Real Estate Titans and Global Investors Convene at Knowledge@Wharton Forum to Address How Emerging Economies Are Coping with the Credit Crisis

Business Wire, Oct 29, 2008

Inaugural Forum to be hosted at the Harmonie Club in New York City December 2(nd)

PHILADELPHIA -- Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in conjunction with InterConnect Events, today announced the inaugural Knowledge@Wharton Real Estate in Emerging Markets Forum. The one-day Forum - to be held at the Harmonie Club in New York City on December 2, 2008 - will examine property investment opportunities and risks in emerging markets, and analyze how profits can be made in areas that have remained relatively unaffected by the ongoing financial crisis.

Wharton real estate professor Peter Linneman will moderate a keynote panel with real estate moguls Sam Zell, chairman, Equity Group Investments, and Eyal Ofer, chairman, Ofer Global Holdings, U.K., addressing what the financial crisis means for real estate markets globally. In addition, Donald Trump, Jr. will take part in a panel discussion on development and opportunities in underserved markets.

Even as expansion in Southeast Asia has slowed considerably, local economies continue to grow at two to three times the rate of economies in Europe and North America. In the next decade, an estimated $22 trillion will be spent on infrastructure in emerging markets as accelerating urbanization creates demand for power, water and transport networks. That will stoke new rounds of real estate investment in emerging nations where property investments last year gained 46%.

Experts from around the globe who will attend the Forum include Pietro Doran, chairman and principal partner, Doran Capital Partners, Korea; Colin Dyer, CEO, Jones Lang LaSalle, USA; Bruce Gardner, managing director, MLP - Multinational Logistics Partnership, Russia; Gary Garrabrant, CEO, Equity International, USA; Richard Johnson, CEO, Standard Chartered-Istithmar Real Estate Fund Management (Singapore), Singapore; Laurent Lavigne du Cadet, CEO, Amwal, Qatar; and Ricardo Zuniga, president and managing partner, Mexico Real Estate Capital, Mexico.

Panels and one-on-one interviews will be hosted by Wharton faculty and editors. Participation overall will come from an audience of global real estate developers, investors, finance specialists and C-level executives in the real estate industry. To register for the Forum, please visit http://www.knowledge-events.com/register.html. To see the complete program and lineup for the forum, please visit http://www.knowledge-events.com

About Knowledge@Wharton and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Knowledge@Wharton is a free biweekly online resource that captures knowledge generated at the Wharton School and beyond through such channels as research papers, conferences, speakers, books, and interviews with faculty and other business experts on current business topics. The Knowledge@Wharton network - which includes Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and Indian editions -- has more than 1.25 million subscribers worldwide and contains more than 2,000 articles and research papers in its database.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania -- founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school -- is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The school has more than 4,700 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 10,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 84,000 graduates.

About InterConnect Events

The coordination of world-class conferences and other VIP gatherings is a highly specialized business. InterConnect Events plans an event, develops discussion topics, chooses speakers, and manages the entire production process for events that take place worldwide and that are targeted to the top level of businesspeople, politicians and other public figures. For more information, please visit www.interconnect-events.com