ClearlySo | Impact Investment Funds Conference 2019 | Part 4 | Closing - YouTube

I think nothing could be more annoying then if somebody like me who tried to

keep every speaker to time now ran on over time, so I expect tomatoes to be

thrown if I get anywhere near time but I've set the clock and I'm supposed to

just sum up so let me do a couple of things first. First of all, you cameramen

have been amazing, the way you've danced around the crowded room like that

and been so unobtrusive, so I want to thank you. I want to also ask you to join

me in thanking all the speakers today who have done an amazing job of giving you a

really great sense of how vast and interesting this field is so could you please join me in just congratulating them.

Thank you, conferences like this happens because of the efforts of a lot of

people and I do want to mention my ClearlySo colleagues who were involved,

because it's really they've made it successful, Sarah-May Moroney, Jon Wright,

Will Lowry, Harry Humphreys and in particular the woman who's been dashing

around and has really been the architect of everything here today - Quynhnhu Nguyen,

please join me in thanking them (and CMO - John Lloyd). A couple of just administrative points, I noticed a number

of you have been clicking with your iPhones or whatever device it's very

impressive, but we're very happy to send you our presentations and we're happy to

act as a funnel between you and the speakers, if they're willing too, if

you ask us we can ask them and we'll make sure their presentations get to

you, if those speakers are willing to do so, so we'll facilitate that for you.

I guess there's a couple of things I wanted to touch on.

One is that there's obviously a lot of demand

and there's a lot happening in this area and I think that's interesting.

I also think that Beth (Houghton) made a very interesting point about some of these

impact funds have a competitive advantage because if you're at a

competitive bid situation actually investees would rather work with you

and that's really interesting and I wonder if in time that competitive

advantage with some of these impact funds are not going to make a

material difference. I think the other thing you learned today from some of the

fantastic speakers we had is how varied they are in terms of size and shape and

nationality and their headquarters and the size of their organisations, you know

Sky and Hermes on the one hand and then Aristata, organisations like that on the

other hand in terms of track record you know, DWS - 20 years, Bamboo - 12 years.

It's really fantastic, the teams are so different, the assets they invest in

are so different, I think it's really staggering when we when we think

about that and I just think that, that is really an important

takeaway from today. I felt, Shade (Duffy) isn't here anymore but I felt, very

depressed listening to Shade (Duffy) and I'll tell you why. I was on the board of AXA-IM for six

years, until 2010 and I would, every sort of year-and-a-half, talk about impact and

just get a lot of you know groans and it's really interesting that they've

become such a leader, with what did she say, £318 million under management in

the impact space stuff, I guess I was there too early or not very convincing.

There's I guess three points I'd like to make that I'd like you to go home and

think about and I will definitely end between/before 17:53. The first, is that

there are plenty of products that are market return that are available and

your colleagues who say "Oh impact, you know, it's big sacrifice" they're just

being lazy and sloppy actually, they're not doing their homework.

I think there's - and by the way lots of people don't deliver the returns they

promise but - I think people here have track records, they have experienced teams,

they've done this for a long time and when your colleagues pop up and say "yeah..."

just say "No, that's lazy work and you wouldn't tolerate it in the mainstream

market so don't tolerate it in this market either", because this is part of the

mainstream market, that's my first point. My second point is that, I think there's -

we're beginning to see signs of genuine demand from the marketplace, I mean part of it is we

didn't expect this room to be full and we clearly got that wrong. There is a lot

more demand out there, people talk about the Millennials but I don't think it's

just the Millennials and I sometimes wonder if Millennials are just talking about it,

I think there seems to be genuine demand and I think your

organisations will find that if you don't offer products like that in a very

short space of time and I think Chris (Hulatt) touched on this, you may find that you're at a

competitive disadvantage because some of your competitors are offering some of

these things which will resonate with your end investor base

and I think that's really important and the third thing is that,

if you get involved you're gonna have something to brag to your grandchildren

about and that's not so bad so, that's enough from me, thank you

all for coming and we'll see you next year in a much bigger venue.

Have a good evening and join us for drinks!