Treasury & Investment Management Course – Part 2
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ooking to take your investing skills to the next level? Curious how certain economic factors influence your portfolio and investment decisions? Has your Council asked you to implement or adopt a more socially responsible investment portfolio or divest from fossil fuels? Ever wonder what the pros and cons are of investing in structured notes? Is inflation eroding your long-term reserves? MFA has once again teamed up with local government finance practitioners to bring you Part 2 of GFOA’s Treasury & Investment Management taking place in Penticton on May 31 as part of the pre-conference lineup. While Part 2 of this session does build on concepts presented in Part 1, the prior session is not a pre-requisite to attend Part 2. I will spend a bit of time at the start of the session reviewing some of the key concepts that were delivered in Part 1 - at a high level, highlights will include, why formalize an investment program, the core objectives of an investment policy, bond math and risks, the importance of diversification, performance measurement techniques and the investment process. Critical to the investment process is having an awareness of economic conditions which may impact the value of portfolio investments or drive investment decisions. Karen Kerr, Portfolio Manager at PH&N will take us through a discussion on how to interpret economic factors and how they may influence your investment decisions. Given the prescriptiveness of section 183 of the Community Charter, local governments tend to be heavily invested in financial institutions, whether schedule 1 banks, schedule 2 banks or credit unions. Given typical concentration to the financial sector, do you know what to review when assessing the risk of investing in financial institutions? Kyle Derrick, MFA’s Credit & Economic Analyst, will cover the fundamentals of bank credit analysis. Doug Spindler, Director of Treasury - City of
Burnaby, will explain how structured notes are created and the underlying intricacies you need to understand before investing in these products. He will review the risks and rewards of adding structured notes to your portfolio. Doug will also spend some time laying the foundation for ESG and Socially Responsible Investing, how to communicate with your Council or Board and introduce these concepts into your investment portfolios. Peter Urbanc, CEO of MFA, will take us through an Institutional Approach to Investment Management. This section aims to provide a better understanding of the general process a local government may undertake to operate an investment program. This section will discuss segmenting your portfolio and investments which may be appropriate for each. Finally, Peter and I will review the MFA’s Diversified Multi-asset Class Fund which introduces equities and alternative asset classes into local government investment portfolios. This fund has been designed for investment horizons of 10 years or longer. We will discuss various steps required to be completed prior to entrance into the fund and how to prepare your Council or Board to understand the volatility this investment will bring to local government financial statements. We hope you can join us in Penticton on May 31.
SHELLEY HAHN, Shelley Hahn is the Chief Services Officer with the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia (MFA) and joined the Authority in 1997. She directs the operations of all MFA’s short-term lending and investment products and oversees all requests and approvals for financing. Shelley is also responsible for all legal, legislative and securities compliance within the organization. Shelley has been on the Board of the Government Finance Officers Association of British Columbia (GFOA) since 2005 and is very active in developing educational opportunities for MFA’s clients and GFOA Member MARCH 2022 • DOLLARS & SENSE PERSPECTIVE | 9
