Pensions UK conference is no Pension PlayPen coffee morning.

Six years ago we went to Edinburgh for the PLSA (as it was then) Investment Conference. We knew we were on the verge of something very bad (Covid) but we decided to go ahead. “We” being the vast majority of those who’d paid for three days of conference and the travel and accommodation that went with it.

We reckoned we were ok but on the final day I knew we wouldn’t be.  I had a meeting with Aegon after the Conference closed only it was Aegon that had closed with a confirmed case of Covid amongst its workers. We had no idea what this meant except danger haunted the City and I couldn’t get back to London quick enough, I never had that meeting.

Six years on there is another crisis haunting the Pensions UK  Investment Conference. What we supposed was another Venezuela looks more like Ukraine, only this time those suffering are not Ukrainian or Palestinian but Iranian.

But we can be sure to be discussing the war in term of its immediate impact on our economy.

Take the price of oil and what that means on other markets.

Instead of finding ways to stop the war immediately, the G7 is looking for ways to keep business as usual.

And there is the very pertinent question for those in investment, “who will pay the price of the war?”

Just as Covid was considered in business terms – six years ago – so will the Iranian war be considered this week. The considerations are investment not humanitarian.

That we are confused about why so much violence is being take out on Iranians, is secondary to the confusion this war creates on our portfolios of our varied assets.

So I will take a train up to Edinburgh along with many others , hoping to enjoy myself but knowing that I was nervous in the same way six years ago.

That nothing good has come out of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is obvious. I cannot see anything good coming out of this war. We have had flexing of armed power from the US in my memory since Vietnam , through Afghanistan, Iraq and these most recent wars and the only takeaway I can see from them all is that they destroy commercial value and human happiness.

At the end of the Coffee Morning on Tuesday (Oliver Morley) we will pray for peace in Ukraine and Iraq. There are of course many wars we know little about that go unreported, but we focus on those that could impact us.

I hope that the Pensions UK investment conference prays for peace alongside the Pension PlayPen.