We hope you enjoyed this year's seminar if you were able to attend in person. For those who couldn't make it in person or would like to review the content, our video recording of each presentation is below. Of course, if you have any questions, we invite you to contact your institutional portfolio manager or email us at institutions@phn.com. We look forward to welcoming you again next year.
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Erick Zanker
Managing Director & Head, PH&N Institutional
This content-laden session addresses two quite different but equally pressing economic topics: Canadian productivity and the prospect of U.S. tariffs. Canadian productivity has been famously poor in recent years, and underwhelming for much longer. As a starting point, we will investigate a range of acute and structural reasons for the shortfall, including rapid immigration, an expanding public service, inefficient allocation of capital, sub-optimal public policy, and insufficient risk-taking; and then we will explain why weak productivity is a problem and share our outlook for an imminent partial revival and prescriptions for a longer-term, sustained liftoff. On U.S. tariffs, we will try to allay wide-ranging uncertainty by explaining what tariffs are and outlining the likely path forward, punctuated by possible impacts and remedies.
This was recorded on April 4th, 2025. For more tariff updates from Eric, listen to our latest podcast here. Â
Alternative investment allocations have grown substantially over the past decade and now play a prominent role in many institutional portfolios. Embraced for their return enhancement and diversification benefits, alternative investments have delivered on expectations for the most part. However, alternatives have also faced some headwinds in the post-Covid era, including illiquidity risk, higher interest rates and inflation. The significant influx of investor capital also raises questions about future return prospects for certain types of alternatives. In this presentation, we consider the outlook for alternative investments generally, and speculate on how allocations to various types of alternatives might evolve.
PH&N Investment Perspectives is first and foremost about connection:
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- Connecting with our clients and industry colleagues (in person when possible, of course!);
- Connecting portfolio challenges to solutions, through thoughtful presentations and publications; and
- Extending our connection with you to also embrace the local communities in which your employees, beneficiaries and constituents live and operate.
During the global pandemic, we lost the opportunity to travel to communities across the country and connect in person. As a result, we took the opportunity to engage at the community level by donating to local organizations whose missions resonated with our (then virtual) attendees.Â
Since then, we have continued and expanded the tradition. Today, in partnership with RBC Foundation, our "PIP"-inspired community support exceeds $420,000 for 68 organizations across the country. Listening to what matters to our participants helps us select relevant seminar topics, improves the discussion at our events, and helps us direct the event-associated community engagement. In 2024, our donations were allocated as follows.
Please complete the feedback survey after the seminar. This is where we will invite you to suggest topics for future seminars, provide your comments, and indicate the community-based mission most important to you.
Thank you for your time, curiosity and questions.Â
To see our full list of Research & Insights, visit our website.
