Sovereign Wealth Funds and Other Long-Term Investors: A New Form of Capitalism?

The second annual "Sovereign Wealth Funds and Other Long-Term Investors" conference will be held on October 17-18, 2011 in Paris, France.

This conference will balance small working groups with global sessions on topics such as:

  • Global imbalances and the international reserve system
  • Reducing financial volatility
  • Legal obstacles to SWF investment
  • Benchmarking based on the constraints and objectives of SWFs
  • The Santiago Principles
  • Monetization of long-term horizons
  • Environmentally sustainable investment
  • Green cities and infrastructure

This project explores how sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and long-term investors can provide investment solutions that reduce the risk of banking, climate, energy, and development crises, and how they can monetize their comparative advantage as long-term, socially responsible investors. Through conferences, working sessions and research, this project addresses how SWFs and other funds can position themselves to profit by confronting global challenges through long-term investing.

Global capitalism is facing the critical challenges of financial instability, shortened investment time horizons, and impending ecological, social, and demographic crises. National and international authorities have struggled to provide political solutions to these problems. By deploying innovative financial strategies, long-term investors have the opportunity to mitigate these crises where the political establishment has failed.

With SWFs' assets projected to increase from $3.8 trillion to $10-12 trillion in the next several years, their expanding worldwide prominence often draws scrutiny and calls for protectionism. The public ownership of SWFs creates a variety of social, economic, and political incentives that distinguish them from traditional commercial investors. In addition to their focus on investment returns, many SWFs have broader investment mandates. Some are designed to ensure macroeconomic stability, while others were intended to foster domestic development. Many are pension funds, charged with preserving intergenerational welfare and providing for an ageing population. These objectives are noble, but are not solely altruistic concerns, since global stability challenges may also affect the financial performance of an SWF and the socio-political stability of the sovereign power that governs a fund. SWFs thus have both the capacity and the economic motive to engage with issues of financial, environmental, and social governance.

Could the emergence of these large, liquid, publically-owned funds with lengthened outlooks also signal the emergence of a new form of capitalism?

Contact info@columbiaswfconference.com for more information.