Monaco: Fund Forum International 2011

It has been a number of years since I have traveled to Monaco. Unfortunately, Mary Claire and I were not invited to the second significant European royal wedding of the summer, taking place next weekend, between Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock of South Africa. She is a former teacher and Olympic swimmer, having represented South Africa at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney. He is the son of Prince Rainier III, who passed away in 2005, and the legendary Grace Kelly. I trust Mary Claire would have adjusted her scheduled visit with our grandson AJ in Boston if an invitation to the wedding had been extended! There may not be a lovelier spot on the continent than Monaco with its fabled history and vistas, as well as the exquisite Monte Carlo Casino, which only enhances the charm.

I am heading to Monaco tomorrow to join 10 members of our Strategic Insight team for Fund Forum International 2011, which is billed as The World’s Largest Asset Management Event. Daniel Enskat, who directs our global advisory and consulting services, will open the Distribution Summit on Monday morning with a presentation entitled, New Research: A Global Survey of the New Professional Fund Buyer & Their Changing Product Requirements. Daniel will also conduct a fireside chat on Tuesday entitled, The View from Asia. He will interview Vijay C. Advani, Executive Vice President, Global Advisory & Distribution for Franklin Templeton and Timothy F. McCarthy, Chairman and CEO of Nikko Asset Management. Several thousand industry professionals will be in attendance.

Strategic Insight will showcase several of our new global studies that were just released, as well as our newest Simfund Global: Data & Analytics Workflow Tools. I am also looking forward to a dinner on Wednesday evening with John Lee, Founder and Publisher of The Trade and Richard Schwartz, who will be joining us full time to work on an exciting launch for the wealth management sector scheduled to debut in early 2012. I will provide more details and color as we get closer to the launch.

I will be back in New York on Friday and travel to the Bay Area with Mary Claire on Saturday for the long 4th of July weekend. It has been too long since I played a round of golf at Blackhawk!