MEDIA ADVISORY
The International Institute for the Study of Cross-Border M&A, a new cooperative venture among leading business schools in China, the United States, and Europe, will host its first annual Symposium on legal and business issues arising from cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and strategic investments on June 12-13, 2008, in Beijing. New York Universitys Stern School of Business, the Judge School of Management at Cambridge University in England, and the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University are the sponsoring academic institutions.
The Symposium will bring together leading business figures in China and the West, senior government officials, and academics to discuss ways to facilitate and accomplish cross-border investment by Chinese firms as well as by U.S. and E.U. firms.
The theory underlying the Institute is simple, said Professor William T. Allen, Director of NYUs Pollack Center for Law & Business, and one of the Institutes organizers. Cross-border investment flows, whether in the form of direct investment, mergers, or acquisitions of interests in existing firms, provide an important element in making the world economy more efficient. The Institute is our cross-border cooperative effort to provide an important platform for such conversations.
Among speakers at the first Institute will be Chen Deming, minister of commerce of China; John Snow, former U.S. treasury secretary and chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P.; Clay Lowery, assistant U.S. treasury secretary for international affairs; Fu Chengyu, chairman and CEO, Chinese Overseas Oil Co., Ltd.; Gao Xiqing, president and vice chairman, China Investment Corporation, Chinas new sovereign wealth investment fund; Dr. Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Chinas largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China; Martin Lipton, founding partner of New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Robert C. A. Hingley, director general, The U.K. Panel on Takeovers and Mergers.
Other notable speakers at the Institute will include Shang Fulin, chairman, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC); Shao Ning, vice chairman, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council of China (SASAC); Li Ruogu, chairman and president, Export-Import Bank of China; Liu Chuanzhi, founder and former chairman, Lenovo Group; Wan Feng, executive director and president, China Life Insurance Company Limited; Xiao Yaqing, chairman and CEO, Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd.; Franny Yao, partner, Ernst & Young, Beijing; Ming Zeng, executive vice president, Alibaba Group; Levin Zhu, president & CEO, China International Capital Corporation (CICC); Zhu Min, group executive vice president, Bank of China; Nigel P. G. Boardman, partner, Londons Slaughter and May; and Wang Junfeng, chairman, Beijings King & Wood.
We look forward to welcoming our international guests, as well as the important leaders of Chinese business and government to the Institute, said Zhang Weiying, dean of Peking Universitys Guanghua School of Management and another Institute organizer. We have high hopes that the Institute can begin a process that will, in the end, contribute ideas and action in making the global economy better and more efficient.
The event is not open to the public. Journalists interested in attending must contact Jack Rodman, Senior Advisor, King and Wood PRC Lawyers at jack.rodman@kingandwood.com or 8610-58785140 (direct) or 8610-58785588 (general).
Additional information may be found at http://www.xbma.org.