Investment Insights: Expert Perspectives on the Next Decade of Investing
Key Takeaways
- Fixed income investing now requires active oversight of correlations and a sharper focus on outcomes rather than benchmarks.
- Private markets can provide portfolio income, diversification and stability, but success depends on strong governance and careful underwriting.
- China’s markets are expanding at speed, with passive scale and active innovation presenting new opportunities for investors.
At the Aon Wealth Insights Series – Asia Pacific Forum in Hong Kong, investment leaders gathered to share their insights on how portfolios are adapting to a new investment cycle. Moderated by Aon’s Global Chief Investment Officer Russ Ivinjack, the panel brought together Ben Bennett, Head of Investment Strategy Asia with Legal and General in Hong Kong, Brigitte Posch, APAC Credit & Head of APAC Third Party Insurance Portfolio Management with Apollo and Bei Shi, Executive Head, Global Capital Division at China AMC. Each offered perspectives shaped by their own markets and experiences, but together they presented a clear narrative — traditional assumptions about portfolio construction are under pressure, and investors must look more closely at outcomes, governance and resilience to navigate the years ahead.
The conversation focused on several themes including the changing dynamics of fixed income, the role of private markets, the governance challenges of moving beyond benchmarks, and the evolving structure of China’s capital markets. Their expert commentary provided our audience of senior investment professionals with valuable insights on positioning assets to prepare for ongoing changes in market conditions.
The Changing Role of Fixed Income
For decades, government bonds acted as a reliable counterweight to equities. Today that relationship is less certain, leaving investors to reconsider how fixed income fits within their broader portfolios. Ben Bennett noted that the traditional diversification benefit of this asset class has weakened. “There have been recent market episodes where the equity/bond correlation turned positive,” he said. “A pragmatic approach going forward will be to monitor this correlation and adjust duration exposure accordingly. Investors should think carefully about outcomes rather than defaulting to index-relative measures.”
Bennett went on to highlight the implications for product selection and the growing demand for bond strategies that can respond by adjusting exposures. He acknowledged the challenge of measurement without a simple benchmark, but suggested that risk-adjusted income is a more appropriate standard that also aligns with client objectives.
Bei Shi offered an alternative view on the benefits of product flexibility. “In China’s onshore markets, institutional investors have increasingly adopted index and passive products to manage volatility,” she said.
“At the same time, we are seeing interest in active strategies to target more stable outcomes.” This parallel approach, she suggested, offers a broader lessons to investors —portfolios can benefit when structural stability is combined with targeted sources of return.
Private Markets Offer Resilience
With public markets experiencing the impacts of sovereign issuance and shifting correlations, all panellists agreed with Shi that investors are looking to alternative solutions to generate income and stability. Their discussion highlighted private credit and asset-based finance as practical tools for achieving these objectives.
Posch explained that private markets can offer both a premium over public exposures and protection from short-term volatility. “Because it’s private, your objective is to get a premium over the public market — sometimes even more than 200 basis points, depending on complexity.” She also observed that these structures are less exposed to the day-to-day, mark-to-market moves that often destabilise public benchmarks.
For Posch, resilience comes down to correlation. While public bond indices are driven by movements in government yields, private structures provide a different pattern of risk and return, smoothing portfolios performance overall. Asset-based finance, including real estate, infrastructure and other collateral-backed exposures, is another way to build diversification — but it requires robust underwriting and governance.
Looking Beyond Benchmarks
As asset class correlations shift and private allocations grow, traditional benchmarks are becoming less effective guides. The panel reflected on what it means to measure success when standard indices no longer align with the outcomes investors require.
Bennett cautioned investors from reliance on bond indices. “Fixed income should be focussed on cash-flow and yield objectives rather than index-relative return,” he said. “This helps avoid the concentration risk of a skew towards the most indebted issuers.” Posch agreed that benchmarks can create challenges, particularly when portfolios combine public and private credit. “There’s no simple equation when you add private assets and try to match to existing indices.” Instead, she encouraged clarity about the outcomes investors seek, and flexibility in how they are measured over time.
China’s Time to Shine
The panel also explored how China’s capital markets are offering new opportunities to global investors, with growth in both passive solutions and new forms of active management. Shi described how flows into onshore and offshore equities had turned positive, with institutional investors increasingly favouring exchange traded funds for both liquidity and cost. By August 2025, the ETF market in China had reached approximately US$720 billion in assets, making it the largest in Asia.
Alongside this growth, Shi pointed to a wave of innovation in active strategies, including index enhancement, multi-factor approaches and AI-driven quantitative models that were rare in this market just a few years ago.
“In private markets, government-guided funds are shaping capital allocation,” she said. “This is particularly the case for technology and innovation-led sectors such as semiconductors, automation and renewables.”
This insight from Shi presents a multi-layered view of China’s investment markets. The country is now providing scale through passive products and opportunities for differentiation through active innovation. It is becoming increasingly important for investors to understand how these opportunities interact.
In Summary: Clarity and Adaptability
The overarching message from the panel is that investors must prepare for a cycle in which past assumptions no longer apply. Across each topic — fixed income, private markets, the relevance of benchmarks and opportunities in China — a common theme emerged. Investors must be prepared to rethink portfolios strategies to achieve the adaptability required to navigate market uncertainty.