Thought-provoking and provocative, Slow Finance anticipates a profound change in public attitudes. It outlines how credit growth and globalisation have contributed to the excessive scale of the financial sector. Just as the Slow Food movement represents a reaction to the food industry losing sight of its ultimate purpose, Slow Finance explores how parallel trends will soon be reflected in the investment world. At once think-piece, potted history and call-to-action, the ideas in Slow Finance is an essential read for professionals, academics, business leaders and private investors alike, as well as policy-makers seeking a more sustainable approach to investing.
In The Retreat of Globalisation, award-winning fund manager Gervais Williams outlines why we are entering a period when the culture of financial markets will change more in three years than it has in the last 30. Globalisation has been running into headwinds for a while, but until recently few appreciated that it had already passed its high-water mark. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see events like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the context of a new social - and economic - trajectory. Markets have already entered a period of flux. Social disenchantment with globalisation was already a political issue. But the market implications of a retreat from globalisation remain greatly under-appreciated. How can savers know what might constitute the best stocks in this changed world? The Retreat of Globalisation argues for some unconventional yardsticks going forward. The answers may seem counter-intuitive to those who have only known one set of economic conditions. But the need to find those answers has never been more pressing.
A RINGSIDE SEAT ON SOME OF THE BIGGEST DEALS AND BIGGEST PERSONALITIES IN BUSINESS AND GLOBAL POLITICS. FTSE is an account of how a small start-up created by the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange launched in the mid 1980s to provide financial information, became a world leader and one of the UK's most trusted and famous brands. It chronicles how the FTSE 100 was born and details the ferocious dealmaking that followed over 35 years of market boom and bust. It provides a ringside seat on some of the biggest deals and biggest personalities in business and global politics. There have been behind-the-scenes rows with chief executives of some of the world's largest companies, political in-fighting, diplomatic incidents, and even controversy over a pioneering push into responsible investing that began life as a conversation with James Bond actor Roger Moore. FTSE is a modern British brand recognised the world over, like the Royal Family, the BBC or Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire. They are just four letters on an electronic ticker tape, but FTSE has become a byword for money, power, influence and - crucially after numerous financial crises - trust. How this organisation, FTSE International, brought order to the financial system over several decades is a story of how capitalism globalised and a data revolution transformed the investment industry. It is a story of how a team of British innovators seized an opportunity to build a business that today leads its field and guides the fortunes of an astonishing $16 trillion of funds. It is a story that Mark Makepeace, as the founding Chief Executive of FTSE International, knows better than anybody.
Master the navigation of private equity deals from sourcing to exit with this comprehensive guide The Private Equity Toolkit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Deals Done from Sourcing to Exit offers readers the first complete guide to executing a private equity deal from start to finish. Written by an accomplished professional with twenty years of experience in the private equity space, this book is perfect for current private equity analysts and associates, as well as business students and professionals seeking to enter the private equity field. This book covers every stage of the private equity process, from sourcing the deal to company exit. It provides a systematic overview of how to: · Originate attractive investment opportunities; · Generate superior deal insights; · Form effective working relationships with management teams; · Add value on portfolio company boards; and · Achieve profitable investment exits. The Private Equity Toolkit equips its readers with actionable frameworks and proprietary tools that can be applied on a daily basis in the private equity industry. The content found within is designed to be current and helpful for years to come and appeals to a global audience.
Market liquidity is an essential feature of the stock market, so investors and corporates can transact as and when it suits them. A key priority for stock market operators is to ensure there are market participants with a wide range of different perspectives, which offer plentiful trading volumes. Stock exchanges need to encourage investors with shorter-term horizons to lubricate the transaction process; the vitality of shorter-term operators is a key part of the success of the whole. However, in recent times the proliferation of credit has favoured speculative strategies, and along with new technologies, trading volumes have been driven up by the speed at which data is accessed and put to use. Consequently, market participants optimise their strategies for quick returns and become largely disconnected from, or potentially in conflict with, the wider interests of longer-term investors. This is the 'fast finance' problem. In this new chapter of Slow Finance, Gervais Williams builds on his previous work to further consider the problems and solutions for today's financial markets. He suggests that the debate, which has focused on the computerised algorithms that instigate rapid automated buy or sell orders at remote exchanges, needs to be extended further and a more forward-looking policy that brings the parallel markets together into one physical location to concentrate market volumes, be implemented. Based on his extensive industry experience Gervais Williams outlines: § Market liquidity & stock markets § Liquidity changes over recent decades, and the scope to game the system § Addressing the problems of high frequency traders § The overlooked problem – how markets fragmented geographically during the boom § Fostering true market liquidity beyond the credit boom to aid productivity growth
In a financial world dominated by gigantism, the beauty of smallness hasn't had much of a look in. Yet beyond the credit boom, globalisation has been found wanting, with growth hard to find. Could it be that small firms are set to be the stock market outperformers of the future? This book confounds the current 'big is better' consensus, with Gervais Williams' extraordinary data showing why smallness offers an effective path for investors beyond the financial crisis. But this book is about so much more than just the case for small being beautiful. It also explains why the unique characteristics of AIM - the UK market for smaller, growing companies - will be a place of extraordinary vitality in the coming years.
This book tells the story of how the convergence between corporate sustainability and sustainable investing is now becoming a major force driving systemic market changes. The idea and practice of corporate sustainability is no longer a niche movement. Investors are increasingly paying attention to sustainability factors in their analysis and decision-making, thus reinforcing market transformation. In this book, high-level practitioners and academic thought leaders, including contributions from John Ruggie, Fiona Reynolds, Johan Rockström, and Paul Polman, explain the forces behind these developments. The contributors highlight (a) that systemic market change is influenced by various contextual factors that impact how sustainable investing is perceived and practiced; (b) that the integration of ESG factors in investment decisions is impacting markets on a large scale and hence changes practices of major market players (e.g. pension funds); and (c) that technology and the increasing datafication of sustainability act as further accelerators of such change. The book goes beyond standard economic theory approaches to sustainable investing and emphasizes that capitalism founded on more real-world (complex) economics and cooperation can strengthen ESG integration. Aimed at both investment professionals and academics, this book gives the reader access to more practitioner-relevant information and it also discusses implementation issues. The reader will gain insights into how "mainstream" financial actors relate to sustainable investing.
