WEBINAR: Performance analytics gaining importance

AsianInvestor and FactSet, a provider of financial research solutions and investment analytics tools, co-hosted a webinar on September 12 entitled ‘How better use of performance data and analytics can boost returns'. It can be accessed free of charge by clicking here.

The expert speakers are:

• Alex Ko, Head of CIO office for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas Asset Management
• Wee Tian Sing, Chief Risk Officer for Singapore and Head Office Risk at Eastspring Investments
• Pat Reilly, Vice President, Fixed Income Analytics at FactSet
• Ali Nezamoddini, Head of Performance and Analytics at NTUC Income

The panellists kick off by explaining why a strong focus on performance and risk analytics is important. Among other things, it enables investors to attribute over/under performance to particular strategies or decisions, and to determine the risk that is or is not worth its performance. This helps them to tune future risk allocations.

The discussion then moves onto the challenges that asset managers and owners face in Asia affecting performance data, such as a lack of sufficient price visibility for fixed income asset and frequent stock trading suspensions. The speakers also look at difficulties around harder-to-price assets, such as in the alternatives space.

The speakers move on to discuss how they address these issues, including their use of data vendors and technology, and the importance of having the right talent and systems in place.

Broadly, say the panellists, investor clients are becoming more demanding, asking tougher questions of asset managers about performance attribution. This change reflects that portfolios are becoming more sophisticated, with more international and asset class diversification. This also results in a stronger demand for the right technology, given ever-rising cost and regulatory pressures.

As a result of these developments, the role of performance and risk analytics—and thus of specialists in this area—is becoming more involved and expected to function at a higher level. Investors are recognising that it is not enough simply to measure and report performance and risk figures.