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Sovereign Wealth Funds and State-Owned Enterprises: Evolving Capital Markets Moderator: Congressman Peter Roskam, US House of Representatives Presentation: Grant Kirkpatrick, Senior Economist, OECD Corporate Affairs Discussant: David A. Smith, Chief Economist, House Committee on Financial Services

Event Description:

With financial markets still in some turmoil, now might not be considered the right time to think more broadly about how modern capital markets are evolving. The position of the OECD is that it is exactly now when decisions might be taken without adequate consideration of the long term and of all the likely consequences. This year the OECD has devoted considerable resources to understanding how capital markets are evolving and the consequences for corporate governance. The evolution is significant, the most recent manifestation being concern about Sovereign Wealth Funds and State owned enterprises, let alone the continuing institutionalization of corporate ownership and new market participants. The OECD has also begun to examine the record of both private equity and activist hedge funds, and this work has now been published (www.oecd.org/daf/corporate-affairs). By and large it finds a positive influence, but a number of policy issues do arise in some jurisdictions.

Grant Kirkpatrick of the Corporate Affairs Division of the OECD will discuss the nature of these challenges and how they are being addressed, including the development of private codes and governance standards in the OECD area. This has significance for the work of the two Presidential Working Groups. He will also briefly outline OECD position on state owned enterprises as embodied in the Guidelines for the Corporate Governance of State-owned Enterprises.

Biographies:

Peter Roskam is the U.S. Representative for the Sixth District of Illinois. In 1993, Congressman Roskam was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives where he served six years. In 2000, he was appointed to the Illinois Senate and served in the leadership as the Republican Whip and Floor Leader. In 2006, Congressman Roskam was elected to become Illinois' 6th Congressional District Representative and he currently serves on the House Financial Services Committee. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and his law degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Grant Kirkpatrick is presently Senior Economist in the Corporate Affairs Division of the OECD’s Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs where he was responsible for overseeing the review of the Principles of Corporate Governance and in bringing into the review process the experience gained from the Regional Corporate Governance Roundtables organized in cooperation with the World Bank. Following completion of the review of the Principles, he was responsible for development of the Methodology to assess the implementation status of the Principles. Mr. Kirkpatrick has worked on corporate governance issues in the banking sector and was an observer on the Basel Committee’s group to revise its Core Principles covering corporate governance of banks. He is currently responsible for monitoring developments in OECD countries and in analyzing implementation issues concerning the Principles. Recent work includes an overview of corporate governance issues raised by alternative investors.

David A. Smith is the Chief Economist of the House Financial Services Committee. Smith has experience handling a range of domestic and international issues, with an emphasis on economics. Most recently, Smith was Senior Fellow at Demos, a think tank focusing on public policy issues such as income inequality and corporate governance. Prior to that, Smith was Director of Public Policy and senior advisor to President John J. Sweeney at the AFL-CIO. In addition, he has held positions as senior deputy budget director and Commissioner of Business Development for the City of New York, and also served as a Senior Economist at the Joint Economic Committee and as an advisor to Senator Edward Kennedy. Mr. Smith has also held positions as a fellow at the Century Foundation, and has taught at the University of Massachusetts and the New School.