The Curious Quant

The Curious Quant series, hosted by Michael Kollo, is a discussion between technically-minded professionals in the financial services, technology and data science fields. It carefully examines the application of new data and new methodologies to common problems in financial markets. The aim is to promote better discussions about these emerging areas, and a better understanding of new technologies.

 

 

Michael Kollo is a seasoned investment professional with a deep passion for the pragmatic discussion and application of quantitative models to solve problems. His PhD in Finance is from the London School of Economics where he lectured in quantitative finance in addition to Imperial College and at the University of New South Wales. He has created models and led quantitative research teams at Blackrock, Fidelity and Axa Rosenberg in the UK before more recently moving to Australia where he established the quantitative team for the $50 billion industry superannuation fund, HESTA. Kollo is an experienced speaker, author, mentor, a keen student of philosophy and more recently, a podcaster. The Curious Quant is a series of conversations with market leaders, deep thinkers and practitioners who deal with the wonder and frustrations of these models and who are on the front line of AI innovation.

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Is the Great Rotation passing pension funds by?

The prospect of a seismic shift from bond to equity investments looks set to pass most of the world’s pension funds by, argue experts. The concept of a ‘Great Rotation’ rose to prominence following its use by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in October. It argued in a note that “the era of bond outperformance

APG’s Wuijster refines asset management

APG, which manages €314 billion ($480 billion), has always been innovative. Ronald Wuijster earned a reputation as somewhat of a pension rockstar when he introduced the idea of intellectual property rights as an asset class and bought the music rights to a number of high profile musicians from the contemporary to classical. That investment, which

Parrado’s guide to building sovereign wealth funds

They may be on opposite sides of the Earth, but Chile in Latin America and Central Asia’s sparsely populated Mongolia share more than a few similarities. Both boast some of the biggest copper deposits in the world and now Mongolia has turned to Chile for advice on how best to steward income from its forecast

Partnership creates global events network

Conexus Financial, the financial services media and events company and publisher of top1000funds.com, has formed a partnership with the New York-based World Pension Forum (WPF) to create a major international conference business catering to the world’s largest institutional investors. Conexus will apply its events management expertise and experience to enhance existing WPF events – three

Embracing board diversity at HESTA

The Australian fund, HESTA Superannuation stands out among its peer of industry funds for a few reasons, not the least of which is its predominantly female (80 per cent) member base, but it’s also one that has seen notable growth in the past 20 years. From a fiduciary perspective, the fund has gone from less than

Swiss referendum: funds’ headache or investor utopia?

The idea of referendums setting the agenda for institutional investors may be a frightening pipe dream in much of the world, but Switzerland’s unique brand of direct democracy is set to revolutionise its funds’ priorities. Swiss funds are due to be anointed as no less than the country’s official guardians against “rip-off” executive salaries. That

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