Format

EDHEC-Risk Institute conferences are unique, non-commercial and content-oriented events, benefiting from the Institute’s credibility and widespread recognition. As an academic institution maintaining close links with the investment management community, EDHEC-Risk Institute conferences provide detailed and unbiased commentary and analysis on the key issues pertinent to the industry today and provide an unrivalled platform for practitioners and academic representatives to meet and exchange views.

EDHEC-Risk conferences allow research results to be compared with the practices and needs of European institutional investment and asset management professionals. EDHEC-Risk’s independence, the original approach—which leaves time for instruction and discussion during the sessions—and the highly selective speaker panel, make the EDHEC-Risk conferences the must-attend annual events for European institutional investors and asset managers who are concerned about maintaining best level practices in both technical and conceptual terms.

The conferences feature three major delivery formats:

• Plenary sessions, constituting the most visible part of the agenda with keynote speeches from high profile industry figures of international renown and the formal presentation of research results by EDHEC-Risk Institute representatives followed by interactive discussions with panels of senior industry practitioners.

• Dedicated streams, enabling speakers from EDHEC-Risk Institute and other respected research institutions to make specialised presentations and enter into more detail on the themes introduced in the plenary sessions. The streams are run simultaneously, offering delegates a range of topics to choose from.

• Workshop sessions, focusing on very specific and hands-on themes. The workshops are led by the sponsors, allowing them to present their best practices or their research into key themes of interest to the investment management industry.

• EDHEC-Risk Alternative Investment Days was first launched in 2004 and was considered as the reference in terms of events dedicated to alternative investments. The conference settled in London where it was organised annually in the heart of the European hedge fund industry.

• EDHEC-Risk Institutional Days was launched in 2005 and enabled institutional investors from across Europe to meet every year to discuss issues that were most relevant to their specific industry segment and to better understand how state-of-the-art asset management techniques could solve their current and foreseeable issues. In 2010, EDHEC-Risk’s partnership with IPE enabled the EDHEC-Risk Institutional Days to be held in Monaco on the two days following the IPE Pension Fund Awards, Europe’s largest gathering of pan-European pension funds, thus providing an exceptional opportunity for the awards ceremony attendees to take advantage of their visit to Monaco in order to bring themselves up-to-date with the latest developments in institutional investment research.

In 2012, EDHEC-Risk Institute merged these two major flagship conferences into a unique three-day event in Europe, the EDHEC-Risk Days Europe, which were held on March 27-29, 2012 at The Brewery in London.

This major international conference brought together institutional investors and investment management professionals to discuss the results of EDHEC-Risk Institute’s latest research. Three events took place within the main conference: the Indexation and Passive Investment Conference, the Global Institutional Investment Conference, and the Alternative Investment Conference.

The structure of the conference remained unchanged, consisting of plenary sessions complemented by limited enrolment streams and workshops allowing in-depth exploration of special themes. Three main roundtables were organised each morning to allow for in-depth discussion of a key topic for the future of institutional investment.

The year 2012 also saw the inaugural EDHEC-Risk Days Asia conference in Singapore held at the Marina Bay Sands Conference Centre on May 9-10. This event, which aims to bring research insights to Asian investment professionals, featured two exclusive forums co-organised with CNBC and the Wall Street Journal and two days of sessions and workshops exploring state-of-the-art investment and risk management techniques.

Audience

Delegate attendance is by personal invitation only and requires the payment of a participation fee (with the exception of institutional investors), the price of which is set to reflect our desire to differentiate ourselves from commercial conferences but still support the funding of the high standard facilities and services offered in our academic and content-full events.

EDHEC-Risk Institute, which has at its disposal a database of over one million global professional prospects covering family offices, institutional investors (pension funds, endowments, insurance companies), private bankers and wealth managers, asset managers (funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, funds of funds, funds of hedge funds, mandates), and specialised media, contacts professionals through a major e-mailing programme, inviting a number of significant representatives from major European institutions to attend the event free of charge.

This selective invitation policy has been designed to ensure the highest quality of audience, while allowing for a large representation of final investors. The quality and total independence of the presentations made by EDHEC-Risk Institute representatives have always succeeded in attracting high level delegates who are key decision makers, often at CXO level, for the premier organisations in Europe’s investment community.

Event sponsors are entitled to a number of complimentary invitations for their clients and prospects and entry passes for their staff.

Promotion

In addition to the delegate marketing campaign, EDHEC-Risk Institute conferences are widely promoted by the media. Through numerous media partnerships, EDHEC-Risk Institute uses its existing long-term relationships with major publications targeting the investment management industry to contribute directly to the visibility of the conference and allow research results and conference debates to be reported in the form of editorial content and promoted throughout the year.

Moreover, special media partnerships with selected publications, such as the International Herald Tribune, CNBC Europe and the Wall Street Journal Europe, offer a unique promotion of individual summits within the conferences.

EDHEC-Risk Institute conferences also benefit from special coverage in the monthly EDHEC-Risk newsletter which is circulated to over 1.5 million decision-makers in the international investment industry, and are featured in a dedicated section on the EDHEC-Risk website in which the sponsors feature prominently.

A downloadable version of the content from EDHEC-Risk Institute conferences, comprising all presentations made by the various speakers in the plenary sessions, streams and workshops, together with a section dedicated to the conference sponsors, is produced post-event and is made available to all delegates.

In addition to benefiting from the excellent exposure provided by the above actions, sponsor logos are also included in the conference programme and in advertisements in the industry.

Sponsorship packages

EDHEC-Risk Institute implements a conference partnership policy that is particularly value-enhancing for the sponsors. Depending on the event, various levels of sponsorship are available, providing the partner with a range of benefits according to the choice of category, such as nominating a representative for a panel discussion, designating a chairman for a stream session, or running a dedicated workshop.

In addition to these high-impact benefits, partners also enjoy a number of complimentary invitations for their clients and prospects and free entry passes for their staff, and the possibility of holding a stand in the exhibition area.

The conference lunches and evening cocktail (where applicable) are also open to sponsorship.

A high percentage of our sponsors have been involved in more than one event, demonstrating that the overall sponsorship experience was considered to be more than satisfactory both in terms of image and in terms of commercial and networking success.

Current sponsorship opportunities

• For further information concerning sponsorship opportunities for our forthcoming European and North American conferences, please contact:

  Joanne Finlay Conference Manager Tel.: +33 (0)4 93 18 78 37 E-mail: joanne.finlay@edhec-risk.com

• Additional information about sponsorship opportunities for our forthcoming Asian conference may be obtained by contacting:

  Anne-Charlotte Descamps Marketing Manager, EDHEC Risk Institute—Asia Tel.: +65 6631 85 44 E-mail: anne-charlotte.descamps@edhec-risk.com