Photos: Southeast Asia Institutional Investment Forum

More than 330 delegates attended AsianInvestor’s fourth annual Southeast Asia Institutional Investment Forum at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on December 5 and 6.

Reporting from the event, we heard Bob Browne, Chicago-based CIO at Northern Trust Global Investors, predict that a year from now we’ll all be talking about low interest rates, but that the US ‘fiscal cliff’ stalking market sentiment currently will barely be remembered.

One of the central questions on the summit’s opening day was: is fixed income a safe asset class anymore? The answer was a definite "no" from Khairul Azwa Bahrin, director of risk management and compliance at KWAP, Malaysia’s $27 billion civil service pension fund.

We also heard that global capital flows to Malaysia were hurting the country’s $170 billion Employees' Provident Fund as it struggles to compete, meaning it will gradually increase external allocation.

Meanwhile, Mark Evans of Goldman Sachs Asset Management voiced his view that Harry Markowitz’s famed capital asset-pricing model no longer served institutional investors.

And Peter Ryan-Kane, head of portfolio advisory services in Asia-Pacific at Towers Watson, presented his case that home bias is increasing among Asian institutional investors, although the definition of “home” is broadening to include neighbouring countries.

To view our gallery of photos from the event, please click here.