Duke Law Panel Examines the Global Credit Crunch
Three prominent investors will gather at Duke Law School on Thursday, Dec. 4, to discuss the ongoing impact of the credit crisis on private equity, sovereign wealth funds and other financial institutions.
Gao Xiqing, general manager and chief investment officer of the China Investment Corp., Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, and John A. Canning Jr., chairman and co-founder of Madison Dearborn Partners, will take part in the public discussion moderated by law professor James D. Cox.
The discussion will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the law school's Star Commons, at the corner of Science Drive and Towerview Road on Duke's West Campus. A public reception will follow. Seating for this free event is limited and reservations are required; please R.S.V.P. to events@law.duke.edu. Parking is available in the Bryan Center parking deck.
This event will be webcast live.
"We are lucky to have on this panel not only representatives of three important sectors of the financial community but, frankly, leading members of their respective sectors," said Cox, an expert in corporate and securities law. "As we live daily with the calamity visited on capital markets by the credit crunch, the question we have to address is what the future holds for the role and conduct of hedge funds, private equity and sovereign wealth funds. No assembly is better equipped than this panel to peer into the future to address this question."
Prior to co-founding Chicago-based Madison Dearborn Partners in 1992, Canning spent 24 years with First Chicago Corp., most recently as executive vice president of The First National Bank of Chicago and president of First Chicago Venture Capital. He is a 1969 graduate of Duke Law School.
Schwarzman co-founded Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm based in New York, in 1985, after heading Lehman Brothers' global mergers and acquisitions team. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School.
Before being tapped to lead China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund earlier this year, Gao served as general counsel, director of public offerings and vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and as vice chairman of China's National Council for Social Security Fund. He is a 1986 graduate of Duke Law School and a member of the Duke University Board of Trustees.