Fund officials to attend Manila investment conference

The NMI Retirement Fund will send some of its board members to the upcoming regional investment conference in Manila, citing its timeliness and importance.

“The issues to be discussed are geared toward fiduciary responsibilities. It’s a great opportunity for the trustees and other CNMI leaders to attend it. It’s a regional conference so you’d hear the experiences of other countries. You’d learn that the issues we are experiencing right now are not unique to us so you’d want to know how they’re dealing with it,” said Fund administrator Mark Aguon.

Aguon said he is not sure yet if he would be attending the conference, which will be held on Nov. 9-10 at Shagri-la Makati.

“But we’ll certainly have members of the board at the conference,” he said.

About 300 delegates from Saipan, Guam, and Micronesia are expected to attend the 6th Pacific Region Investment Conference in Manila, which is being organized by Guam-based Asia Pacific Association for Fiduciary Studies.

The conference will feature, among others, Insular Affairs deputy assistant secretary David B. Cohen, who will talk about trust funds in U.S. government policy for assistance in developing insular economies, and Philippine Social Security Association president Corazon dela Paz, who is also the president of Geneva-based International Social Security Association, among others.

She has an MBA from Cornell University, a CPA and was formerly Chairperson and Senior Partner of Price Waterhouse Coopers, Philippines, and a member of the Price Waterhouse World Board.

“She is a very good resource person. She’s one speaker that you’d want to meet, especially now that we have questions about the Social Security contribution of our members,” said Aguon.

He refers to the newly created defined contribution plan, which he admits is essentially a savings program.

“Do we allow our members to contribute to Social Security? DC is a savings plan. Ideally, they should be supplemented by Social Security because you need something to fall back on. At least you have a minimum social security,” said Aguon.

Aguon, who is vice chairman of the APAFS, said attendees to the meeting “should be all ears.”

Other speakers at the conference include Norman E. Nabhan, CIMA, immediate past president and member of the board of directors, Investment Management Consultants Association; Louis Boulanger, CFA, former chief executive of Mercer Investment Consulting, New Zealand; Ruby Menon, general counsel for two large multi-employer retirement plans for over 10 years; Philip Erquiaga, director general, Pacific Department, Asian Development Bank; and Robert Bestani, director general, Private Sector Finance Department, Asian Development Bank.

Also attending the conference are representatives from conference sponsors, which include ASC Trust Corp., Atalanta Sosnoff, Business Mirror, Consulting Group, Davis Hamilton Jackson & Associates LLP, First Hawaiian Bank, Franklin Templeton Institutional, Janus, Metropolitan West Capital Management LLC, Kaplan Fox, MetroBank Richmond Capital Management, Continental Airlines, Glimpses Advertising and Glimpses Publications, Great Lakes Advisors Inc., Milliman and RCM.

APAFS is a non-profit educational and charitable association founded in 2000 for and by representatives from public and private institutional funds from the Asia-Pacific region, with the goal of “raising the level of the understanding and standards of practice among fiduciaries in the region, so that they might provide the most prudent stewardship of the funds entrusted to their care.”