Columbia Business School held its inaugural
Pan-Asian Reunion in Hong Kong, China on October 24–26. Approximately
500 alumni from 29 countries, faculty members, prominent business
leaders and Asian political leaders gathered to discuss critical and
timely economic issues.
The event’s focus, “Asia and the World Economy,”
highlighted the growing importance of Asia due to its remarkable
economic growth and development. John C. Tsang, financial secretary of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, delivered the opening
keynote address.
At the reunion, Dean Glenn Hubbard emphasized the
close relationship between the US and Asian economies. “When I was [in
Asia] last winter,” Hubbard said at a press conference preceding the
reunion, “the fashionable discussions had all been the decoupling of
the Asian economies from the United States, and that nothing that
happens in the United States is relevant for Asia. Of course, it was
never, and is not, true.”
The event marked another milestone on the road to the opening of the EMBA-Global Asia
program, a partnership between Columbia Business School, London
Business School and HKU Business School. The program will welcome its
inaugural class in May 2009.
The cost of the reunion was covered completely by
40 sponsors including Coach, Credit Suisse, Schroders, Goldman Sachs
and Kikkoman Corporation.
Columbia Business School’s international reunion
tradition began in Paris in 1992 with 100 participants from five
countries. Before this year’s event in Hong Kong, the most recent
international reunion was held in Rome in 2006 and was attended by
alumni and guests from 35 countries.
On October 2, Columbia Business School celebrated the 75th anniversary of the publication of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s Security Analysis. Now in its sixth edition, Security Analysis is the seminal and definitive text on value investing.
The anniversary celebration, hosted by the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing, consisted of an symposium featuring contributors to the sixth edition of Security Analysis,
including David Abrams, Bruce Berkowitz, James Grant, Glenn Greenberg,
Bruce Greenwald, the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset
Management and director of the Heilbrunn Center, Seth Klarman, Roger
Lowenstein, Howard S. Marks, J. Ezra Merkin and Thomas Russo. The
celebration coincided with the annual Graham and Dodd Breakfast
Seminar, which was broadcast live on the Web.
The symposium consisted of three panels that focused on how the concept of value investing has evolved since the publication of Security Analysis in
1934. Though the panelists agreed that the present economic environment
has presented a unique set of challenges to value investors, they
affirmed that the practice’s core principles remain as relevant and
effective as ever.
“Success comes through thinking about underlying economics and how
that works in the market,” said Abrams, managing partner of Abrams
Capital. “Anyone who understands what Graham and Dodd were about will
recognize that the current environment validates that.”
Security Analysis laid the intellectual foundation
for value investing, an approach to securities that identifies stocks
with prices lower than their intrinsic value. Security Analysis has
garnered attention for its influence on several famous investors,
including Warren Buffett, MS ’51, who worked closely with Graham in his
time at the School.
Several of the panel’s participants discussed the impact that Security Analysis has had on their careers. Berkowitz, founder and managing member of Fairholme Capital Management, said, “I came across [Security Analysis]
and a light bulb went off. It’s all about counting the cash, the
owner’s earnings, how long the business will be around. It’s about
telling the truth and not being in denial — don’t guess, keep it
simple. Your thesis should fit on the back of a postcard.”
The panelists differed in how they are approaching the turbulence of
the current economic environment. Abrams said that his firm is actively
searching for bargains. “We look for value — there’s so much cheap
stuff out there right now it’s eye-popping. These are some of the best
opportunities I have ever seen. I was signing trade tickets the other
day and said, ‘Make me copies of these so we can remember we bought
these at these prices!’ It’s exciting.”
Marks, chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, is
taking a more cautious approach. He said, “Investors have to make it
through the low points. Incredible as it sounds, survival is essential
to success.”
EMBA-Global Asia, the
executive MBA program offered jointly by Columbia Business School,
London Business School and the HKU Business School, began on May 21 in
Hong Kong with an inaugural class of 33 students from Asia, Europe and
North America.
“We welcome the exceptional members of the first EMBA-Global Asia
class, who join us in pioneering a new model of management education
that is worldwide in both location and perspective,” says Dean Glenn
Hubbard of Columbia Business School. “By drawing outstanding faculty
members and curricula from three of the world’s leading business
schools, we are able to offer an unparalleled learning experience for
these future global business leaders.”
The 20-month EMBA Global-Asia program features a curriculum that
provides core business knowledge and leadership training together with
electives that can be chosen from any of those offered by the partner
schools. It is the only executive MBA program jointly located in New
York, London and Hong Kong.
The program’s first session, or module, features three courses —
Executive Leadership, Financial Accounting and Leading and Managing
Change — taught by faculty members from London Business School and
Columbia Business School. Subsequent modules, which will take place in
Hong Kong in June and London and New York in July, will include courses
taught by faculty members from all three schools.
Upon completing the program, students will receive a joint MBA
degree awarded by London Business School, the University of Hong Kong
and Columbia University.
The Columbia Business School
Class of 2011 arrived on campus this week for an orientation to the
School’s curriculum and community. There are 121 Executive MBA (EMBA)
and 554 MBA students in the September-entry class.
This year the School received nearly 6,000 applications to its
fulltime MBA program. The incoming class is among the most accomplished
in the School’s history. More than 120 members of the class graduated
cum laude and 20 are members of Phi Beta Kappa. As a whole, the class
holds 68 master’s degrees, two JDs and one PhD.
"We are delighted by your numbers, but the excellence and diversity
of this class is not measured only by your test-taking abilities" Linda
Meehan, assistant dean of admissions, told the new class. "It is what
each and every one of you brings to this class as an individual that
makes the sum of you terrific."
The class also continues the School’s tradition of representing and
bringing together diverse perspectives. Collectively, the class speaks
more than 50 languages, including Sanskrit, Tagalog, Yoruba and
Serbian. Forty-one percent of the class was born outside of the United
States. Women constitute 35 percent of the class.
Members of the class have interned at the White House, managed hedge
funds, published books, produced TV shows and launched entrepreneurial
ventures in the United States and abroad. The class includes an army
ranger and recipient of the Bronze Star, the founder of the largest
organic vegetable processing factory in northwestern China, a finalist
on American Idol and a three-time Grammy award–winning music producer who has worked with Kanye West and John Legend.
