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.