Raising the profile of Luxembourg as a fund jurisdiction

Challenge:

• Our overall objective is to raise the profile of Luxembourg as a fund jurisdiction amongst UK and specialist global media.
• Alfi has a great deal of collateral – research, views, conferences – and our overall strategy is to create a programme which leverages this collateral to create interest in Alfi’s activities and views, highlighting the strength of Luxembourg as a fund domicile.
• A key part of this is building relationships with relevant journalists, providing them with views and information.
• The specific challenge in September was to attract attention, and media attendance, at ALFI’s Global Investment Funds Forum, held in Luxembourg, and to raise awareness of the discussion amongst journalists, members and audiences further a field.
• The conference featured high-profile speakers on issues such as funding retirement in Europe and the new landscape for investment funds in Hong Kong, and was opened by H.E. Luc Frienden, Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance.
• Given the high-profile of the speakers and the topics discussed, a further challenge was to ensure that Alfi’s views gained profile.

The strategic and creative solutions:

• We created a programme to ensure that the conference discussion reached a wide audience, and to attract journalists from the UK to Luxembourg.
• In addition, in order to ensure that Alfi’s views gained profile, we arranged a media lunch to discuss the recent European Pensions Green Paper, with guest speakers from Datamonitor and Cerulli Associates.
• In order to reach a wider audience than the attendees, and to prepare for Alfi’s activities in the Far East and elsewhere, we created a ‘live blog’ from the conference, whereby ex-FTfm journalist Phil Davis blogged on the issues being discussed.

Implementation:

• We invited key UK-based specialist journalists to the event in Luxembourg and created a programme for them to get the most out of their stay in Luxembourg, including a media luncheon, a tour of the City and informal dinners with Alfi spokespeople.
• The luncheon was an opportunity for journalists to hear Alfi’s views on the European Pensions Green Paper, and discuss the issue with Alfi representatives and other industry representatives from across Europe.
• We drafted and issued a release outlining Alfi’s support of the creation of European Retirement Plans backed by UCITS.
• We issued an alert to journalists in the UK, France and Germany highlighting that they could follow the conference on the blog, which was also issued to Alfi members.

Outcome:

• Seven UK journalists attended the conference in Luxembourg, resulting in good coverage for Alfi and Luxembourg funds in key publications such as Global Wealth, the Financial Times and Hedge Funds Review.
• The Conference blog attracting over 5,000 views, with each post attracting 2,000-4,000 hits. Given the expansion of Alfi’s activities in Asia and the US, it plans to use the blog at future events to enable members and journalists in those markets to keep abreast of proceedings at its conferences.