Securities Lending Summit this Friday!

This Friday 27 November I will be chairing the GSL End of Year Summit.  It will be our fourth event of 2009 and we are taking the opportunity to look forward at the prospects for 2010 and examine how the past two years have shaped our future prospects.  The events have been extremely popular as they combine excellent content that is concentrated into a single afternoon of focussed discussion and debate, followed by a networking opportunity after the summit.

The objective of the Summits is to stimulate lively debate and discussion in order that the audience can walk away with ideas and issues to think about and discuss with peers and providers.    I am confident that this End of Year Summit will make an excellent contribution to the series.

Given that our first Summit in January was held to coincide the removal of the short selling ban, it is fitting that we close this event, and the year, with a politician.   Political and regulatory influences are more important than ever, and I am particularly pleased to welcome Mr Greg Hands, MP, Shadow Treasury Minister.  Mr Hands will give us the Closing Address on the day.

For the main body of the conference, we will be looking at both the demand side of the business as well as issues surrounding collateral.  Some of the questions that I have asked panellists to address include:

• Which hedge fund strategies have been successful in 2009 and what is the outlook for next year?
• Which markets, regions or sectors have captured traders’ attention?
• What demands are hedge funds making of their Prime Brokers?
• How have corporations been raising money recently, how does that compare in historical terms and where is funding likely to come from over the coming year?
• What role do Exchange Traded Funds play in the securities lending business?  Do hedge funds use ETFs, and what are the trends? 
• Collateral is a more important subject than ever before.  To some, it is the source of securities lending cash reinvestment losses, for others it was the safety net that protected them against the Lehman default.  What are the issues, trends and challenges for the collateral?
• This year saw the emergence of the first central counterparties for securities lending activity.  While they may be new to our business, they are an integral part of the investment world.  We are fortunate to have Marco Strimer, CEO of SIX x-clear as one of our panellists.  Marco will give us an explanation of what a CCP is generally and help us tie it into its role in this business.

I try to bring you an interesting and fresh group of speakers at each summit, and I think this group will continue to set a high standard of discussion and debate.   While there are some recognised industry commentators, I am pleased to say that there are several new faces that will be appearing on the day. 

There are some places still available and I hope you will be able to join us.  You can register here.