Campus for Finance


Campus for Finance Association is a student association at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. It was founded in 2001 in cooperation with the Endowed Chair of Finance, held by Prof. Dr. Markus Rudolf, to support and organize the student-run “Campus for Finance”-conferences. The association annually hosts the “WHU New Year’s Conference” and the “WHU Private Equity Conference”. The mission of the association is entitled “Uniting the World of Finance”.

History

Campus for Finance started as a student initiative in 2001 and organized the first “WHU New Year’s Conference”, entitled “Old/New Economy – One Finance”, in the same year. The conference is intended as a platform for mutual exchange at the contact point of academic work and practice. In addition to the “WHU New Year’s Conference” the “WHU Private Equity Conference” was launched in 2004 and deals with topics around private equity and venture capital.

Conferences

The “WHU New Year’s Conference” and the “WHU Private Equity Conference” share the same concept: A program over two days that provides a forum for presentations and discussions of academics, corporate and media representatives, politicians and students.

WHU New Year's Conference (NYC)

The “WHU New Year's Conference” is the biggest conference organized by the Campus for Finance Association with 500 participants. It takes place annually in January and covers topics that refer to the current issues of the financial world. Due to the rising number of participants the “WHU New Year’s Conference” took place at the Rhein-Mosel-Halle in Koblenz in 2014 for the first time.

Topics of former conferencesHomepage Campus for Finance - List of former conferences, 17. January 2011 (updated) http://www.campus-for-finance.com/NYC/Past-Conferences/ Online

The WHU Private Equity Conference takes place annually in spring and is organized by students of the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. The focus lies on topics around changes in the private equity and venture capital industry. During the conference graduates and students come together with executives from funds, financial institutions, consultancies and lawyers to discuss present topics.

Topics of former conferences

A number of contributions from the series "Campus for Finance" were apprehended in the scientific discussion. For example, the paper "How to Pay a Non-family Manager in a Family Firm - a Multi-task Principal-agent Analysis" by Jörn Block and Joachim Henkel at the "Campus for Finance - Research Conference 2009" on the pricing models of management taken. The lecture "Rational International Investment" by Campbell Harvey held on the "WHU New Year's Conference 2003" was discussed further.

Reception in the media

At the "WHU New Year's Conference 2010" Alexander Dibelius, head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs Germany, said that "Banks... have no obligation to promote the common good." For this he earned considerable criticism, both from politicians and society as well as colleagues and generated considerable media coverage. Especially in connection with the intensive bailout for the banking industry around the world due to the international financial crisis, this statement is highly controversial. The speech by Axel Wieandt was intensively discussed, too, as he spoke about the plans of Hypo Real Estate to establish a "bad bank”. The attendance of John F. Nash, Jr. earned the conference high media interest, which was reported of in newspaper articles and in numerous interviews.

Reception