175: "The Consultant’s Edge" - Are Investment Consultants Indispensable? With Michael Manning, CEO of NEPC

Money Maze Podcast

Business, Investing, Management, News, Business News

4.8 • 216 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the 1950s onwards, the foundations of investment consulting were laid, as pension funds and institutional investors sought professional guidance on asset allocation and portfolio management.

This was enhanced in the 1960s & 70s by the introduction of Modern Portfolio Theory by Harry Markowitz and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) by William Sharpe.

Today, the investment consulting industry has become a vast cog in the investing machinery, increasingly extending its reach from institutional through to individual investors.

In this interview, Michael Manning, CEO of NEPC, with nearly $2 trillion under advice, sits at the epicenter of these developments.

We learn how the world of consulting has developed, the reasons behind its growth, how it has adapted, and its move into the individual market.

Michael then discusses the investment terrain. Is the US peaking relatively, and what might that mean? How to assess passive versus active? Is private equity due to disappoint? And how to assess the risk/returns of private debt, infrastructure and real estate.

The Money Maze Podcast is kindly sponsored by Schroders, IFM Investors, World Gold Council and LSEG.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the MoneyMays podcast.
0:04.7	If this is your first time joining us, I'm the host, Simon Brewer,
0:08.4	and in this show, we talk to proving leaders and thinkers from the worlds of business, investing from beyond.
0:14.4	Money talks and money moves.
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0:30.4	Episodes are also published on our YouTube channel and we're active on all major social media
0:35.3	platforms.
0:36.3	Thank you for listening.
0:39.5	From the 1950s onwards, the foundations of investment consulting were laid as pension funds
0:45.9	and institutional investors sought professional guidance on asset allocation and portfolio
0:50.7	management. This was enhanced in the 60s and 70s by the introduction of modern
0:55.2	portfolio theory by Harry Markovits and the capital asset pricing model by William Sharp
1:00.3	as the concepts of optimising portfolios and understanding risk move centre stage. Today the
1:07.0	investment consulting industry has become a vast cog in the investing machinery, extending
1:11.8	its reach from institutional to individual investors. One such organization, NEPC, with nearly
1:18.2	$2 trillion under advice, has grown rapidly and embodies these shifts. And over from the US today,
1:24.4	in fact, just off a plane, we have the CEO of NEPC, Michael Banyi. Michael,
1:29.1	welcome to the Monoley's podcast. Well, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
1:32.0	Well, great. You're not showing any signs of a short night. Where did you fly in from?
	...

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