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Looking into 2020 with Hermes

From Brexit and the US presidential race to climate change, we present our outlooks for 2020.

2020 will be another uncertain year. Brexit will rumble on, bringing further volatility and polarising the UK political dialogue; China and US relations will remain tense and concern markets, despite a possible partial trade deal being secured before the end of 2019; and the US presidential race will likely unsettle world markets.

Five years on from the Paris Agreement, the UK will host COP26, the next annual United Nations climate-change summit. Countries are due to present updated plans to keep the global rise in temperature well below 2⁰C.

In our 2020 Outlook, we present our perspectives on equities, fixed income, multi asset, private markets and stewardship for the year ahead. 

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Saker Nusseibeh, CBE
CEO, International at Federated Hermes

Saker is Chief Executive of HFML. He was appointed CEO in November 2011 having joined HFML in June 2009 as CIO. Prior to joining HFML, Saker was Global Head of Equities at Fortis Investments, having initially been appointed as Fortis CIO Global Equities in 2005. Before this he was CIO of Global Equities and Head of Marketing for SGAM UK. This role followed SGAM’s acquisition of Trust Company of the West (“TCW”), where Saker was a Managing Director, running global and international strategies, as well as managing TCW’s London office. He started his career at Mercury Asset Management in 1987.

Saker is the founder of the 300 Club, a group of leading CIOs and investment professionals who seek to challenge investment orthodoxy. He is a member of the CFA Institute’s Future of Finance Advisory Council, a member of the IIRC Council, and the FCA-PRA Climate Financial Risk Forum, as well as the United Nations Environmental Programme Financial Initiative Steering Committee. He sits on the Banking Standards Board (the “BSB”), which was created as a result of a Parliamentary enquiry to restore trust in the UK banking industry. In May 2020, Saker was appointed as a director of BSB (Global) Services Limited, a subsidiary of the BSB, and appointed Chairman, in November 2020. Saker also sits on UK National Advisory Board on Impact Investing.

At the 2020 Funds Europe Awards, in November, Saker was named as Funds Europe “European Personality of the Year”, in recognition for his "lifelong mission to bring ESG and Socially Responsible investing into the mainstream”. This followed on from being awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List at the beginning of the year, which recognised his services to the development and promotion of Responsible Business and for contributions more broadly to the finance industry in the UK. In 2015, Saker was named CEO of the Year at the Global Investor Investment Excellence Awards and, in 2018, he was named CEO of the Year at the Financial News Asset Management Europe Awards.

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