China Everbright Limited (“Everbright”, stock code: 165.HK), the flagship overseas investment platform of China Everbright Group, successfully hosted its 7th Everbright Investment Conference at Midtown Shangri-La in Hangzhou, China between 22 and 23 October. The summit attracted more than 900 investment professionals, enterprise leaders and business partners from all over the world. Elite attendees gathered with Everbright’s management and the managers of over 50 Everbright funds to share their insights on and discuss about the theme “Opportunities in Disruption, New Perspective on Cross-border Investment” across various areas and at multiple levels.
Held in Hangzhou, one of the six ancient capitals of China, the summit has strong support from the Zhejiang provincial government and Hangzhou City. On 21 October, Everbright Executive Director & CEO Mr. CHEN Shuang and the company executives visited and met with Mr. ZHU Congjiu, Vice Governor of Zhejiang Province, and Mr. XU Liyi, Mayor of Hangzhou City with the mission to deepen Everbright’s cooperation with both Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou City. Mr. Chen noted Everbright’s willingness to work with local governments to form fund of funds together and to support the development of regional economy by leveraging on the Group’s proven sector experiences including aircraft leasing, medical care for the elderly, development of commercial real estate and smart city, and other fields. Enterprises within Zhejiang Province will have the first view and opportunity to connect with these outstanding brands.
On 23 October, the summit, moderated by Chin I TSENG, the famous Phoenix Satellite Television financial program presenter, was kicked off with a video that showcased the highlights of the previous six investment conferences. Mr. CHEN Shuang, Executive Director and CEO of Everbright, delivered an opening keynote speech titled “Opportunities in Disruption: Investment Strategy in Change & Disruption”, elaborating on China’s evolving inbound and outbound investment environment and challenges facing the PE industry. Against a backdrop of rising uncertainty brought by the US-China trade war and increased difficulty in fundraising within the PE industries, Mr. Chen introduced strategies for Everbright and its global LPs to capture opportunities arose from industry structural adjustments and consumption upgrades in China. Moreover, within advanced manufacturing, new economy and in multiple sectors, there are promising investment opportunities. By refining management and risk control measures as well as with diversifications, Everbright strives to maintain the balance among fundraising, investing, managing, and divesting.
Mr. WANG Yiming, Deputy Director of the Development Research Centre of the State Council, presented “Macro Views of the Economy and Financial Trends”. Against a backdrop of continuous and increasing uncertainty, the government must adopt a prudent and proactive fiscal policy mix with tax deductions and complimentary measures to increase its support for private enterprises and SMEs, ultimately creating stable market expectation and confidence in businesses in general.
Mr. XU Xiaonian, renowned economist and professor of Economics and Finance at CEIB School, gave a talk titled “China’s Dual-adjustments in the Trade War”, in which he pointed out China’s paramount need to deleverage during one of its most important and challenging economic transitions. He believes that the best way to overcome the challenges is to improve the protection of rights including that of intellectual and private property, which will increase confidence in investors and private entrepreneurs, and ultimately spur innovations that will lead to improve productivity and efficiency.
Speaking of global asset allocation, Mr. Robert SHAFIR, CEO of Oz Management, a leading global alternative asset manager, shared his insights on how today’s rising macroeconomic and market uncertainty calls for an actively-managed, multi-strategy hedge fund approach to investing. Mr. Shafir believes that even with increased volatility recently witnessed globally from beta, investors can still capture attractive, uncorrelated sources of return by casting a wide net across asset classes and geographies and deploying capital nimbly and opportunistically.
In his talk “Changing the Way the World Works”, David DEBOER, President & CEO of Burke Porter Group, listed three megatrends in the advanced manufacturing sector and subsequent opportunities. In face of wage-leveling, rapid technological changes and changing customer preferences, Burke Porter Group was able to transform itself to become the industry leader by expanding and consolidating its products and services value chain upstream as well as downstream through its “Niche at Scale” investment strategy which started in 2015 when China Everbright Limited became its majority owner.
During the panel discussion sessions, Ms. FAN Shengyan, Head of Mergers and Acquisition Department and Managing Director at Everbright, Mr. Brett Rosenthal, Chief Technical Officer at Precision Surfacing Solutions, Mr. Peleg AMIR, CEO of Lamina Technologies, Mr. Kjetil FORSVOLL, CEO of Boreal Holding AS, and Ms. Winnie LIU, Executive Director, Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer at China Aircraft Leasing Group, discussed on the theme “Global Investment under the Reshaping of the World’s Economy”.
With the development of artificial intelligence in full swing, the Chinese market has become increasingly important to the sector. To showcase opportunity and potential created by the latest technology, Mr. Victor AI, Head of Super Project Acquisition Fund Department I and Managing Director at Everbright, Mr. Lex XIE, Strategic General Manager at Terminus, Mr. XU Zheng, Founder and CEO of Missfresh, and Mr. CHEN Tao, Rotating President of iFlytek, shared their insights on the topic of “Industrialisation of Artificial Intelligence in China”.
How to achieve the most optimal real estate asset allocation has always been a popular topic for the Chinese market. Eric CHEN, CEO of EBA Investments, together with Todd MINNIS, CEO of EBA US, Fei YE, Vice President of Huazhu Hotels Group, Tianpeng SU, General Manager of the Direct Investment, PingAn Asset Management, and Hong LI, Senior Vice President of GLP Capital, participated in an expert forum on the theme of “Real Estate Asset Allocation in the New Era”.
The emergence of healthy living as a megatrend and the introduction of many related policies have made the medical industry lucrative for capital. At the expert forum on “Innovation and the Internationalization of China’s Medical Industry”, Michael FU, Head & Managing Director of Everbright’s Medical & Healthcare Fund, Tony YANG, CEO of Fussen Technology, Yuehui XIE, Chairman and CEO of Life Tech Scientific, Lana HU, Founder and CEO of Amcare, as well as Huaihu DONG, Chairman of Wuxi Enjoy Twilight Years, shared their insights on the medical and pension industries with the attendees.
In addition to the above-mentioned forums, Everbright’s numerous global industrial investment teams shared their insights on several hot topics during other sessions, covering topics such as AI+, semiconductors, artificial intelligence trends, environmentally-friendly new energy, opportunities and challenges in the education and food industries, innovation and breakthroughs in Israeli technology, high-end industries and communications technologies, overseas infrastructure asset investments, the opportunities and challenges of Fund of Funds, as well as secondary market investment, among others.
Devotion can be rewarding. The Everbright Investment Conference has developed into an influential, high-level forum and exchange platform, having previously held six successful conferences and is now regarded as a key annual event in the PE industry calendar. As a pioneer in China’s cross-border asset management industry, Everbright continues to use the summit as a platform, showcasing its motto of “The Power to Transform”, leading the Chinese investment industry to explore new grounds in a market environment full of variables and disruptions.
For more information on the 7th Everbright Investment Conference, please visit the conference website: http://everbright-conference2018.com/