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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Governance, Gonski style

Since becoming chair of the $80-billion Future Fund in March, David Gonski has set an agenda to act like a public company chair. An element of that vision is to very clearly delegate to management. “The general manager has been elevated to a managing director and the six-monthly announcements will be his,” he says. Another

Risk parity manages risk regret

The risk parity approach to portfolio construction might not deliver results in a “bull stockmarket,” but remained a “robust and rigorous” methodology which also “managed risk regret over time.” These are the views of Wai Lee, chief investment officer of quantitive investment at New York-based fund manager Neuberger Berman, who was recently named winner of

African countries come to the sovereign wealth fund party

Many of the countries with the largest oil reserves also boast the largest sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). And yet African producers, like newcomer Ghana, Angola, and Nigeria which has been pumping oil since the 1950s, haven’t saved much of their oil revenue. Now, in an effort to replicate the long-term growth of funds like Norway’s

Regulatory risk in Europe a factor for infrastructure investment

The head of infrastructure at Australia’s $80 billion Future Fund has cited regulatory risk in Europe and the United Kingdom as reasons to be wary about infrastructure investment in the region. Raphael Arndt, the Future Fund’s head of infrastructure and timberlands, told a Sydney conference this week that he was particularly concerned with the situation

Europe’s credit rating crunch

It has been a bad month for credit-rating agency executives who thought they were winning the legal and regulatory arguments about how they conduct their business. In Australia, the Federal Court ruled on November 5 in favour of 12 local councils in New South Wales which claimed that Standard and Poor’s had misled them into

Dutch reform to tread lightly on investment mix

When the Netherlands pension reforms were announced in 2011, many experts argued they were likely to substantially increase the risk appetites at the funds guarding the country’s $1-trillion pension assets. Recent developments to the reform proposals make the overall impact far from clear, however, suggesting there will be no bonanza for Dutch investment managers. The

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