Alternative investments debate: Participants

Alasdair MacDonald (AM – chair) joined Watson Wyatt in 1999 and is a qualified actuary. He works as a senior investment consultant, advising institutional investors on their investment strategies. His clients include some of the largest UK defined benefit pension funds, insurance companies and endowments. He works closely with Watson Wyatt’s Global Investment Committee, which is responsible for setting the investment return assumptions used globally.

Jelle Beenen (JB) joined Mercer in the Netherlands as head of Investment Strategy Consulting last month after nearly eight years at Dutch pension fund PGGM Investments where he was latterly head of alternative beta. He was still employed by PGGM when this debate was held.

Bertrand Delarue (BD) runs the product engineering team for equities and derivatives at BNP Paribas in Paris. His team is responsible for designing the structured products on which BNP Paribas has built its reputation as a derivatives powerhouse. He has been with BNP Paribas for more than ten years. He has a masters degree from the Ecole Polytechnique and a PhD from Cornell University.

Gavyn Davies (GD) is chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management and a founding partner of Prisma Capital Partners and Active Private Equity. He was chairman of the BBC from 2001–04. He was chief economist at Goldman Sachs from 1986–2001 and was repeatedly ranked as the City’s top UK, European or global economist in surveys of institutional investors.

Paul Brakke (PB) is a senior managing director of State Street Global Advisors and head of the global structured products group. He oversees a group of 65 portfolio managers worldwide, and more than 800 portfolios with assets in excess of $600 billion. Paul is a member of the SSgA investment committee and of the senior management group.

Mike Powell (MP) joined the Universities Superannuation Scheme in September 2006 as head of alternative assets to build the alternatives investment programme. USS has targeted a 5% allocation of total assets into alternatives by March 2008 and 20% over the medium term. USS has in excess of £1 billion invested in alternative assets across private equity, hedge funds and commodities.

Bill Fung (BF) is non-executive chairman of Maple Financial Group, Canada, and holds the position of visiting research professor of finance at the BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre, London Business School. Bill’s research with Professor David Hsieh won awards such as the CFA Institute, Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence, 2004 and the Fischer Black Memorial Foundation’s Robert J Schwartz Memorial Prize for the best paper on hedge funds in 1999.