The Family Office opens its 5th Global Asset Allocation conference

Emphasizing on the key events that have impacted this year's markets, the CEO addressed his audience of distinguished merchant families from the Gulf region and prominent wealthy individuals by reiterating the specificities of the business model of his firm and the role it played in preserving wealth in these turbulent times.

Al-Omran demonstrated why the empiric private banking model did not work to this point, and will continue showing dysfunctions going forward. Reiterating the rigidness of the way banks have been managing portfolios, he believes that this year clearly showed that private banks are generally biased towards fee incentives, when in times like these investors need a truly independent advisor.

He also noted that for the first time in recorded history, economic growth in emerging markets like India, China, and the Middle East has been monitored more than the United States, signaling a major shift. Flexibility, transparency, independence and access will be the key elements that will continue helping preserving their wealth, and Al-Omran confirmed this major shift in wealthy individuals' perception, who are moving away from the large asset managers who they don't trust anymore to small independent trusted financial advisors such as The Family Office.

The Family Office's Global Asset Allocation conference is held annually, where investors and members of the financial sector alike take the opportunity to study key events and financial trends of the last year and discuss their expectations for the year ahead and beyond. The renowned speakers of this year have shared their views on the current crisis, outlining causes, sharing personal experiences, contrarian views and potential opportunities.

Clark Winter, Founder of Winter Capital International, ex-Goldman Sachs and chief global strategist at Citigroup suggested that classical tools and financial remedies that were used for years are no longer relevant to face the reality at hand as he discussed what will matter more, what will matter less, and what will not matter at all. The US' role in the world and the US dollar both contracted due to what he deemed lack of leadership, hoping that president elect Obama might be able to reverse that trend.

Mr Winter shed some light on current and historical underlying monetary policy; with the period up to 1982 marking high interest rates and savings, and a change of current up to 2002 when low rates and liquidity moved spending units to borrow short and invest long.

He also discussed what he called the Investment Cycle, which, according to his theoretical framework, starts and ends with a Goldielocks scenario, but going through various elements and behaviors such as overheating, pain, denial or blame.

Mr Winter concluded his speech with the belief that the world is on the verge of unprecedented prosperity, reiterating that today is the right time to build a private equity book, focusing on the businesses more than on the financial markets themselves.

Mr Frank Tang, CEO and Managing Partner of FountainVest, a private equity firm focusing on China, shared his personal experience in China, from his years as Managing Director of Goldman Sachs to his time at Temasek.

Mr Tang outlined that everyone is focusing on the Chinese slowdown in GDP growth, forgetting that GDP growth has been inconsistent since the 80s. He noted that the private sector is gaining weight and state owned companies are now representing less than 50%. Urbanization, a key theme that Mr Tang has been playing these last year, is growing and still represents a strong upside potential. The mentality of the central government is changing and will favor consumer spending, helping to reduce the risk of social unrest.

Mr Tang is playing three themes in his private equity portfolio: Middle Class, Urbanization and Sustainable Development. In the short term, he agrees that China will go through a difficult time but in the long term the story is intact.

"It is important to focus on the right sectors in China and on the leaders of the economy. Consolidation will be the next period in China, therefore one should look at conservatively managed companies," concluded Mr Tang.

With Ms Farah Foustok, Chief Investment Officer of ING Investment Management, Dubai, the audience benefited from a positive outlook on MENA equities.

Ms Foustok shared her views on the current low valuations and the potential for growth in our region.

She spoke about the education of local labor as being a crucial element to sustain growth and the effort governments are putting in place in order to support current investments. According to her more foreign capital will flow into the MENA markets due to inclusion of these economies into the benchmarks.

Ms Foustok stated that regional economies were de-linking from commodities and that the growth of our economies would be based on government support and would differ from Western models where the consumers are playing the central role. The speaker outlined that Saudi Arabia was presenting some of the greatest opportunities and that investors should be focusing on small and mid cap companies which are less covered by third party researchers and foreign institutions.

Contrarian and controversial economist, Dr. Marc Faber, Editor and Publisher of the "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report", discussed his views on the global economic and financial connectivity by concluding that the financial crisis we are facing today was a symptom of the failure of the American monetary policy, which could eventually lead to a global slump. Dr. Faber encouraged the audience to actively trade the markets and take advantage of today's extremely volatile times and to avoid the 'buy and hold' approach for the time being as it may not pay off in the long run.

However, he did warn investors that active trading today would be just like walking through a mine field and stressed on the importance of being very cautious. A big believer in 'tomorrow's gold', Dr. Faber also advised everyone to invest in physical gold as he had a very pessimistic view on the US dollar in the long run, to the extent that he compared the consequential devaluation of the US dollar to that of Zimbabwean dollar.

The Family Office Co., BSC (c) is the first significant multi-family office serving affluent families and individuals in the Gulf region. Headquartered in Bahrain, it is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain with a UK affiliate, TFO Management LLP, authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA).