International Investment Nordic Forum 2008

Sarah Godfrey
Editor
International Investment

Michael Oliver
Associate
Lombard Street Research &
Professor of Economics
ESC Rennes School of Business

Keynote
The danger of asset price inflation
The 'credit crunch' has given rise to all sorts of explanations to account for why it occurred. The real explanation is the rise of asset price inflation. This talk examines why asset price inflation appears not to have been understood by the monetary authorities and discusses how financial discipline can be restored.

Sandra Curtis
Vice President, Senior Portfolio
Manager – AllianceBernstein Fixed Income
AllianceBernstein

Global Opportunities in Fixed Income for SEK Investor
The past year brought a major subprime credit crisis, which is still having a broad impact on the global economy. In its wake, market volatility has risen across world markets. We will discuss why it is beneficial to invest globally instead of locally. We will also look at hedging back foreign exchange exposure.

Rolf Banz
Chief Investment Architect Pictet Asset Management

Risk budgeting: dogmatic focus or pragmatic diversification?
Asset allocation is supposedly the most important decision that investors take. It is, unfortunately, also a very difficult decision. Yet, most investors opt for concentrated portfolios with a pronounced home country bias. While this may be the proper approach for highly skilled forecasters, it is a prescription for trouble for those who are simply overestimating their skill.
A more realistic approach might be to adopt an approach that takes into account the relative lack of forecasting skills. Such an approach would focus on broad diversification across risk classes and selectively incorporate certain alpha sources.

Niall Quinn
Head of Business Development, Global Institutional
Gartmore Investment Management Limited

Understanding the changing face of China
Niall will investigate the current market and opportunities for investing in China. His presentation will explore growth momentum, China's rising geopolitical and economic influence and the changing face of this increasingly important asset class.

Kier Boley
Investment Manager
GAM

Macro hedge fund strategies within an investor's portfolio
Macro's cyclical performance phases
Low correlation to traditional markets
Stressed global economic environment

Reyer Kooy
Director, Alternative Investments
Credit Suisse

Benefits of adding Hedge Funds to your investment portfolio
The last several years have been something of a free lunch as far as Fund returns go. Interest in Hedge Funds have been minimal, and rightly so when you could get 30–50% returns in the equity markets. However, we have been painfully reminded that Equity markets can in fact also go down! In this session we will discuss the benefits of adding Hedge Funds to a portfolio and introduce a new option for the investor – Hedge Fund indexing. Looking at the current market conditions and also over longer time periods, we believe that exposure to Hedge Funds should form part of any investors portfolio.

Richard Urwin
Head of Asset Allocation and Economics

Credit, other global economic themes and financial market returns - what next?

Dilek Capanoglu
Portfolio Manager
RCM

BRIC – Capturing the themes that are reshaping the world.

Arild Holm
U.S Value Equity Portfolio Manager
Principal Global Investors

Value v Growth in U.S Equities
Comparing and contrasting value versus growth in the US Equity market over the last 25 years.

Khiem Do
Chair of Asia Multi Asset Group
Baring Asset Management

Asia vs. US: What happened to de-coupling?
The sell-off in world equity markets has been more or less indiscriminate, with markets in Asia showing little resilience in the face of weakness in the US. Yet, Asia is coming from a much healthier economic place than the US, with growth likely to remain robust and activity high in the face of weakness in the US. Hear Khiem Do, Head of Asian Multi-Asset at Baring Asset Management, discuss the relative performance of the economies and markets, and explain why de-coupling is still present, just not where you might expect it.