October 6, 2006 | Park Hyatt Philadelphia
Wharton Finance Conference 2005 From Wall Street to Beijing

Wharton Finance Conference 2006


Panels

Finance Roundtable
Earnings guidance: is it still relevant?

Should firms issue earnings guidance? Should they stop quarterly guidance? Several firms including Citigroup, Google and Ford Motor have discontinued providing frequent earnings guidance to investors. What does it cost a firm to provide guidance? Do the costs outweigh the benefits? How does this impact the equity research community? Does the buy side now have enough data to make informed investing decisions? Have firms failed to meet expectations self-created? The Finance Roundtable panel on “Earnings Guidance: Is it still relevant?” attempts to trigger a discussion that addresses these questions and concerns. Experts from Industry, Equity Research and Corporate Finance will share their thoughts on whether the practice of issuing earnings guidance eventually creates shareholder value.

Panel Directors: Diwakar Bhaskarrao and Rahul Shukla

Panelists:

Moderator: Joel Stern – Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Stern Stewart & Co.

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Finance Career Workshop
Strategies for managing a successful finance career

MBA students looking to work in the finance industry are faced with a number of career choices. This panel brings together industry professionals, who graduated from business school not too far back, to discuss the specific career paths they have chosen and the early career lessons learned. The panel will discuss the various jobs and roles for MBA students within investment banking, private equity and corporate finance and provide students with valuable insights to succeed in the industry. We have a diverse set of panelists from Mergers & Acquisitions, Real Estate Finance, Private Equity, Consulting, Capital Markets and Investment Banking, areas that are much sought after by business school students.

Panelists:

  • Farhana Ahmed, Associate, Natural Resources Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs
  • Andy Howard, Associate, Corporate Finance, McKinsey & Company
  • Meghan Kelly, Associate, Private Equity Fund Marketing, Lehman Brothers
  • Stephanie Mann, Associate, Mergers & Acquisitions, Citigroup
  • Akshay Mansukhani, Associate Director, Equity Capital Markets, UBS
  • Kalpesh Mehta, Associate, U.S. Real Estate, The Carlyle Group

Moderator: Maryellen R. Lamb, MBA Career Management, The Wharton School

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Stock Exchange Consolidation
The global flow of capital and its impact on capital markets

Mergers and alliances – a trend that has been sweeping across the corporate world in recent years has now expanded to stock exchanges. Through consolidation, partnering stock exchanges aim to achieve economies of scale, reduce trading costs, improve liquidity and expand the listings on their exchanges. However, the consolidation among stock exchanges has kicked up a flurry of financial, strategic, regulatory and technical issues.

The NYSE’s endeavor to merge with Euronext, for example, has raised questions about the future of European bourses sidelined by the new transatlantic mega-market. This landmark deal with Euronext, which operates stock markets in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon and Amsterdam, is likely to keep up the pressure for consolidation among Europe’s stock markets. Driven by the same competitive vein, many other exchanges around the world are also actively engaging their prospective partners.

In this “Stock Exchange Consolidation” panel, the distinguished speakers will discuss whether the motivations to establish huge international exchanges fit the global business landscape and how compelling the economics are for these consolidations. The speakers will also talk about the impact of these cross-continent consolidations on investors, capital flow, stock trading activities and the various regulatory challenges.

Panel Directors: Justin Ong and Saloni Sanghvi

Panelists:

Moderator: Professor Marshall E. Blume, Finance Department, The Wharton School

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Principal Investing
Emerging trends and outlook

In this panel, we hope to uncover the current trends in principal investing under the broad umbrella of the following themes such as current trends in the private equity industry, consolidation and globalization of the private equity industry, emergence of hybrid funds along with the convergence of hedge, industry and geographic trends in venture capital, proprietary trading at IB and Hedge Funds: issues and perspectives.

Panel Directors: Airton Nogueira and Harish Rajaram

Panelists:

Moderator: Henny Sender, Staff Writer, The Wall Street Journal

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Sales & Trading
Risk management in capital markets

This panel will seek to explore the question of changing level of risk in capital markets. Investment banks are increasingly putting more of their own capital at risk to generate shareholder returns. The panel will explore how that capital is being put to work, what kind of risks does this create for the broader markets and what is being done to manage those risks effectively. The topic of ‘Risk Management in Capital Markets’ becomes especially more relevant given the blow up of Amaranth in the last one week and the losses experienced by other hedge funds. The fall out in commodity prices and slow down in housing market will also have an impact on how banks allocate their capital and manage their risks.

Panel Directors: Mohit Mittal and Shail Sapra

Panelists:

  • Brendan Dillon, Managing Director, Head of Loan Sales, UBS
  • Anshu Goyal, Senior Vice President, Head of Fixed Income Prop Trading, Lehman Brothers
  • Vinay Singh, Director, Global Markets Prop Trading, Deutsche Bank
  • Lance Spacek, Director, Equities Trading, Citigroup
  • Michael Sternberg, Managing Director, Securitized Products, Morgan Stanley

Moderator: Professor Krishna Ramaswamy, Finance Department, The Wharton School

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Changing Nature of Wall Street Firms
Emerging strategies for balancing advisory and principal activities

Recent deals reveal an exciting new trend on Wall Street. Increasingly, firms across Wall Street are looking to augment traditional advisory roles with a new role as a principal in various types of transactions. This panel will explore the emerging strategies Wall Street firms are employing for maintaining and growing traditional client advisory business while pursuing principal investment and trading opportunities at the same time. In particular, we will look to explore the opportunities and challenges this new trend poses and how Wall Street looks to negotiate the benefits and potential costs of participating on multiple sides of transactions.

Panel Directors: Bryan Carlson and Amit Sachdeva

Panelists:

Moderator: Profesor Michel Fleuriet, Finance Department, The Wharton School

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Mergers & Acquisitions
Strategies for creating long term shareholder value

Over the past 10 years, mergers and acquisitions have taken an increasingly prominent role in strategies employed by companies to further growth and create a sustainable competitive advantage. However, analysis of stock performance for the merged entities post-transaction indicates that many companies are not able to generate the shareholder value that was anticipated at the time the deal was struck. This panel will consider the critical success factors for bringing the potential benefits of a merger or acquisition into reality. Are there pitfalls in the valuation metrics, management changeovers, and cultural transformation of the merged company that managers should be aware of prior to engaging in a transaction? What strategic rationales and deal structures have tended to create value for the long-term?

Panel Directors: Elizabeth Cheever, Nima Safabakhsh and Satheesh Pillai

Panelists:

Moderator: Martin Sikora, Editor, Mergers and Acquisitions, The Dealmaker's Journal

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Micro Finance
A microscopic view of micro-credit: a dissection of recent trends in the industry

Panel Directors: Parinda Parikh

Micro-finance institutions (MFIs) provide small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries for income-generating activities. These small loans are often coupled with other financial services such as savings and insurance. The overwhelming demand for capital has propelled the growth of many existing microfinance institutions, and has introduced new MFI players to the market. As competition within the industry has intensified, MFIs have been forced to explore new and innovative fund-raising initiatives to meet its financing requirements.

This panel brings together representatives of MFIs, multilateral development agencies, MFI growth accelerators, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other MFI service providers all of which have been involved in generating and structuring new financing arrangements. Discussions will focus on the various methods these entities have utilized to draw upon capital, the types of financing they have sought, or provided, and the positive results they have generated. Additionally, the panelists will address some of the inherent challenges within the micro-finance industry, and will share their thoughts on necessary changes that should be implemented in order to achieve long-term stability.

Panelists:

Moderator: Professor Keith Weigelt, Management Department, The Wharton School

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