Money Laundering: The Battle Continues
Madrid, February 26, 2008

The Continuing Education session, “Prevention of money laundering: How it affects company operations, whether they are financial institutions or not,” addressed this and other issues. Prof. Jorge Soley, member of CIIF, and Xavier Fornt, member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Banking Commission of Paris, explained how the banking system can prevent money laundering, and what the main difficulties are when combating this type of criminal activity.
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Lessons in Private Equity Finance Madrid, April 9, 2008 Under the banner of the IESE Private Equity Conference, IESE held the first of a series of annual conferences in which private equity professionals and experts spell out the key messages of this sector. The Private Equity Conference 2008 analyzed the current private equity situation, as well as its main challenges for the future in the new financial environment. IESE also presented a study, in collaboration with Neumann International, on the maturity of the private equity sector. Read more

Governments and Regulators Faced With Crisis: What Can We Expect? By José Manuel Campa, Professor at IESE   The measures adopted by U.S. and European authorities to relieve the financial crisis we currently face have turned out to be more or less on target. But beyond the injection of liquidity, it is important to create confidence in the market. Without doubt, some agents in the chain will disappear in the process, but it is precisely this clean-up that will ensure the survival of the system. Read more

CEOs as Leaders and Strategy Designers: Explaining the Success of Spanish Banks
Kase, K., Jacopin, T.

While the global banking system faces a crisis of confidence, Spanish banks bask in a golden era. A few decades ago, they were the most over-regulated and inefficient in Europe. Now they are among the world's most competitive and profitable. Take Santander: 20 years ago it ranked 152nd, now it is in the international top 10 in terms of market cap. In their new book, CEOs as Leaders and Strategy Designers, IESE's Kimio Kase and Tanguy Jacopin reveal the secret of Spain's success and why they liken the country's talented CEOs to Picasso and Velázquez. 
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201 Errors in Company Valuations Fernández, P.   Imagine giving a negative value to the shares of a company with positive cash flow forecasts. While it may seem strange, this type of mistake is more common than you think. In his book, 201 errores en valoraciones de empresas (201 Mistakes in Company Valuations), IESE Prof. Pablo Fernández shows how the host of theories and methods available to analysts sometimes leads to confusing results. His aim is not to name and shame, but rather to underscore the importance of avoiding hastiness, oversimplification and formulas. With a little common sense, experience and technical know-how, analysts can avoid valuation absurdities. Read a summary Buy online

Expected Returns and Liquidity Risk: Does Entrepreneurial Income Matter?

Saffi, P.

In tough economic times, it's harder to sell a house than a share of IBM. It's all about liquidity: the ability to trade assets quickly and cheaply at fair prices. Liquidity risk refers to the fact that the ease of trading assets varies over time. On some occasions, it can become so difficult to trade that the investor has to accept a large reduction in price to be able to sell it. In the paper "Expected Returns and Liquidity Risk," IESE finance professor Pedro Saffi studies, for the first time, the effects of jointly incorporating liquidity risk and non-tradable wealth in a single asset pricing equation. He focuses on the income of the entrepreneur and concludes that, in this economy, assets with higher liquidity command lower expected returns.
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Black Swans in Emerging Markets

Recently IESE Prof. Javier Estrada published “Black Swans and Market Timing: How Not To Generate Alpha,” a paper that analyzed the phenomenon of so-called “black swans” in developed markets. Now he takes his research a step further and analyzes this same phenomenon in emerging markets.
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Is It Possible to Make Money in the Stock Market When the Prices Are Going Down?
By Pablo Fernández, Professor at IESE

Absolutely yes. The three simplest positions that make it possible to make money when the prices fall are short selling, the sale of futures and the purchase of buy options, known as puts.
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Real Estate Investment in Spain Today Continuing Education session – Madrid, June 19 2008 The economic and financial situation that the real estate sector is experiencing is especially complicated given the hardening of credit conditions and the lack of liquidity. How should companies in the sector and investors face this new context? In the Continuing Education session “Real estate investment in Spain in the face of the current real estate and financial cycle,” IESE Prof. José Luis Suárez will analyze possible alternatives open to real estate companies, as well as the short-term response from investors faced with the new situation. Participating in this session are Luis Basagoiti, president of MAPFRE’s real estate division; Sabina Kalyan, senior director and European research manager for CB Richard Ellis Investors; and Juan Perez-Campanero, head economist for developed markets at Santander Global Banking & Markets. Read more