Dresdner Kleinwort managing director Nick Seaward is giving new meaning to the firm’s equity liaison group, which he heads. Copying the concept of speed dating, the urban pastime in which singles work a restaurant full of prospective mates in five minutes or less apiece, Seaward will host a speed-investing event in New York this month. The idea is to match investors with different company managements for a series of 20-minute meetings. So far ascore of representatives, as well as executives from such companies as BAE Systems, BP, Coca-Cola HBC and Diageo have signed up. After the brief discussions, investors tell Dresdner which companies they would like to ask out for another date. “Ten years ago this wouldn’t have come up as an idea. But the investing world has changed,” says Seaward.
