To Central Hall Westminster as a guest of Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, for the launch of her department’s strategy and action plan ‘Face to Face and Side by Side: A framework for partnership in our multi faith society’. A vegetarian lunch was followed by a formal session of talks with Hazel opening followed by Dr Harriet Cabtree OBE, director of the Inter Faith Network for the UK, Revd Nims Obunge MBE chief executive of The Pace Alliance and finishing with Parmajit Dhandha, Minister for Community Cohesion. I found it difficult to identify any particular new change in direction – which is so much needed – from the talks, but the event was useful in that I managed to catch up with some of my community’s leaders who I haven’t seen in a while as well as a few other contacts.

To the offices of Mishcon de Reya for a seminar titled ‘After the Crunch? Considerations for Hedge Fund Managers’. There was a talk from Deutsche Bank and one from Grant Thornton as well as a two from Mischons. The first Mishcons presentation was around best practice in the industry particularly the statements provided produced by AIMA, HFSB and the US President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. But judging by the questions raised after the presentations and discussions with other attendees during the drinks and canapés that followed, I don’t have much confidence that anyone working in Hedge Funds is taking any of it very seriously. After all one of the USPs of hedge funds must be that they are lightly regulated and therefore better equipped to respond quickly to fast changing markets and environments, and their investors will no doubt be sophisticated enough to perform their own due diligence and make a call themselves on any issues that regulations might be expected to oversee. The second Mishcons talk was around litigation and focused on the financial services industry but there were a couple of points made that I think would be worthwhile repeating here as they might be useful to anyone who is or might be involved in any kind of action:

1. That litigation is all about settlement as 95% of cases settle
2. That legal privilege can be used to avoid document disclosure in potential future cases

Also mentioned was the emergence of litigation as an asset class and it will be interesting to see how this will develop. It was an engaging and educational event and having found both Mishcons partners that I know separately to be particularly amiable, it was no surprise to find that I was very well looked after by my host today.

Back to the Landmark Hotel Marylebone for day two of the investment forum. It was less well attended than day one when it seemed that far more people turned up than the organisers had been expecting, but it was all the same no less useful. Opening up India’s economy seemed to be the theme of the day with this as one of the major themes in the financial industry panel and the disparities between how Indian companies are treated abroad and how foreign companies are treated in India discussed in the subsequent panel. The somewhat surprising acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories by the Japanese pharmaceutical firm Daiichi Sankyo was covered in the pharmaceutical industry panel. The day finished with lunch during which S (who I first met at the lunch on 22 June 2008 and who also happened to be attending the conference) and I were joined at our table by a lady who described herself as a fund manager at HSBC. She was there with her daughter who said she was shadowing her mum for the week. When they got up to leave and the mother gave us her business card we discovered that she was in fact the Head of Global Equities at HSBC Asset Management.

Reflecting on that incident I am reminded of the significance that the passing of knowledge from parent to child can have in the child’s eventual success. Examples of this transfer and the great achievements that precede and result are abound in sports and the arts. But the subcontinent seems to have a virtual monopoly on this in business with its dynasties: the only two examples in the west that immediately come to mind are the Murdoch’s and Tom Hartley’s. And discussion of this, so prominent in the culture and fabric of India, seemed to be the only thing that was missing from the conference.

To the second Annual Euromoney India-Europe Investment Forum at the Landmark Hotel Marylebone. Opening speeches were by Uday Kotak, Founder and MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Anshu Jain, Head of Global Markets at Deutsche Bank. I was quite surprised to hear Anshu saying that he and fellow bankers including those at other firms could see the credit crunch coming but continued to take unusual risks because of the short-termist attitude that being a listed company encourages management to take. Perhaps that is why we have seen so much private wealth flow to family owned banks since the crisis hit. The speeches were followed by a panel on India’s Economy with Rajya Sabha members Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Auto and N K Singh featuring among others. This gave a distinctly political bias to the discussions but it is very hard to take a view on the economy of India without viewing the country through the prism of its political environment. In my opinion politics presents the greatest risk while also being the greatest asset – when compared to other emerging markets – to any potential investment in India. Given that most of the remaining panels emanated a generally downbeat attitude particularly with the recent falls in the Indian market, the Media and Entertainment panel, which included Ravindra Dhariwal, CEO of Bennett Coleman (owner of the world’s largest broadsheet English daily), and Kishore Lulla, Chairman and CEO of Eros International, was surprisingly positive. All the panellists sounded as if they expected their companies to continue to report record profits. They also took an unusually blasé and nonchalant attitude to piracy considering the attitudes of their western counterparts. The day finished off with a cocktail and canapés reception which was a good opportunity to get to know some of the other delegates under a more relaxed atmosphere. Interestingly, there seemed to be a collection of young British Indians in attendance who perhaps are not too much more than spectators right now, but could be putting together big deals soon. I already knew a couple of these people from other unrelated events but I have no doubt that I will come across most of them on the circuit again soon.