Cohen & Company
Deputy CIO
Pepperdine University Endowment
Partner, CCO
YTM Capital Asset Management
Vice President, Family Office Advisory
Northwood Family Office
Portfolio Manager, Sustainable Private Credit, Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Lombard Odier Asset Management (USA) Corp
Founding Partner, Origination
Farsight Partners
Chief Executive Officer
Farm Lending Canada
With more than 35 years of successful business and entrepreneurial experience, including 25 years in the Private Lending space specializing in agriculture, residential development, and residential homes, Robb is a practicing mortgage professional, co-founder, and co-owner of AgriRoots Capital Management Inc., now operating as Farm Lending Canada – Canada’s first National Alternative Lender, specializing in the agricultural sector.
In addition, he is the founding Principal, Broker of Record, and CEO of the National Mortgage brokerage FamilyLending.ca Inc. – a mortgage brokerage providing residential, commercial, and agricultural mortgages – founded in 2001. A founding member with the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals, Robb has grown a reputation for being a leading expert in agricultural lending, finance, investment, and mortgages. He offers deep insight and expertise to agricultural borrowers and investors alike, with the objective of keeping farming families on family farms across Canada.
A goal-driven, collaborative, and insightful professional, Robb focuses on identifying opportunities, building financial solutions, and providing high-quality client service.
Managing Director
Cohen & Company
John Butler is Managing Director and Head of Cohen & Company’s U.S. Insurance Asset Management Platform and Global ILS Program. From 2012 to 2017, Mr. Butler worked for Twelve Capital, a European asset manager specializing in investment in the insurance sector where he served in various senior roles including Managing Partner & Head of Investment Management. In this role, he oversaw investments principally in fixed income, insurance linked securities and equity.
Prior to this, Mr. Butler worked as Senior Underwriter managing the International Catastrophe and Terrorism reinsurance portfolios of Hannover Re Bermuda, where he was responsible for managing the company’s position as a lead reinsurer particularly in European and Asia-Pacific markets. Prior to this, Mr. Butler spent seven years with the White Mountains Insurance Group, both in Ireland and Bermuda, managing the underwriting of their international non-marine treaty portfolio. Earlier in his career, he worked for entities in the London reinsurance market, underwriting a broad range of business lines. Mr. Butler has served on a variety of advisory boards and non-executive leadership positions in the insurance industry.
Mr. Butler holds an honors degree in Law from the University of London. He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute of the UK, a member of the Insurance Institute of Ireland, is qualified as a Chartered Insurer and is appointed a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Insurers, and a Freeman of the City of London.
Deputy CIO
Pepperdine University Endowment
Mr. Nicks is a leader and innovator in the institutional investor community. In over two decades at Pepperdine’s endowment, Mr. Nicks has managed multiple alternative investment portfolios and pioneered new technology and strategies for the investment team. He has run a successful portable alpha strategy for over a decade, and has incorporated machine learning into both the information management and asset allocation processes. He also leads research into new strategies, manager analysis, and portfolio construction. As a former Scuba instructor and dive master, he has a deep appreciation for risk management and a great love of the sea.
Mr. Nicks is a CFA charter holder (2006) and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (2006). He has a Bachelor of Science in Management degree from Pepperdine University and an MBA with an Emphasis in Finance from Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management (2002).
Partner, CCO
YTM Capital Asset Management
David is a Partner of YTM Capital, a manager based in Oakville that provides better fixed income solutions. He is co-portfolio manager of YTM Capital Mortgage Income Fund, arguably the most defensive mortgage fund in Canada.
During the first 17 years of David’s career he practiced corporate and securities law. Just before he joined YTM Capital 11 years ago, he led the Legal Department at Mackenzie Investments.
David holds a Honours Business Degree from the Ivey Business School, an LL.B from the University of Toronto, and he is an CAIA Charterholder.
Vice President, Family Office Advisory
Northwood Family Office
Trevor is a licensed portfolio manager and is responsible for key client relationships at Northwood and sits on the firm’s Investment Committee.
Prior to joining Northwood, Trevor was Executive Vice President for a boutique asset manager, BloombergSen Investment Partners, where he was primarily responsible for client services. Spanning three continents, Trevor has over 20 years’ experience in asset allocation, manager research & selection, portfolio construction, marketing, and client relationship management. Trevor began his family office career with one of Europe’s leading private investment offices, Stanhope Capital in the United Kingdom, where he was a Senior Director managing discretionary multi-asset class portfolios for global families located in multiple jurisdictions around the world. Since moving to Canada in 2013, Trevor has also held senior positions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management and Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel, working with high-net-worth families and institutions across Canada.
Trevor holds the Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) designation. He has a Bachelor of Business Science (Hons) degree in Finance from the University of Cape Town. Trevor is a Board Member of the Canadian Friends of Shalva Israel Association, and he is a Corporation Member of Pickering College School in Newmarket, Ontario. Trevor is also an adviser to a UK registered company, Offgrid Finance, which provides clean technology financing solutions to SMEs in Emerging Markets.
In his spare time, Trevor enjoys spending time with his wife and three young children, playing golf and tennis and in winter you might find him skiing very poorly on the bunny hills.
Portfolio Manager, Sustainable Private Credit, Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Lombard Odier Asset Management (USA) Corp
Peter Pulkkinen joined LOIM in February 2021. Before joining LOIM, Peter was Portfolio Manager for the Avenue Sustainable Solutions Fund. Peter has over 20 years of relevant industry experience having held senior roles at leading institutions with direct responsibility for sustainable private debt investments across renewable energy, infrastructure and project and asset backed finance at firms including BNP Paribas, Silverpeak, UBS AG, and Deutsche Bank AG. Peter began his career in private credit at Lehman Brothers. Peter earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire (1992) and a Masters in International Affairs from The Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in International Finance/Economics (2004).
Founding Partner, Origination
Farsight Partners
A veteran finance professional with over 28 years experience across consulting, asset management and investment banking, Eugene Dimitriou focuses on the nexus of life insurer capital management, actuarial matters and investments. Eugene achieved his Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries, holds an MBA in Finance from New York University, and a Bachelors in Mathematics and Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo.
His firm, Farsight Partners is a life and insurance receivables specialist investment manager that invests in the many opportunities available within the global life insurance space, targeting actuarial risks such as mortality/longevity, accident and health and policy lapsation. Unlike peer funds, traditional US Life Settlements and catastrophe bonds fall out of scope. The strategy has provided long-term, stable and predictable cash-flow generating returns over time with very low correlation to other asset classes.
8:00 am
Enjoy breakfast and ready yourself for a content and networking-packed day.
8:30 am
Investors are constantly seeking assets and strategies that can reduce volatility in most scenarios and market regimes – especially if their asset base is intended to provide income over the short to moderate term (e.g., mature DB plans and endowments) since volatility is more a friend of accumulation plans. Insurance-Linked Securities (or ILSs) have very few connections to the vagaries of the capital markets, making them well-proven diversifiers. This panel will discuss their efficacy in a portfolio, the various types that can be employed, and how investors should perform diligence on the options presented.
Michael Nicks, Pepperdine University Endowment
John Butler, Cohen & Co.
More to be added
9:15 am
Tremendous returns have been made in real estate and infrastructure for many investors over the last many decades – and some would say that this area provides the best opportunity going forward for virtually all investors and especially those whose time horizon is appropriately long. This panel will provide insight into opportunities that might fit many investor portfolios as well as the challenges that might present themselves when investing in them and other similar securities/offerings.
Speakers to be added
10:00 am
Your opportunity to join a table and discuss the topic on offer, lead by one of our sponsoring CAASA members.
Please move to a second topic/table at 10:30am to allow a spot to another attendee for the latter half of this session.
11:00 am
Private credit has grown from a cottage industry providing a link between off-market investors and borrowers to being integral parts of some of the largest financial supermarkets/platforms on the planet. As more capital has flowed to this previous backwater, participants’ (borrowers, lenders, and investors/LPs) sophistication has increase commensurately in many cases. As such, macro-economic factors such as the health of the economy can lead to macro-prudential issues: rising rates siphons money from the borrowers (since most are floating rate notes), a recession can crimp revenues and profitability, and recoveries (which have been robust but might be worsened by the aforementioned) might hamper returns to investors. This panel will test the efficacy of private lending portfolios in today’s economy.
Ken Lee, Gentai MIC
Peter Pulkkinen, Lombard Odier
David Burbach, YTM Capital Asset Management
11:45 am
It’s well-known that ESG, sustainable investing, and the plethora of other monikers can be difficult to pin down with a universal meaning or description. While credit ratings of the same name between agencies are about 90% correlated, those on ESG scales are around 60% correlated. This talk will bring together the typical ways one can look at the ‘goodness’ of a company, security, or portfolio and provide pragmatic ways to use this knowledge.
Speaker TBD
12:00 pm
Keynote will begin at 12:15PM
This fireside features two major players/investors in private markets as they discuss how private markets – including real estate, private equity and venture, private/alternative lending, infrastructure, and more esoteric areas such as ILS and data centres – have come into their own in the economy and portfolios of investors of all types and sizes. They will brief the audience on how they see the market for these offerings and discuss the potential (known and somewhat unknown) pitfalls that investors should be cognizant of when contemplating these investments.
Speakers TBD
1:00 pm
Or one might call it ‘recess’ – a time where all attendees can meet with whomever they like (possibly facilitated by the conference app). CAASA staff are on hand to help folks find one another, but should not be relied upon to ‘book up one’s day’ or provide concierge service at the conference – but we are happy to help members meet/identify folks on an ad hoc basis.
2:00 pm
Every once in a while an idea gains great traction and it’s only a matter of time before a segment of the population calls it ‘a bubble’ or ‘ripe for a fall’ – but in a number of cases it is a secular and persistent change that led to its adoption. Have Secondaries, which have been an investor darling for years because of their instant vintage diversification, portfolio approach, and potentially well-priced entry points, reached their zenith? This panel will talk to where these investments will go from here.
Speakers TBD
2:30 pm
Perhaps the world’s oldest investment, farmland has proved to be a winner for generations of landed gentry, hard-scrambling pioneers/sod-busters, and today’s family farms. They were the focus of many documentaries and movies in the 1970s when inflation reared its head in earnest last but have been eclipsed by other investments like commodities, condos, and cryptocurrencies of late. Is farmland the next leader in an inflation-hedged portfolio? And if so, how can investors make the most of this exposure? This panel will brief everyone on this and offer a way forward to invest in the space.
Kent Willmore, AGinvest Farmland Properties Canada
Greg Kalil, Stormont Partners
Robb Nelson, Farmland Lending Canada
3:00 pm
Take a stretch, grab a bit/sip, and get ready for more!
3:30 pm
Where is the ‘smart money’? Pensions oversee sometimes vast pots of money ($100s of billions) and have access to opportunities not available to just any investor. Single Family Offices are as varied as they are numerous (if you’ve met one family office…). Investment dealers usually have a limited line of private markets offerings. In this panel, all will hear from three long-standing multi-family offices who have worked with their clients in many areas of private market investment and have a fiduciary duty to do their level best for their client. This should be an entertaining view of the alts and private markets landscape!
Trevor Hunt, Northwood Family Office
More to be added
4:00 pm
Time to make a few more connections and chat about the day
6:00 pm
See you at our next event!
End Investor means pensions, foundations/endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and single family offices. Intermediary investors means Multi-family offices, investment advsiors/dealers, wealth managers, and investment consulting companies and +1 means the first delegate is gratis but each additional delegate attracts a small charge. Manager and service provider delegates must be CAASA members in good standing and pay the requisite per person fee ($1,000 + tax).
Delegate pass pricing will increase to $1,500 per person (+ tax) on Sept 12.
Sponsorship is an additional $3,500 and does NOT include a delegate pass (those are purchased separately in all cases).
Note : Single Family Office means the those related to the family or full-time members of the investment team. All parties must not have outside commercial interests, as determined by CAASA, such as investment funds seeking external money, investment banking operations, or other activities that would also be performed by our members.
Pension and other institutional investor (e.g., E&F) attendees need to be full-time employees of the investor. Acting as a consultant, board member, or advisor (whether compensated or not) is not sufficient. Individuals who have an outside commercial interest are required to be employed by CAASA members and pay the requisite delegate pass fee.
Members of CAASA including asset managers, service providers, multi-family offices, and investment advisors/consultants.
Registrations opening soon.
Event Registration Closed
Investors such as pensions, foundations & endowments, and single family offices.
Registrations opening soon.
Event Registration Closed