WSJ BLOG/China Journal: Sarah Palin To Address CLSA Forum In Hong
Kong
(This story has been posted on The Wall Street Journal Online's China Journal
Blog)
Quick: what do Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have in
common?
Quite possibly nothing right now. But come Sept. 23, if all goes according to
plan, all three of them will have been keynote speakers at the annual CLSA
Investors Forum in Hong Kong.
CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a Hong Kong-based brokerage, announced Monday that
the former Republican candidate for the U.S. vice presidency and, until she
resigned last month, governor of Alaska, will address the Sept. 21-25 event in
what a press release called her first international speaking engagement outside
North America.
Palin " who's never been to East Asia and isn't exactly famous for her mastery
of public speaking or her expertise in finance and international affairs " might
seem an unusual choice for an event that, according to CLSA, is Asia's premier
investment conference providing unrivalled corporate access to 1,300 global fund
managers from 32 countries, representing more than $10 trillion in funds under
management. CLSA spokeswoman Simone Wheeler says that orators at the forum often
come from outside the securities industry. Our keynote speakers are always
notable luminaries, and they usually address subjects that go beyond finance,
such as geopolitics, she says. Our goal is to provide investors a diversity of
views.
Indeed, while the forum has hosted its share of finance bigwigs " Alan
Greenspan addressed it in 2006, the same year Clinton and Al Gore also spoke,
and Michael Milken and Marc Faber have both attended multiple times " it has had
a fairly eclectic mix of others, too: Bob Geldof, the rocker turned anti-poverty
activist, spoke in 2007, along with Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from
South Africa. CLSA has also hired Sir Elton John, Macy Gray, and Tom Jones in
years past as entertainment.
As the first female governor of Alaska and the youngest person ever elected
governor of that state, Palin has broken new ground in U.S. politics and we are
delighted that she will make her first visit to Asia to present at the CLSA
Investors Forum, CLSA Chairman and CEO Jonathan Slone said in the press release
Monday.
Wheeler declines to say whether CLSA is paying Palin for her address. It wont
be open to the media, she says.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-31-090911ET
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