A COUPLE of days spent in Vilnius this week, attending a summit entitled ‘New Europe - Entering the Next Phase’ organised by investment firm East Capital.

It was an interesting affair for several different reasons. First of all, because it was held at the Reval Hotel Lietuva I couldn’t help being reminded of the Vilnius energy conference held at the same venue back in October last year. It seemed quite a novelty to be able to walk through the main foyer and into the conference centre without having your way barred by presidential goons and the rooftop snipers which the Russia Today correspondent had waxed lyrical about were on duty on the other side of town for the visit of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushenko.

Despite the ’summit’ appelation, the East Capital event is more like a cross between a shareholders’ AGM and an academic conference. That doesn’t make it sound particularly attractive, so a little explanation would probably help.

Most of East Capital’s partners and other leading figures gave presentations about how they see the future, mainly in terms of how macreconomics is influencing their investment decisions. They were refreshingly frank and informal while at the same time being genuinely impressive in their depth and breadth of knowledge. It wasn’t the “Ra-ra, we are great” cheerleading that some of these events can degenerate into so much as a reasuring demonstration that East Capital’s staff are actually the sort of people you would want taking care of your money.

Marcus Svedberg and Aivaras Abromavicius were particularly outstanding. I could only admire their exceptional powers of recall and ability to piece together a coherent analysis from a bewildering array of facts and figures.

The audience consists largely of the people who put money into East Capital’s various funds. That includes both big corporate institutions and individual investors who may have put their pension pay-out or personal savings into EC products.

It is always fascinating to look at the delegates at any conference and try to guess who they are, where they are from and what is their reason for being here, but this broad base made people-watching even more enjoyable than usual.

The essence of the event was summed up for me at the close of the first day. Each speaker responded to queries from the audience after their presentation and two of the last people to ask questions provided perfect examples of just how diverse EC’s clients must be.

First up was an exceptionally well groomed middle aged man in an immaculate suit and a haircut that cost more than my computer. He looked like he must have spent most of the preceding month in a spa hotel. He raised his manicured hand. Asked to identify himself he would only reveal that he was “Robert, from the Netherlands,” and the tone in which he said this made it clear that requests for further information would not be worthwhile. He asked an involved technical question about spreads and rates - the sort of thing most speakers dread and to which they generally respond with: “I’ll have to get back to you with the figures on that one.” But East’s man took it in his stride and provided what ‘Robert’ seemed to think was an acceptable answer. He even deigned to nod.
Then a few moments later another hand was raised. Sitting right in the front row, I assumed that the elderly man must occupy a senior position, possibly within East Capital itself. My pen was poised over my notebook to record the moment as he rose to his feet and took the microphone.

“Er, on all these graphs, what does ‘CIS’ mean?” he asked.

There may have been a slight giggle in the auditorium, but not up on the stage. “It stands for Commonwealth of Independent States” he was told, in precisely the same tone that ‘Robert’ had received his reply.

The moment was doubly significant. First, it showed that there really were ‘ordinary’ investors in the room, people who don’t spend all day poring over bank rates and flash estimates. But just as importantly it demonstrated the company’s democratic character. Some financial firms can barely disguise their contempt for the small-scale investor without specialist knowledge, seeing them as an annoyance or irrelevance. East Capital clearly does not beong to that group.

And maybe one final thing the incident showed was that even journalists have a tendency to only ask questions that they think make them look intelligent. Having the guts to risk looking stupid by asking the most obvious questions is a valuable and much underrated skill. It reminded me that the journalist’s job is to find out and explain, not to become part of the question and answer oneself.

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