After Wednesday’s speech and panel at Milan’s Bocconi University for the “Salone del Risparmio”,  it is off to Stockholm for the 5th Nordic Fund Selection Forum 2012 on April 19th, for the opening speech on global trends in fund selection (drawing from AI/SI proprietary research and advisory work with some 1,200 key asset holders worldwide since 2008).

For the rest of the day, moderating with Niklas Tell, the discussion will incorporate investment themes, asset classes and selection criteria.

The equity discussion focus is on high conviction, Europe, Asia and income provision with expert contributions from Janus, Jupiter, Barings, and Aberdeen.

After equities the focus shifts to fixed-income and absolute return.  The multi-asset discussion will be presented by Standard Life (who in 2011 had one of the best selling absolute return funds worldwide from a cash flow perspective), and investment grade emerging sovereign debt by La Francaise des placements.

Last but not least is a review fund selection methodologies.  Parala Capital will provide an overview of predictive rankings in fund selection, followed by a review of FSU associations by Roland Meerdter, who a few years back founded Propinquity Advisors.  The closing session is on non-verbal communication.

Scandinavia both for fund selection and SWFs has been on the forefront of many leading global processes (SRI, multi-manager, external asset managers, et al). Interestingly, while Europe in the last five years had a difficult time from an aggregate cash flow perspective (and aggregate net redemptions), the Nordics have been in strong positive inflows.

T Rowe Price‘s success years ago of building the Europe business via the Nordics, implemented by President Todd Ruppert, has caught on.  Now many international fund managers are focusing on the region for their FSU approaches, wholesale, institutional and SWF businesses, making the region a gatekeeper in its own right.

My discussion with Todd at the Monaco Fund Forum in 2008 focused both on the firm’s success specifically as well as broader European trends.

Can’t wait to be back in Stockholm to discuss the latest developments.