Now is the time to take the long view
The current crisis was largely caused by the short-termist behaviour of financial markets on the one hand, and by a profound disconnect between investment strategies and the needs of the real economy on the other. Today, looking beyond the proposed recovery plans and regulatory reforms, policy makers must also define and encourage optimal conditions for long-term investors to play their full role in generating value for future generations and in creating economic stability in the post-crisis world. What is more, investors committed to the long-term will prove important players as our societies strive to meet the challenges of urbanization, infrastructure financing or the shift to a low carbon economy. Failing to meet these long-term investments challenges would boil down to taking the risk of a "jobless recovery".
It is for all these reasons that Caisse des Dépôts, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, the European Investment Bank, and KfW Bankengruppe have created the Long-Term Investors Club. The Club aims to bring together major worldwide institutions including sovereign wealth funds, public sector retirement funds, private sector pension funds, economists, financial policy makers, and regulators to assert their common identity as long-term investors, to open the way to greater cooperation between us all and to deliver the message that fostering the right conditions for long-term investment will be an important element in promoting growth and economic stability.
On June 2009, the Long-Term Investors Club organised in Paris its first major event dedicated to "the promotion of long-term values and economic stability", in partnership with the OECD. For its second annual session, it organised in Rome on June 2010 a high-level conference on "Long-Term in the Age of Globalisation" that brought together, high-level institutional representatives, prominent scholars and 200 of the most influential practitioners of long-term investment, including sovereign wealth funds, public sector retirement funds, private sector pension funds, financial policy makers, and regulators. This event had been followed by "The Forum of Long-Term Investments" in Venice (October 2010), which gathered representatives of the 40-50 most influential think-tanks in the world to discuss the topic of long-term investments. The third conference of our Club, organised by KfW in Berlin (16th June 2011), focused on “Financing future challenges” : the need and the impact of long term investments for economies were discussed and specific round tables gathered representatives from industry, investors, politics and academia on the following topics :
- infrastructure for mobility
- Climate change/ energy efficiency
- Energy
- Urban development.
I am convinced that these initiatives, combined with a reinforced cooperation among long-term investors from every region of the world could contribute to higher stability on financial markets and a sustainable recovery. I wish them a great success.