And with that, the second annual Delivering Alpha conference is put to bed. As the panelists, attendees, moderators and organizers head to the bar, you can scroll down through the almost 6,000 words of this blog to find the finest nuggets of market and investing wisdom you'll see collected in one place ... until this time next year. 5:37pm: Gray likes European deals, though it’s not easy, while Sternlicht (with callous disregard for local European sports) says it’s still the first inning there, so you might have to buy and hold.
And all bets are off if it all goes to hell.
5:34pm: Imogen is very excited! “Ackman wants to spin off a Fannie May foreclosure REIT. That might be the platonic ideal of the Ackman trade!!!!! (Buy an asset spin on the real estate.) I can go home happy now!”
5:28pm: What about all those management headaches? Not to mention the bad PR, what with the foreclosures and all.
5:27pm: Sternlicht is doing the same, he says. Thinks the market might even be overbought already.
5:26pm: Blackstone is buying up houses. Two thousand for $300 million. "Execution is key."
5:25pm: Bill Ackman on the strategy of buying single family homes: “I think its a great business. It’s an asset class where institutions are underrepresented” (bc it is hard to get into and barriers are high). Fannie mae should be in this business, he says.
5:23pm: Jonathan Gray thinks there’s the opportunity to buy stuff that not many people are interested. He points out that financing is harder to get but it’s still there.
Barry Sternlicht says there’s plenty of debt financing and that spreads are tight on safe paper. “What you are not finding ... you do not see foreign banks here.”
5:17pm: This just in, the three most important factors in real estate are 1) location, 2) location, and -- this is unconfirmed for now -- 3) location. Thanks David Faber, panel moderator and co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.
You heard it here first.
5:13pm: Jonathan Gray says Blackstone is not under pressure because of all the commercial real estate it bought near the top of the market. He says rents are improving because of the lack of construction.
5:08pm: Nothing to do with real estate but interesting nonetheless. Bill Ackman on Proctor & Gamble: "We think it's a great company ... it is a cheap stock ... but its cheap for a reason. We are going to take a hard look (at how they can add value). We own stock, we like the company. We own about $1.8bn in equity and options as well." He’s looking forward to meeting the CEO, he says.
5:04pm: At last year's Delivering Alpha, the last panel was best ideas. This year, it's real estate. Both years, it had Bill Ackman, so you know it's going to be interesting. Joining Bill are Jonathan Gray of Blackstone Group and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital Group. 5:00pm: From Imogen: "Jennifer Fan was a 2011 Institutional Investor hedge fund rising star and really knows her stuff on commodities. She was just talking about grain prices and explaining how important transportation costs are. So any disruption to the supply chain, or where the grain comes from, can have a huge influence on prices."
4:59pm: According to our cousins in AR magazine, Dwight Anderson of hedge fund Ospraie says corn, wheat and other grain markets could be explosive - risky.
4:51pm: Taylor makes an impression straight off, saying crude oil could go way up in price.
Apparently, a study out of The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University suggested the opposite. It argued that oil reserved are far greater then commonly believed.
4:50pm: On the panel we’ve got Dwight Anderson of Ospraie Management; Jennifer Fan, Founder, Arbalet Capital LLC; and Beau Taylor of Taylor Woods Capital.
Allegedly ‘fun fact’ about Beau Taylor from Imogen who says, “outside of the fact he has my second favorite energy hedge fund manager name after Gentry Beach. Beau is a casualty of the Volker rule (albeit that it could work out well for him). He was a major energy prop trader, most recently at JP Morgan and left not long after Dodd-Frank, which seeks to ban prop trading at major banks, was signed into law. He launched a hedge fund with seeding capital from Blackstone, which is a big endorsement.”
[Correction, 7/20/2012: Beau's last job was Credit Suisse, JPM was his second-to-last job.]
4:45pm: That's it from our tagteam Treasury Secretaries. Now for commodities!
4:39pm: Bob Rubin weighs in on Europe. The longer Europe muddles through, he says, the longer the odds become of Europe getting through this. "The political system of 17 countries has so far not dealt effectively with these issues and has let things get worse and worse and worse."
According to Imogen: "What is interesting about this is that I heard Rubin speak in November and, from what I recall, he was much more optimistic that Europe would muddle through."
4:35pm: Hank Paulson: “Europe has to stabilize the banks and it has to do it quickly.” Tempting to say, "That's a bit obvious," but clearly Europe hasn't figured it out yet.
4:31pm: Hank Paulson defends Goldman. Says he does not believe all the bad things he hears and reads about the bank.
4:29pm: Bob Rubin defends his tenure as Treasury Secretary, says it was not a period of deregulation. "All we did was rescind Glass-Steagal" and by the time that law was rescinded the banking industry was in already, in effect, acting like that was the case.
“I've heard Bill Clinton make very similar statements on this topic,” says Imogen.
4:24pm: According to Hank Paulson, we have a tax system that is as broken as can be and if the only way we deal with this is to jiggle the rates we fail because we need to be competitive. The debate should be what system will make us competitive and raise the revenue the country needs.
4:16pm: The three Treasury Secretaries agree again. All three think that the U.S. is better positioned -- or, at least, has fewer problems -- than any of the other major economies. "Are they right?" asks Imogen Rose-Smith.
4:11pm: Hank Paulson gets a word in. “America, in 2008, had a credit bubble not just a housing bubble ... Americans had unsustainable and, for them, unprecedented levels of debt."
4:08pm: Bob Rubin does not appear to be a fan of a QE3 and, for that matter, questions the effectiveness of QE2. He says there is an "interesting question whether QE2 was constructive ultimately or if it just extended a period where politicians were not subject to monetary pressures."
He suggests a QE3 may be damaging to the credibility of the Fed.
“He's not exactly holding back with his views,” says Imogen.
4:00pm: "No one has internalized how serious a fiscal crisis could be," says Bob Rubin. The current so-called fiscal cliff is an opportunity to start resolving these issues. But will law makers act? The danger is they just kick the can down the road.
According to Imogen Rose-Smith, this ties in very much with what (current) Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was saying earlier (scroll down to see what he said).
3:55pm: Bob Rubin says that there is some chance that after the next election the two parties will come together to address the long-term, systemic fiscal issues. Because the current long term fiscal situation is unsustainable. Hank Paulson agrees. The question, he thinks, is whether it happens before or after a crisis.
3:45pm: Up next, it's two former U.S. Treasury Secretaries, who also happen to be former chairmen of Goldman Sachs: Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin.
3:20pm: "When people come into one of these institutions there should be a message that lack of integrity and cheating will not be tolerated."
3:17pm: Not that he can get ALL the way inside their heads: "I don't know why people do this: if someone has a billion and they wind up going to jail and being taken away from their family just to make another million" through insider trading.
3:15pm: A nice little insight into the Sheriff of Wall Street’s style:
“The difference between white-collar criminals and other criminals is that they understand risk and cost/benefit analysis. They went to business school, so you can make them understand that there are costs associated with misconduct. That they are not above the law, they can't get away with it. That they will go to jail/lose their freedom. And once they understand they are more willing to cooperate.”
3:08pm: In an even more effective analogy, he invokes firefighters: “When I realize these people are focusing on the question of how close they can get to the line, I tell them it's the wrong question because it creates smoke ... and smoke will make the firefighters show up, even if there is no fire.”
3:04pm: "I'm amazed when talking to business people how focused they are with getting close to the line -- maximizing profit without crossing the line, so they don't have to worry about the SEC or the FBI or Preet Bharara." In the best analogy of the day (and many have been deployed), he says, “It’s like figuring out how much you can drink at the bar without getting pulled over for DUI.”
2:59pm: According to Bharara, the new problem with insider trading is that people are building networks -- if they can't get the info from one source, they will get it from another and so on. It's becoming a cultural problem rather than just a problem of one instance or one person or one industry.
2:55pm: The joking is over. Bharara says that insider trading was "rampant" on Wall Street.
2:53pm: The Sheriff of Wall Street, United States Attorney General - Southern District of New York - Preet Bharara has taken to the stage to be interviewed by Jim Cramer. According to Bharara, "I didn't realize how many people were going to be here from the hedge fund industry. I'm sorry, I don't have subpoenas for all of you."
2:50pm: According to Lasry, Europe is paying too much for risky assets, so he's buying bank debt in private markets.
2:43pm: Bruce Richards says he can make 12 to 14 percent in high yield. Marc Lasry says that might be possible with other credit strategies as well.
2:38pm: Why is everyone buying U.S. Treasuries? According to Bruce Richards, it's mostly central banks buying them.
2:34pm: According to Bruce Richards, inflation is the way out for the U.S. government and everyone knows it.
2:31pm: Lasry says that people want 50 times the risk-free rate or 10 percent, but say don't take risk. But the Fed has to keep rates low given the economy.
2:30pm: That's it from Henry. And now, running a tad late, is Less Than Zero: The Hunt For Yield.
Panelists:
• Gregory J. Fleming, President, Morgan Stanley Investment Management
• Marc Lasry, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Avenue Capital
• Bruce Richards, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marathon Asset Management
2:25pm: Henry Kravis of KKR joins Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Richard Perry of Perry Capital in the euro-will-survive gang
2:15pm: More repetition of old stories from big-name investors. His yarn about private equity nepotism -- George and Henry (co-founders) are first cousins and thought about KKR when they were four years old. Their last fight was when they were seven, he says, battling over a bicycle. “But he's told that one before, according to reporters at my table,” says Julie Segal.
2:12pm: Private equity can do deals up to $10 billion in size. The limiting factor is the amount of equity that can be put in, not the debt.
2:07pm: KKR just bought a German company. “We like investing during turmoil,” he says.
2:03pm: Henry says: "I think one of the worst thing that happend to corporate America is quarterly earnings." Because it forces companies into a short term mentality.
According to Imogen Rose-Smith (who’s also on vacation she wants us to point out), this is a point Al Gore and his firm Generation Investments made in a recent white paper they produced on sustainable capitalism.
2:00pm: Sorkin asks him, “Do you like being a public company after all these years of espousing the advantages of being private?”
“Yes,” says Henry, “But we came at it differently. We haven't sold any stock but now we have source of permanent capital.”
1:59pm: What's the new normal? Well, Kravis says, we've been lucky over 36 years, returning an IRR of 26 percent. “Now I would tell clients they'll get 700 basis points over the S&P 500.”
1:55pm: Henry Kravis on Occupy Wall Street. There are people suffering in this country and some should be paid more, he says, while some executives are overpaid.
His idea to counter Occupy Wall Street: at the beginning of KKR they made everyone an owner. That included secretaries.
“Well there's a way to close the gap between the 99% and the 1%,” says Julie.
1:49pm: Live television moment: Sorkin and Kravis are asked to switch chairs. "Does Henry have a better side?" Julie asks.
1:46pm: “What a surprise,” says Julie Segal, “Henry Kravis supports Mitt Romney. But Andrew Ross Sorkin is pressing him on why Romney hasn't been able to better defend the private equity world.” 1:42pm: Henry Kravis and Andrew Ross Sorkin have just sat down. Stay tuned!
12:47pm: It just doesn’t let up at Delivering Alpha. After the frenzy of the best Ideas panel, it’s on to the luncheon keynote with Henry Kravis. In attendance is our own Julie Segal, Senior Writer at Institutional Investor . (She's on vacation, you know, but can't resist a good investment conference.)
12:46pm: Cooperman to Chanos: "Are you short any of my longs" (referring to Cooperman's 10 stock picks.)
No and Chanos is long two of Cooperman's picks in his long/short portfolio.
12:44pm: Cooperman’s trotted out his ‘Obama bad for S&P, Romney good’ line. This time he hasn’t even waited until next year to rehash his old material.
12:40pm: Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates is the last presenter on the Best Ideas panel. His Biggest, Best Idea? Short Hewlett Packard. “HP represents the ultimate value trap.” He claims they're they are hiding their R&D expenditure through aquisitions and that those acquisitions are destorying value.
12:30pm: The next big idea from the Big Ideas panel. Robert Kapito of BlackRock wants income: “People have more cash than ever but no confidence ... we’ll be income hogs,” including dividend stocks (“we prefer equity dividend funds”), high yield bonds (again through funds), and municipal bonds, since the “default nonsense is overrated.” 12:18pm:
Kathleen Kelley, CIO of Queen Anne's Gate Capital Management, is breaking with protocol and pitching two best ideas:
1) Short the British pound
2) Short platinum
12:08pm: Best Idea number 2: Andrew Feldstein of hedge fund BlueMountain hopes to make 8 to 12 percent returns per annum on less liquid credit. This opportunity exists because of markets obsession with liquidity. Time horizon is 3 to 7 years so you've got to be patient.
12:02pm: Groundhog day. Cooperman takes a pot-shot at Obama this year, too. Says, “If Romney wins the S&P goes up 150 points. If Obama wins I think it drifts lower ... I don't think we can afford four more years of gridlock."
12:01pm: Cooperman says: "Buying US bonds right now is like walking in front of a steam roller and picking up dimes. It's just not a good policy."
Imogen Rose-Smith reckons that Cooperman has also used this analogy before. With Schloss rehashing his car-driving analogy and Cooperman regurgitating neighborhoods and steamrollers, what’s next?
Well, according to Imogen, “I'm looking forward to hearing what Jim Chanos has to say. Always enjoy a good short pick.”
11:55am: Leon Cooperman went for equities last year, saying that stocks were the best house in the financial neighborhood. He's used the same speech, and the same analogy this year: Leon Cooperman's best idea is equities.
11:50am: It's the moment you've all been waiting for. The Best Ideas panel!
11:43am: From II Senior Writer Imogen Rose-Smith: Damon Silvers is on message today. His point is that the problem is not the $1 trillion db shortfall -- or however you want to count it -- but the $6 trillion-plus in pension savings shortfall. The conversation, to his mind, should not be about the pension deficit but the pension and savings gap. Because with an aging population, that's what will damage the economy. Imogen doesn't disagree with Damon but she does have questions about how labor went about negotiating their pension contracts during the good times. (Damon made the point that the average db pension payout is far lower than critics suggest. Again, valid, but the average is just that.)
11:40am:
Mike Peltz says: If it weren't for pension plans, the private equity business would be a lot smaller than it is. Mitt Romney aside.
Larry Schloss says: Private equity is just a piece of the pie. Get it up to 10 to 15 percent – that’s as far as it should probably go. 11:40am: Can we invest our way out of this? Ash Williams says no. “What has to happen? We need to continue long term investment discipline and adjust benefits. Benefits aren't crazy in Florida.” [Ash is the Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of the Florida State Board of Administration]
He goes on to say that you have to align interests looking at employee contributions and other factors. But we're also moving people from defined benefit plan to defined contribution.
11:35am: Damon Silvers says: don't take apart systems that work. We need to start immediately. That puts 10 percent of payroll into a system on top of social security. We need to put up the money. The problem is that we're a little late. That solution was needed twenty years ago.
11:30am:
Mike Peltz says: So much of alpha is eaten up by fees. He points out that Larry Schloss has been trying to deal with these issues by elevating the level of staff. Larry explains: Simplest way to increase returns is to depoliticize pay. First year MBAs earn more than me. We pay $400 million plus in fees, my staff makes $3 million. If we internalize it and pay reasonable compensation, I could save all the excess we pay to the money managers.
11:20am: Cliff Asness says investment management fees are too high. (Excluding AQR, he jokes.) But he is making a serious point. Managers are producing beta and charging for alpha.
11:15am: Damon Silvers says that Including healthcare costs in an estimate of unfunded liabilities is misleading because healthcare obligations are consistently renegotiated and, unlike defined benefit pensions, there is no obligation to pay. Including healthcare obligations -- as the Pew Research Center numbers seek to do -- is "devised to have a conversation about how we can't afford these things."
Organized labour is very touchy about this topic, says Imogen Rose-Smith.
11:11am: IMPORTANT UPDATE! Ash Williams is looking snazzy, as usual, in his bow tie.
11:10am: Larry Schloss reaches for his go-to metaphor to describe managing a pension fund, comparing it to driving a car. “You look only right in front, you drive off the road. Look too far ahead, you drive off the road.” He’s used that metaphor before. Check out our money masters videos: http://bit.ly/OGkqo9
11:05am: Tyler Mathieson just told a little story about a recent dinner where one of today’s panelists gave a speech. At the end of the speech this panelist said his job was incredibly challenging and if anyone wanted it they should pass on their business cards. No one wanted the job. Tyler didn't say which panel member this was - suggesting they might want to make the same offer at the end of this session.
Imogen Rose-Smith is about to ruin it for everyone – it was Larry Schloss.
11:00am: Imogen Rose-Smith is still excited. (It’s still early.) “Really good line up of speakers for this including AFL-CIO's Damon Silvers, one of the most thoughtful voices in organized labor on these issues; NYC pension fund CIO Larry Schloss, who has been pushing for reform of that pension system; Florida State Board of Adminstration CIO Ash Williams, who was II's outstanding contribution honoree at our recent hedge fund awards for the work he had been doing in Florida; and AQR founding principal Cliff Asness. It is going to be interesting to see how Cliff fits into the discussion."
10:50am: Up next is A Drop in the Bucket: The Trillion Dollar Shortfall. Moderated by our own Michael Peltz, he'll be asking the following group about the looming pension crisis:
• Clifford S. Asness Ph.D., Managing and Founding Principal, AQR Capital Management
• Damon A. Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, AFL-CIO
• Lawrence Schloss, Chief Investment Officer & Deputy Comptroller for Asset Management, The City of New York
• Ashbel Williams, Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer, Florida State Board of Administration (SBA)
10:44am: Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss says having local partners is key.
10:42am: Jim Leech points out the importance of having feet on the ground in emerging and frontier markets. "Fly in, fly out does not work."
10:34am: One question that probably won’t be asked at Delivering Alpha today: is finance bad for the economy? This report says yes: http://bit.ly/MkmVjP
10:30am: CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabera just made an interesting observation. She pointed out that the people who have best navigated the current sovereign credit crisis are those who made money in the Latin American credit crisis of the late 1990s. They have “seen this movie before." Hence they were quick to react to Greece etc.
10:27am: Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss of the Rock Creek Group, herself a former World Banker, points to Vietnam as a frontier market that has a growing, young, population and is moving quickly to implement economic reform. According to Imogen Rose-Smith, II Senior Writer, Vietnam was a bubble a few years back, pre 2008. It might it might be worth revisiting.
10:25am: According to Lawrence Delevingne, of our sister publication AR, Nathan Sandler of hedge fund ICE Canyon says Sierra Leone is a good frontier market with iron ore investment.
10:10am: That's it for Global Opportunities. Up next, emerging markets with:
• Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Rock Creek Group
• Jim Leech, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
• Nathan B. Sandler, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, ICE Canyon LLC 10:00am: Richard Perry. Hero of the downtrodden undocumented immigrant. Also suggests going 'next door' to Barney's to buy shoes. (Wise advice on both counts.)
9:56am: Richard Perry thinks we need immigration reform. Immigrants create jobs, they don't take them.
[UPDATE]: He pointed out that immigration reform needs to focus on the fact that it is not just the MBAs and the PhDs from other countries that the U.S. economy requires to operate "but the people working in the fields in California." We need to find a way to make the country safe for the undocumented work force. Because the reality is the U.S. economy needs them. We "need to convince people they [immigrants] are not here to take there jobs they are here to create jobs."
9:49am: More from Pete Briger. He thinks debt is unfairly priced in Europe and Asia. We should be excited about this environment for debt but right now prices are just not that interesting.
9:46am: It’s getting to the meat of the conversation.
Becky Quick just asked Jane Mendillo about shifts in portfolio when she joined Harvard in 2008.
“We are growing natural resources— it’s our favorite area and still has inefficiencies.” 9:43am: If you've come to us late, we're talking Global Opportunities with Pete Briger (Fortress Investment Group), Jane Mendillo (Harvard Management Company), Richard Perry (Perry Capital), and Mary Callahan Erdoes (J.P. Morgan Asset Management).
For the rest of the day's lineup, scroll to the bottom of the page and see what takes your fancy.
9:42am: Mary Callahan Erdoes says: “I was just in Asia and the investors there are all looking at opportunities in U.S.”
9:40am: Jane Mendillo of Harvard Management Company says “we see a lot of investors lined up for distressed credit in Europe.” Sort of a mania, she says. As for Harvard, “We are looking at long term opportunities but not piling in now.”
9:35am: Richard Perry thinks the press is over-exaggerating the extent of the crisis in Europe, the euro will survive and the transition to greater fiscal austerity will be relatively smooth.
Pete Briger - no surprise - disagrees. To him risk assets on European bank balance sheets have yet to be properly priced. Meaning there is a lot more debt - or garbage - to be worked through.
That's two people so far who have expressed faith in the euro's future.
9:30am:
Becky Quick, CNBC presenter, asks why the ECB hasn't gone ahead and started printing money.
Richard Perry, CEO of Perry Capital, thinks the ECB will continue to put liquidity in and give it right to banks and not to the governments.
9:27am: Imogen Rose-Smith is worried about this ‘transitional finance’ stuff. “What happened to being a "garbage collector"? Is Pete Briger watching what he says? Maybe Europe is in even more trouble than I thought!!!”
9:25am: Mary Callahan Erdoes, J.P. Morgan Asset Management says, “The policy makers will muddle through. Sitting on cash won't solve the problems.”
9:21am: The first little nugget from Pete Briger: "We're in a period of transitional finance."
9:10am: And Geithner leaves the stage after covering a huge amount of ground. Security restrictions in the ballroom are relaxed, and we can move on to Global Opportunities: Where do the best opportunities lie and how can investors capitalize on them?
Imogen Rose-Smith, II Senior Writer, is looking forward to Fortress Principal and co-chairman Pete Briger. "Always enjoy hearing what Pete has to say."
9:07am:
Kudlow: What will your legacy be?
Geithner: The fortunes of people in this room are tied to fortunes of all Americans. We have a challenging mix of long term challenges, not just fiscal ... 40 percent of American children born on Medicaid ... Governments are essential to fixing education ... incentives for private investments ... can't be solved with the government just sitting there doing nothing.
9:05am: Tim Geithner still believes the euro will survive.
"We can't want euro to survive more than Europeans. But we have huge stake in this."
9:01am:
Kudlow: Why didn't you make a bigger stink about Libor?
Geithner: We thought the process was flawed, we were worried about it. I briefed the entire U.S. regulatory community in May on this, my staff briefed SEC, CFTC, brought it to the attention of the British ... we put together recommendations. The U.S. to its credit set in motion a powerful response. We were forceful from beginning.
9:00am:
Kudlow: when was the last time you met with speaker John Boehner to talk about compromise?
Geithner: Several weeks ago when I went to talk about Europe ... try to talk to everybody who is relevant.
8:57am:
Kudlow: With the economy poised on front end of recession, why would you want to raise taxes?
Geithner: No one wants to! If you don’t want to do those tax changes, where will you find a trillion dollars of savings? Should it come out of education? Medicare benefits? Would that be better for growth?
8:56am: Julie Segal summarizes Geithner's ideas for your benefit: Congress should extend tax cuts that exist for 98 percent of Americans, take debt limit risk off table, extend business extenders like R&D credits, pass proposals on refinancing of mortgages, give states ability to put teachers back to work. This would be good for confidence, but has to be done within a framework of reform.
8:55am: "The most powerful instruments of economic policy that the country needs right now are in Congress."
8:54am: "Washington is a crazy place, hard to read and mostly evokes despair at the moment."
8:50am: Washington right now "is stuck and it needs to get unstuck," says Geithner.
8:45am: From Institutional Investor Senior Writer Imogen Rose-Smith: “Good turn out to hear Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at the second annual Institutional Investor CNBC Delivering Alpha conference. And incredibly humid. We like to make out DC visitors feel at home.”
8:40am: Economy is definitely slower, says Geithner. Lawrence Delevingne, reporter for our sister publication AR, says, "Geithner says economy needs well designed program of support."
8:38am: A little late but the first question from Larry Kudlow is - What has gone wrong?
8:30am: The crowd is assembled, Timothy Geithner is about to take to the stage.
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CNBC and Institutional Investor team up today for our annual Delivering Alpha conference. If you haven't got a ticket, fear not, we'll be blogging live from the event bringing you the latest on the return of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as keynote speaker, the appearance of two of his predecessors at Treasury in Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin, and well as Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. And from the ranks of the country’s best investors we’ll have private equity giant Henry Kravis of KKR, Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, Pete Briger of Fortress Investment Group and William Ackman of Pershing Square.
Below, find the full agenda:
8:30 Keynote Presentation
• Timothy Geithner, 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury
Interviewed by:
• Larry Kudlow, Anchor, "The Kudlow Report", CNBC
9:15 Global Opportunities
There is no lack of distressing news from Spain to Shanghai. Yet the best investors in the world are expected to produce returns in any environment. Where do the opportunities lie – and how can investors capitalize on them?
Moderator:
• Becky Quick, Co-Anchor "Squawk Box", CNBC
Panelists:
• Peter L. Briger, Jr., Principal and Co-Chairman, Fortress Investment Group LLC
• Mary Callahan Erdoes, Chief Executive Officer, J.P. Morgan Asset Management
• Jane Mendillo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Harvard Management Company
• Richard Perry, Chief Executive Officer, Perry Capital
10:00 Emering Markets & The Next Frontier
Beyond emerging markets—frontier investing—boldly going where few investors have gone before—fueled by plentiful commodities, a strengthening consumer class and healthy exports... the myth of global decoupling is falling apart.
Moderator:
• Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Chief International Correspondent, CNBC
Panelists:
• Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Rock Creek Group
• Jim Leech, President and Chief Executive Officer, ONTARIO TEACHERS' PENSION PLAN
• Nathan B. Sandler, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, ICE Canyon LLC
11:00 A Drop in the Bucket: The Trillion Dollar Shortfall
As people live longer, spend more and save less, the looming pension crisis has inspired calls for reform and rebellion. How can we close the gap before we fall off a cliff?
Moderator:
• Michael Peltz, Editor, Institutional Investor Magazine Group
Panelists:
• Clifford S. Asness Ph.D., Managing and Founding Principal, AQR Capital Management
• Damon A. Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel, AFL-CIO
• Lawrence Schloss, Chief Investment Officer & Deputy Comptroller for Asset Management, The City of New York
• Ashbel Williams, Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer, Florida State Board of Administration (SBA)
11:40 Best Ideas
We’ve asked some of the world’s most renowned investors to share their best, most actionable ideas. Where should you put your next dollar? Find out here.
Moderator:
• Maria Bartiromo, Anchor, "Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo"
Panelists:
• Jim Chanos, President and Founder, Kynikos Associates
• Leon G. Cooperman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Omega Advisors
• Andrew Feldstein, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer, BlueMountain Capital Management
• Robert S. Kapito, President, BlackRock, Inc.
• Kathleen Kelley, Chief Investment Officer, Queen Anne's Gate Capital Management LLC
12:30 Luncheon with Keynote:
• Henry R. Kravis, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, KKR
Interviewed by:
• Andrew Ross Sorkin, Co-Anchor, "Squawk Box", CNBC
2:00 Less Than Zero
The hunt for yield is putting a squeeze on investors. With low interest rates here for the foreseeable future, where can you make money now?
Moderator:
• Gary Kaminsky, Capital Markets Editor, CNBC
Panelists:
• Gregory J. Fleming, President, Morgan Stanley Investment Management
• Marc Lasry, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Avenue Capital
• Bruce Richards, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marathon Asset Management
2:30 Keynote Address
• Preet Bharara, United States Attorney - Southern District of New York
Interviewed by:
• Jim Cramer, Host "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" and Co-Anchor "Squawk on the Street", CNBC
3:45 American Agenda
Two former U.S. Treasury Secretaries, who also happen to be former chairmen of Goldman Sachs, take the stage for an unprecedented examination of the various challenges and opportunities on the economic and political horizon, with a focus on how investors should navigate them.
Moderator:
• Steve Liesman, Senior Economics Reporter, CNBC
Panelists:
• Hank Paulson, Jr., 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury
• Robert E. Rubin, Co-Chairman, The Council on Foreign Relations and 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury
4:30 Commodities
With crude oil and other commodities in a double-digit slump since early this year, some investors are scrambling to push the reset button. What’s the best approach to volatile energy markets? How will geopolitics and stagnant economic growth affect the picture?
Moderator:
• Kate Kelly, Wall Street Reporter, CNBC
Panelists:
• Dwight Anderson, Managing Partner, Ospraie Management
• Jennifer Fan, Founder, Arbalet Capital LLC
• Beau Taylor, Chief Investment Officer, Taylor Woods Capital
5:00 Land Grab
Real estate has long been hailed by investors for its ability to both generate income and grow principal, making it one of the most closely watched markets throughout the world. Although prices seem to have bottomed out in the U.S., real estate in Europe and Asia could still be primed for a fall. So where does the smart money go?
Moderator:
• David Faber,Co-Anchor "Squawk on the Street", CNBC
Panelists:
• William Ackman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Pershing Square Capital Management LP
• Jonathan Gray, Head of Global Real Estate, Blackstone Group LP
• Barry Sternlicht, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Starwood Capital Group
