New Model Adviser Fund Manager Conference

I recently attended the 10th Citywire New Model Adviser conference. The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP was the keynote speaker. He told an interesting story about how, in the depths of the financial crisis, he finished a meeting with bank board members and they took him aside and confidently told him "As a board, we've now agreed, that in future we'll only take on risks we understand" ! He added that if you live in the UK, you still own part of this bank!

He was also asked, during his 1,000 days in office, what was his worst moment. He started his reply by saying he was rather spoilt for choice! He said that the financial crisis problems arose when the banks didn't understand the risks to which they were exposed. It occurred to me that is a big part of what Green Financial do for clients; helping them to ensure they are only exposed to appropriate risk.

In closing, he was not confident. He says treasury officials say "The real problems will come when we hit the recovery" - ie when interest rates go up, because we (the nation) have been used to low interest rates for so long, and we still have a massive level of personal debt.

It was a black, white and blue start to the day on the Southbank of the Thames

Tom Sheridan of 7IM discussing the changing national demographic and how this interacts with financial planning and fund management

Over 20 fund managers were in attendance

The search for Income (in 2015) was a recurring theme. Here is Olivia Mayell of JP Morgan discussing that

Me, with the BlackRock team, including Mark Wharrier, Portfolio Manager, UK Equity team and a Pollyanna Harper, iShares director

Justin Onuekwusi of L&G multi-index presented 'beyond Goldilocks'

Colin Morton of Franklin Templeton telling me about one of the stocks held in the fund

F&C explaining a very busy slide


Kames, a good provider of high yield bond funds were there. This is me talking to Alex Walker, co-manager of the Property Income Fund