News & Events – Avida International

PANEL

10 June 2016 – Bart Heenk (MD, Avida International) chaired a panel discussion at the IPE 360 Conference at the London Stock Exchange. Joining him on the Panel were David Adkins (Chief Investment Officer at The Pensions Trust) and Anthony Webb (Head of Fiduciary Management Research at KPMG). The topic was:

Making Outsourcing Work: Fiduciary Management and other forms of Investment Strategy Delegation

PAN-EUROPEAN AUDIENCE

The audience consisted of the leading pension fund representatives from the UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium and other key European pension markets.

TOPICS

The discussion centred around the importance of being able to judge the value of outsourced activity. Financial data – such as performance, costs and risk – are only one factor in this; softer human factors – such as communication, trust and innovation – are just as important, though not always easy to quantify. Another topic was the importance of pension funds not being talked into a provider’s outsourcing model, but to work out precisely what their own needs are before deciding on who the provider should be. Too often investment consultants are leading the debate and transferring their pension fund clients from an advisory to a delegated model, whereas the best solution for the pension fund might be an altogether different method of outsourced decision-making. It was agreed that a proper and independent analysis has to precede the decision to change the mandate.

Het 10-jarig jubileum van Avida stond in het teken van het seminar ‘vertrouwen in onzekere tijden’ dat op 1 juni plaatsvond  in Wassenaar. Hierbij een korte impressie van deze geanimeerde bijeenkomst.

By Susanna Rust on IPE, 10 May 2016

European pension funds need to make a “fundamental” behavioural and cultural shift to close “a yawning gap between the rhetoric of governance improvements of recent years and their reality on the ground”, according to a paper from The 300 Club, a group of investment professionals seeking to challenge mainstream investment practice and thinking.

Read the full article on IPE.

By Helen Morrissey on Professional Pensions, 9 May 2016 

An interesting article on Professional Pensions (please note: the article is available after logging in on Professional Pensions).

PRESS-RELEASE-Simone-Lavelle-joins-Avida-Internationals-UK-team

By Sophia Grene, Financial Times, October 19, 2015 

After a number of false starts, fiduciary management, where the day-to-day management of a pension scheme is outsourced, seems to be taking off in the UK market.

“My best guess is that, in five years, more than half of defined benefit [pension] assets will be run under some form of fiduciary management,” says Chris Ford, global head of investment at Towers Watson, the consultancy.

1-2 October 2015 – Sally Bridgeland was one of the speakers at the Allianz-Oxford Pensions Conference 2015.

Beyond the mid-life crisis: Challenges for plan sponsors and trustees in the UK as DB pension funds mature.

Bart Heenk spoke about the trend of outsourced models such as investment consulting and fiduciary management at the Sanlam Investment Institutional Insights conference in Sandton, Cape Town.

8-10 June 2015 – Sally Bridgeland was a panellist on an asset allocation discussion panel at Marcus Evans’ EPI Summit.

Dorothee Franzen’s joining Avida was given attention in a press release: Dorothee Franzen joins Avida International.

10 March 2015 – Sally Bridgeland participated as a panelist in Marketforce’s The Future of Fund Management on the ‘Ask-the-experts panel discussion: improving dialogue with investors’.

Don Ezra’s decision to join Avida’s Advisory Board was announced in a press release.

A press release announced Gordon Clark‘s joining Avida’s Advisory Board.

2 October 2014 – Sally Bridgeland was the keynote speaker at the Annual pensions conference 2014: Living with Risk.

Simone Lavelle’s decision to join Avida International was announced in a press release.