Argentum, The Institute for Financial Research (SIFR) and the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH) will arrange the Argentum Conference and Symposium “Private Equity: The Road Ahead” on September 23-24, 2010, in Stockholm.
This page will be continuously updated.
Conference focus:
The Argentum Conference aims to bring together leading academics with leading limited partners and general partners as well as policymakers to discuss recent research on private equity and its broader implications for practice and policy. There will be keynote presentations by leading scholars in the field, which will be followed by a panel discussion where practitioners get to express their views on these issues.
Confirmed speakers:
Ludovic Phalippou has published a number of studies based on the cashflows of private equity owned companies and funds. He will present his latest work on returns and best practices.
Raffaella Sadun is Assistant Professor at the Harvard Business School. Rafaella Sadun and her collegues have recently published a large study on the management practices of 4 000 companies, including 137 private equity owned companies.
Harald Mix is a Partner at Altor Equity Partners. Harald was previously with Industri Kapital as co-founder where he was responsible for managing private equity investments in Sweden and Finland.
Gabriel Urwitz is the Chairman of Segulah Advisor and has also worked as a professor of financial economics at the Stockholm School of Economics
Staffan Helgesson is an experienced venture capitalist, and a Kaufmann Fellow. He is the managing partner of Creandum, an early stage fund manager investing in Nordic venture companies.
Roger Johanson is the lead investment officer of Skandia, and has also been active in the debate on regulation of the venture capital market
- Claes De Neergaard (Industrifonden)
Claes De Neergaard is President of Swedish Industrifonden, an independent ever-green fund. The fund was founded by the Swedish state in 1979, but receives no government funding.
- Dick Seger (Securitas Direct)
Dick Seger is the President and CEO of Securitas Direct, which was bought by EQT V and delisted in 2008
Bob Long is the President and CEO of Conversus Asset Management, the investment manager of Conversus Capital.
Tentative Program
09.30: Registration
10.00 - 10.10: Welcome by Argentum
10.10 - 11.35: What are the prerequisites of a functioning private equity industry?
10.45 - 11.05:
Comments on by Staffan Helgesson
11.05 - 11.35:
Panel debate including Mr. Helgesson, Roger Johansson and Claes De Neergaard on the prerequisites of a functioning private equity industry. We hope to shed a light on what goverments could and possibly should do in order to stimulate functioning venture capital and private equity markets.
11.35 - 11.55: Break
11.55 - 13.20:
Do private equity owned companies have better management practices and what are they?
11.55 - 12.30:
Speaker: Raffaella Sadun
12.30 - 12.50:
Comments by Gabriel Urwitz
12.50 - 13.20:
Panel debate on the management practices of private equity. The panel will include Ms. Sadun, Mr. Urwitz and Dick Seger. The panel should answer questions on whether the management practices of private equity add value, and if there are any special best practices that all GPs should strive to achieve, and all LPs look for, or if these are depending on different strategies.
13.20 - 14.20: Lunch
14.20 - 15.45:
Returns, incentives and best practice due diligence- is it persistence and how will net returns develop going forward?
14.20 - 14.55:
Speaker: Ludovic Phalippou
14.55 - 15.15:
Comments by Harald Mix
15.15 - 15.45:
Panel debate including Mr. Phalippou, Mr. Mix and Mr. Long. Questions to be considered include the participants view on persistence, on fading returns and
the natural development of aligned incentives going forward.
15.45 - 16.00: Summary
After the Conference, Argentum will arrange a boat trip to see Stockholm's spectacular archipelago and landscape. The trip will end at Millesgården where we will have a guided tour and dinner.
Attendees:
Attendance is by invitation only.
Practical Information
The Conference will take place at Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden
After the Conference, Argentum will arrange a boat trip, followed by a dinner for the participants.
The Argentum Symposium
The Argentum Symposium, September 24th has a standard academic format, and aims to provide an academic forum showcasing the frontier in private equity research. We plan on having six or seven presentations of recent research papers, with a discussant for each paper. Some of the topics that will be covered are risks and returns, regulation and the impact of private equity on portfolio firms.
Read more about the Argentum Symposium
History
Argentum arranged the Argentum Conference and the Argentum Symposium in 2009 in cooperation with NHH and the European Financial Association.
The academics that presented their research and discussed private equity at the 2009 Symposium, included:
- Yael Hochberg (Northwestern University
- Alexander Ljungqvist (New York University)
- Annette Vissing-Jorgensen (Northwestern University)
- Ulf Axelson (Institute for Financial Research)
- Per Johan Strömberg (Institute for Financial Research)
- Tim Jenkinson (University of Oxford)
- Michael S. Weisbach (Ohio State University)
- Florencio Lopez de Silanes (EDHEC Business School)
- Ludovic Phalippou (University of Amsterdam).
- Paul Oyer , Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Phillip Leslie , Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Jerry Cao , Boston College, Singapore Management University
- Josh Lerner, Harvard Business School
- Morten Sorensen , Columbia University
- Dirk Bergemann, Yale University
- Ulrich Hege, HEC Paris
- Miguel Sousa , University of Oxford
- Liang Peng , University of Cincinnati
- Micah S. Officer , Loyola Marymount University
- Oguzhan Ozbas , University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business
- Berk A. Sensoy , University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business
- Phillip Leslie , Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Paul Oyer , Stanford Graduate School of Business