RESEARCH & KNOWLEDGE NETWORK:
"Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, and never dream of regretting."
The Once and Future King
To share your global business words of wisdom, e-mail: insider@thunderbird.edu
Center for Global Entrepreneurship
Center hosts family business conference
The Centers for Global Entrepreneurship and Global Family Enterprise held a family business conference Feb. 25-28 at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix. Twenty-two guests represented seven family businesses from nine countries: Belgium, Canada, Dubai, England, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Africa and the United States. Two Thunderbird alumni attended the conference, and two families attended for the second time.
Companies in attendance included:
• Rosy Blue, one of the most renowned diamond and jewelry companies in the world.
• Grupo Ferré Rangel, the largest communications and media group in the Caribbean.
• Grupo Continental, the 10th largest nonalcoholic beverage company in the world dedicated to the manufacturing, selling and distributing of Coca-Cola products.
• Vita-Mix Corporation, a high-performance blender manufacturer.
• J.M. Smucker Co., the leading marketer and manufacturer of fruit spreads, peanut butter, shortening and oils in North America.
• The Maschhoffs Inc., one of the largest family-owned pork farming networks in the United States.
• Discount Tire Co., the world's largest independent tire and wheel retailer.
The program included case study discussions and family forums as well as presentations from Thunderbird faculty and guest speakers. Presenters included Angel Cabrera, Robert Hisrich, Ernesto Poza and Steven Stralser from Thunderbird and Mark Smucker ’96 and Paul Wagstaff from The J.M. Smucker Co.
The next conference will be March 16-19, 2009, at the same location.
Thunderbird Private Equity Center
Private equity conference draws industry leaders
Thunderbird became the epicenter of discussions this month with some of the private equity industry’s most notable leaders, on the heels of a turbulent year in which the community faced extensive public exposure. In the school’s fourth annual Private Equity Investing Conference, held April 3-4 on campus, dozens of national and international investment leaders discussed the next step for an industry entrenched in shifting American and European markets while looking for a foothold in the world’s latest emerging economies.
Titled “Private Equity’s New World: Global Deal Sourcing, Financing and Exiting,” the conference showcased keynote speeches by industry leaders such as A. Charles Baillie, co-head of the Private Equity Group and co-chairman of the Investment Committee at Goldman Sachs; John de Yonge, Ernst & Young global research director, Venture Capital Advisory Group; and Joseph Quinlan, U.S. Trust-Bank of America Private Wealth Management managing director and chief market strategist.
“It’s an impressive lineup here, but that’s what we’re about,” said Peter Wolken, vice chairman of the Thunderbird Private Equity Center Executive Advisory Board. “If you want to know what is going on in this area, this is the place to be.”
The two-day conference included breakout sessions with prominent international fund managers, who discussed a wide range of pressing topics, including ways to improve the private equity industry’s tepid representation by mainstream media, the reality of increased international investment in the United States and what direction the industry is headed.
Study shows private equity necessary in U.S. economy
Much has been said and written about the activities and outcomes from private equity investment in the United States during the past two years. Now, as the U.S. economy slows at the hands of a troubled real estate market and the resulting tightened credit availability, buyout investment firms face not only more challenges obtaining debt leverage, but also a road less traveled as they try to match previous years’ high returns for shareholders.
Private Equity is developing to become a major force of creative destruction and innovation which is necessary to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, according to Dr. John Mathis, director of the Thunderbird Global Financial Services Center and professor of Global Finance. Mathis is the author of an economic impact study released during the fourth annual Thunderbird Global Private Equity Investing Conference held in early April. In that report, Mathis exposes numerous realities of the private equity community that speak to the current and future state of investment.
Click here to read more about the study .
