Join us for NGF International 2026

We’re delighted to invite you to NGF International 2026, taking place at the prestigious Pan Pacific London on Wednesday 23rd September.

This exclusive event brings eight exceptional investment managers to one central London stage. It’s a rare opportunity to access global insight without leaving the city: eight fresh perspectives, one expertly curated day.

Attendance is by invitation only, ensuring a focused, high-level experience for senior UK fund selectors.

Register now

Sponsors

Programme

Following an inspiring opening keynote address, delegates will attend eight 40-minute interactive sessions developed to stimulate informed debate and spark ideas. Four concurrent meetings run at each timeslot in four separate meeting rooms, so the eight sponsors present in alternate sessions. Each group of 4-6 delegates will see the speakers in a different order, ensuring you see them all by the end of the event. Your personal agenda, received on the morning of the event, will outline the viewing order.

Please note that the following programme is for illustrative purposes only and does not indicate the order in which you will see the speakers at the event.

Time Session Topic
08:30 - 08:50 Registration
08:50 - 09:30 Keynote Address
09:30 - 10:10 Antipodes Partners → Beyond the Narrow Market: Positioning for the Next Cycle's Winners →
10:10 - 10:50 Artisan Partners → A Differentiated Approach to Active Emerging Market Investing →
10:50 - 11:10 Coffee
11:10 - 11:50 Coeli → A Concentrated Bet on Manager Skill Over Beta →
11:50 - 12:30 Comgest → Same Philosophy, Refined Execution: How We've Rebuilt Our GEM Strategy →
12:30 - 13:20 Lunch
13:20 - 14:00 Pictet Asset Management → Real Asset Equities – Diversification and inflation protection →
14:00 - 14:40 PIMCO → Seeking Out the Best Global Fixed Income Opportunities →
14:40 - 15:00 Tea
15:00 - 15:40 PineBridge Investments → Finding the Next Generation of Japanese Equity Winners →
15:40 - 16:20 TwentyFour Asset Management → Multi-Asset Credit – Capturing the best relative value opportunities across fixed income →
16:20 - 17:00 Drinks Reception

Speakers

Antipodes Partners

Beyond the Narrow Market: Positioning for the Next Cycle's Winners

2026 has again seen markets narrow sharply around a single theme: AI hardware supply-chain bottlenecks, amplified by the launch of Claude Cowork and scaled-up capex plans. Concentration and single-theme exuberance typically precede a durable broadening, with value dispersion narrowing even as industry outcomes widen through disruption. Markets are at a turning point where the next cycle’s winners will look very different from previous decades. Antipodes industry-led research identifies these asymmetric opportunities by assessing business resilience and growth the market misses. Allocators seeking diversification and downside protection should consider what a pragmatic and nimble approach to value can bring to global equity portfolios. Since 2015, Antipodes has proven this philosophy works, delivering all-weather performance through the cycle.

Jacob Mitchell

Founder, CIO, and Lead Portfolio Manager

Jacob Mitchell is the CIO & Lead Portfolio Manager of the Antipodes Global Value Fund with responsibility for the team-wide investment philosophy and process. Jacob founded Antipodes in 2015 in Sydney, growing the firm from a dedicated global value manager into a multi-specialist investment firm. Prior to Antipodes, Jacob spent 14 years at Platinum Asset Management where he was the Deputy Chief Investment Officer jointly responsible for the firm-wide investment process, and a Portfolio Manager of the flagship Platinum International Fund. During his time, he also served as Portfolio Manager for the Platinum Unhedged Fund and the Platinum Japan Fund.

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Artisan Partners

A Differentiated Approach to Active Emerging Market Investing

The development of the strategy in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s laid the foundation for Portfolio Manager, Maria Negrete-Gruson, and her team to establish a distinctive investment approach to emerging markets, one that has continued to evolve over time. In this session, Maria will discuss the strategy's more recent evolution and the key considerations involved in constructing an authentic emerging markets portfolio. She will explore how the team looks beyond the constraints of benchmark indices, the quantitative and qualitative tools employed to identify corporate improvers and companies with sustainable growth potential ahead of broader market recognition, and the framework used to assess the macroeconomic and company specific risks inherent across the emerging markets universe.

Maria Negrete-Gruson, CFA

Portfolio Manager/Analyst

Maria Negrete-Gruson, CFA, is a managing director of Artisan Partners and the portfolio manager for the Artisan Sustainable Emerging Markets Strategy. Prior to joining Artisan Partners in April 2006, Maria was the portfolio manager for DuPont Capital Management’s emerging markets equity portfolios. Before assuming responsibilities as portfolio manager, she was an international equity analyst at DuPont covering the developed Asia-ex Japan region. Earlier in her career, she was a foreign exchange trader for Banco Ganadero in Bogotá, Colombia. Maria holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and international relations from Universidad Externado in Colombia and a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia Business School.

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Coeli

A Concentrated Bet on Manager Skill Over Beta

Mikael Petersson founded the Coeli European Equity Fund in August 2023, bringing over 30 years of financial markets experience. His background as being the first hired analyst at Lansdowne Partners under Stephen Heinz has been the template for his investment philosophy today. In this session, Mikael will discuss what sets his approach apart: the combination of disciplined stock picking and active portfolio construction. He will explore how the team identifies "misunderstood" businesses, companies trading below their true worth where management can act as a catalyst to unlock value. With the European equity space increasingly dominated by benchmark hugging strategies, this session will examine the case for a concentrated Small-Mid cap European approach run by a manager who treats portfolio construction as seriously as stock selection, a combination that is becoming increasingly rare in today's market.

Mikael Petersson

Founding Partner and Portfolio Manager

Mikael Petersson has nearly 30 years of experience working in the financial industry. In 2000 he joined Lansdowne Partners in London as the first analyst to be hired. There, he worked closely with Steven Heinz and created the blueprint for the investment strategy that he applies today and has refined over the years. Mikael has also worked as portfolio manager at SEB in Sweden and Kairos Investment Management in London. The Coeli European Equity Fund was launched in August 2023 and has had a successful track record since then employing the investment philosophy that Mikael has deployed and perfected over the last 20 years.

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Comgest

Same Philosophy, Refined Execution: How We've Rebuilt Our GEM Strategy

Nick Payne joined Comgest in 2025, bringing 30 years of emerging markets experience to a team already grounded in Comgest's quality growth philosophy. Since joining, Nick has sharpened portfolio construction and tightened the investment process, extending holding periods, reducing trading frequency and building a more concentrated, higher-conviction portfolio that puts quality and growth firmly ahead of valuation. Nick will explain how the process has evolved and where the team is finding quality growth opportunities that most investors are missing.

Nick Payne

Analyst and Portfolio Manager

Nick Payne joined Comgest in 2025 and is a Paris-based Analyst and Portfolio Manager specialising in Global Emerging Market equities. Prior to joining Comgest, Nick was Head of Global Emerging Market equities at Jupiter Asset Management in London for seven years. He previously worked at Nomura Asset Management and was a Partner at Rexiter Capital Management, a specialist emerging markets boutique, from 1999 to 2012. His career in emerging markets began at Kleinwort Benson Investment Management in 1996. Nick holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Commerce and German from the University of Birmingham (UK) and is an Associate of the Society of Investment Professionals (ASIP), the UK’s forerunner to the CFA, now affiliated with CFA UK, the local chapter of the CFA Institute.

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Pictet Asset Management

Real Asset Equities – Diversification and inflation protection

Amid record equity market concentration in tech and AI, real asset equities offer diversified drivers and diversified returns. Electrification, digitisation, reindustrialisation, demographic shifts, and energy security – all require increased investment in the enduring heavy assets that are the backbone of the global economy. Across utilities and energy infrastructure, through to quarries and mines, those strong fundamentals are not yet reflected in attractive equity valuations. As Pictet Asset Management brings their 21-year track record of infrastructure and utilities investing to a new broader Real Assets Dividend strategy, James Wigley, Senior Investment Manager, will explain how irreplaceable physical assets provide enduring barriers to entry for companies across the sectors, offering investors a core of resilience and inflation protection, growing dividends, and the potential for all-weather returns.

James Wigley

Senior Investment Manager

James Wigley joined Pictet Asset Management in 2014 and is a Senior Investment Manager in the Specialist Equities team. Prior to taking on his current role in 2018, he was a Senior Investment Manager in the Total Return Atlas team. Before joining Pictet, James was an analyst at GAM. Prior to that, he held analyst roles at Cantillon Capital and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and was an Assistant Portfolio Manager at Fleming Family & Partners. James holds a Bachelor's in Economics from the University of Birmingham. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and holds the Investment Management Certificate (IMC).

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PIMCO

Seeking Out the Best Global Fixed Income Opportunities

The PIMCO Global Bond Opportunities Fund gives UK investors access to one of PIMCO's most compelling global bond strategies for the first time. Built around their highest-conviction investment ideas, the strategy has the flexibility to move across countries, sectors, interest rates, credit, currencies and emerging markets in pursuit of the most attractive opportunities worldwide. With a heritage dating back to 1998 and powered by PIMCO's global investment platform, it offers investors a genuinely unconstrained approach to fixed income, designed to adapt to changing markets; uncover value wherever it exists and seek to deliver attractive returns through active management.

Sachin Gupta

Portfolio Manager

Sachin Gupta is a managing director and global portfolio manager based in PIMCO’s Newport Beach office, where he leads the global desk. He is an advisory member of the Asia-Pacific Portfolio Committee, previously served on the Investment Committee and held portfolio management roles in London and Singapore, focusing on global government bonds, foreign exchange, and derivatives. Before joining PIMCO in 2003, he worked in fixed income and currency derivatives at ABN AMRO Bank. Sachin has 29 years of investment experience, holds an MBA from XLRI, India, and a degree from IIT Delhi. Since 2018, he has served on and now chairs The Global FoodBanking Network board.

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PineBridge Investments

Finding the Next Generation of Japanese Equity Winners: Using Lifecycle Research to Identify Mispriced Change

Japan's equity market is undergoing profound change, driven by corporate governance reform, technological innovation, demographic shifts, and evolving shareholder priorities. In a market increasingly defined by corporate reform, innovation, and structural change, the greatest opportunities may lie not in what companies are today, but in what they are becoming. Presented by Yukihiro Iwasaki, Senior Portfolio Manager, this session will explore how PineBridge Japan Equity Fund seeks to uncover opportunities beyond traditional sector and style classifications through a proprietary Lifecycle Categorization Research framework. By identifying companies experiencing transformational change before it is fully reflected in market valuations, the fund aims to generate differentiated alpha while maintaining disciplined risk management.

Yukihiro Iwasaki

Senior Portfolio Manager

Yukihiro Iwasaki joined PineBridge Investments in 2008 and is a Portfolio Manager of the PineBridge Japan All Cap Equity Strategy, a role he assumed in 2020. From 2016 to 2023, he managed PineBridge’s Japan CSR funds, and between 2008 and 2019, he worked as an investment analyst covering a broad range of sectors. Prior to joining PineBridge, Yukihiro was at Goldman Sachs Japan, where he began his career as a credit analyst in 1999. During that time, he covered banks and industrials before transitioning into equity research, specializing in trading companies and the oil sector. Yukihiro holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from Waseda University.

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TwentyFour Asset Management

Multi-Asset Credit – Capturing the best relative value opportunities across fixed income

How can investors identify attractive opportunities across today’s evolving credit markets whilst maintaining the flexibility to adapt as conditions change? In this session, George Curtis, Partner, Portfolio Manager, will introduce the recently launched TwentyFour Multi-Asset Credit Fund and explain the investment philosophy behind its flexible approach. Drawing on TwentyFour’s expertise across the credit spectrum, including structured credit and financials, he will discuss how the fund seeks income and resilient risk-adjusted returns, the reasons why active credit allocation still matters, and where he sees the most compelling opportunities for investors. George will also explore why this approach may be particularly appealing to investors who prefer to manage their government bond exposure separately, and how a dedicated multi-asset credit strategy, which focuses on credit selection and relative value opportunities across the global credit universe, could potentially deliver more resilient risk-adjusted returns.

George Curtis

Partner, Portfolio Manager

George Curtis is one of the Firm’s partners and a member of the Multi-Sector Bond portfolio management team. Before joining TwentyFour, George worked as a futures trader at Marex Spectron. George is a CFA® Charterholder and holds a BSc in Economics from the University of East Anglia.

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Venue

Pan Pacific London
80 Houndsditch, London EC3A 7AB

The Pan Pacific London is located just a 5-minute walk from Liverpool Street station which is a central London railway terminus for the Overground and connected to these London Underground lines: Circle, Central, Elizabeth, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan. Moorgate station, a 10-minute walk from the hotel, is connected to the Northern line.

We have booked the Meeting Place suite exclusively. Meeting Place is a state-of-the-art contemporary space with five boardrooms, perfect for our event: White Hart, Four Swans, Magpie, Green Dragon and Black Bull. The rooms are all flooded with natural daylight through floor-to-ceiling windows, and are equipped with 4K LED screens, video and audio conferencing. Registration, the Keynote presentation, the boardroom sessions, refreshments, lunch and drinks will all take place in this private space on the fifth floor.

Contact

For further information on NGF events or Infusion Event Management, please contact:

Sally Doyle, Director
07881 957350

sally.doyle@infusionevents.com