CFA Society France Newsletter #5 - October 2014

A word from the president:

Our membership has recently reached an all-time high: as of September 25, 2014, we were 813 members, of which 775 were regular members (95,3%), 13 affiliate members (1,6%) and 25 candidate members (3,1%). We are in line with our strategic objective to be over 850 by the end of the year.

We are very happy to welcome our new members, who have joined us since July 1, 2014.

If you haven't done it yet, don't forget to renew your membership. Members who haven't renewed by October 15, will be considered lapsed and will no longer enjoy the benefits of membership, including the use of the CFA designation. Candidates, feel free to become Candidate Members, you'll get great value for money and will join a vibrant community.

Your board has put together over 20 events last year, with the help of many enthusiastic volunteers. The Events Committee has already prepared an exciting program for the first half of our new fiscal year (July 1 2014 to June 30 2015). Share with us your ideas on topics or speakers and let us know if you want to get involved as volunteer. And check our website for upcoming events and presentations of past events.

We are also busy reaching out at universities, via presentations, but also via the CFA Institute Research Challenge, and the CFA Society France SSGA QuantAwards, which go European for the first time.

To better liaise with you and your employers, we've also launched our Ambassadors Network.

You'll learn more about those initiatives in this Fall Newsletter. Enjoy reading it.

Philippe Maupas, CFA

Focus on: Ambassadors network

CFA Society France officially launched its Ambassadors network on June 19, during a friendly kick-off diner. This network is a great tool to support the development of our initiatives as it will facilitate:

 contacts with HR managers to present the CFA curriculum, CIPM and Claritas and values attached to it;  establishing a relationship between recruitment needs and members having relevant expertise;  the organization of events or company-sponsored conferences, through the provision of premises, topics and speakers, or through sponsorship;  the detection of volunteers to organize and promote events.

The first circle of Ambassadors includes representatives from the largest employers of CFA charterholders based in France, namely BNP Paribas IP, BNP Paribas CIB, Lyxor AM, SG CIB, Amundi, Credit Agricole CIB, HSBC Global AM, Natixis AM and AXA IM.

The Ambassadors will meet twice a year to exchange on best practices and make proposals to further enhance the initiative.

Going forward, we plan to expand the network among companies employing 3 to 10 CFA charterholders, to complete our coverage of employers. If you are interested, please contact us, we will be pleased to answer your questions.

Patrice Pasquier, CFA Employer Outreach Committee Chair

Committees updates End-of-year financials

At our last AGM, we presented

non-audited, non-final financial statements due to our fiscal year Candidates ending on June 30 and our AGM being traditionally held by July This year 879 candidates registered to sit the CFA Level I exam in 10, which doesn't give our auditor Paris on December 6th. enough time to check our books. On September 22nd, CFA Society France organized a preparation advisory meeting for them. We've uploaded at the beginning To support their preparation we have planned the following activities: of September the final, audited statements in the members' area  Saturday October 11th : CFA Workshops in collaboration with of our web site, together with the our Gold Sponsors Bärchen, First Finance and Top Finance. report of our auditor, Strego.  Monday November 17th : Last Tips Meeting - very last tips Strego recently carried their audit before the exam and unique opportunity to ask questions. (for the second year), and  November 22nd : Mock Exam - Ideal way to practice in a real pointed at some shortcomings on exam setting using BSAS® Mock Exam. procedures that were not followed. We took the necessary steps to restore compliance. We will meet the June 2015 candidates on November 20th for the

Kick- Off Meeting : we will explain the basics of the CFA Program and Last year, we had a surplus of answer all questions on the preparation. CFA Charterholders are € 37 292. Our total resources welcome to share their experience. amounted to € 126 696, of which Please spread the word to candidates. € 45 239 (35,7% of total) came You are always welcome to come and join us as a volunteer to help from your yearly membership candidates succeed. fees, € 28 626 from CFA Institute Send your questions to [email protected] funding (22,6% of total) and € 19 000 from sponsoring (15% of CFA Institute Research Challenge total).

The CFA Institute Research Challenge promotes best practices in On the expenses side, € 35 012 equity research among the next generation of analysts. As you know, were related to events (39% of winners at the national level go to the regional final (EMEA for total), € 12 860 (14% of total) France), and regional winners go to the global final. were related to our operational Teams are still registering from the following universities and schools: support contract with CFA Lille 2 Institute, whereby we get weekly Dauphine time from Valerie de Kergorlay, ESCP Europe who is based in London and does Reims Management School a fantastic job for us. ASSAS Université Paris 2 EDHEC Our financial position at the end EM Lyon of June 2014 was very strong, as HEC we had € 174 000 at the bank, IAE Gustave Eiffel conservatively invested. IESEG Nancy 2 Our Treasurer, Remi Grentzinger, ESSEC CFA, is at your disposal for any ECE information on our financial Panthéon Sorbonne Paris 1 statements. ESC Toulouse EM Grenoble

Participating teams will submit a written report on the subject company and 4 will advance to the French final, which will take place in February. The subject company will be announced during the kick off meeting on November 4th. The winner of the French final of the Research Challenge last year

was Lille2, winners for the second time in 4 years.

We are looking for mentors and graders. Please apply here. CFA Institute and Member Societies News We are grateful to Matthieu Génisson, CFA, who volunteered to help Research Foundation us organize the Research Challenge.

The Research Challenge for France is supported by Oddo and FactSet

At CFA Society France, we very much like the work of CFA Institute Research Foundation. We strongly recommend that you You can follow CFA Institute Research Challenge on Twitter read their latest publication, @CFAchallenge «Investment Management: A Science to Teach or an Art to Find more information on the Research Challenge. Learn?» by Frank J. Fabozzi,

CFA, Sergio M. Focardi, and Caroline Jonas. Advocacy In this monograph, the authors try to answer the following questions MIFID II : with financial theory, do we have a science to teach ? Can On July 29th, CFA Institute answered both the Discussion & we teach finance better ? What's Consultation Paper on MIFID II/MIFIR following the request of the missing in the curricula for future European Commission to ESMA. See links attached (100+ pages): finance investment professionals ? Reply to Discussion Paper on MiFID II / MiFIR (ESMA/2014/548) They revisit the basics of Reply to Consultation Paper on MiFID II / MiFIR (ESMA/2014/549) investment theory in the light of the 2007-2009 financial crisis and  MIFID overview : MIFID sets rules for organisation of markets, ask whether it makes sense to trading of financial, conduct of business standards, investor keep teaching the CAPM and the protection (*). It also impacts Financial Analysis, Research, efficient market hypothesis as commissions, and financial advice. truths.  CFA Institute is preparing Issue Briefs to summarize its main Download the e-book free of positions. charge.

We plan to organize an event The MIFID consultation is huge (700+ pages) and has 6 main topics: around this book with Sergio 1- Establishment of Organised Trading Facility for bonds and Focardi and Caroline Jonas at derivatives the beginning of 2015. 2- Pre- and post-trade transparency standards in equity and non- equity markets 3- Provision of consolidated data - Consolidated Tape Providers 4- Algorithmic and high-frequency trading requirements 5- Investment advisers - professional competency, inducements rules 6- Conduct of business standards -suitability etc. strengthened).

Investor redress

CFA Institute recently released a report on Investor Redress. "Investor redress" refers to enforcing the rights of retail investors and users of CFA Institute European financial services to demand the cessation of an illegal activity or to be Investment Conference 2014 compensated for harm caused by misconduct. This report explores investor redress based on a survey of best practices and regulatory A Fresh Perspective: Checking frameworks in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It examines specific Assumptions, Challenging redress schemes set up in instances of widespread investor detriment Mindsets. and offers policy recommendations to increase the availability and quality of redress mechanisms in retail financial markets. 16-17 October 2014 The Guoman Tower Hotel The report can be downloaded here. London, United Kingdom

More info

QuantAwards 2014 2015 Global Market Sentiment Survey The QuantAwards, jointly organized by CFA Society France and State Street Global CFA Institute will shortly release Advisors France since 2010, go global. an e-mail to members for the 2015 Global Market Sentiment For the first time, other CFA Societies have joined these awards for Survey (GMSS). This annual quantitative finance, CFA Society Ireland and CFA Society survey is gaining traction Netherlands. worldwide and attracting a lot of The QuantAwards are open to post graduate university students who media attention. Please take a have to submit a 5 to 7 page research on a quantitative subject, with a few minutes to answer the high level of applicability. GMSS, as we need to have a significant number of Registration is open until October 15. Among the prizes, cash, respondents in order to have registration to a level of the CFA program and an internship at SSGA. reliable statistics for France.

Read the portrait of last year's winner, Jean-Damien Villiers, in 2014 GMSS results efinancial careers, our media partner. Jean-Damien explains how winning the QuantAwards helped him in his job search. Third-party conferences

Find out more on our web site or in our LinkedIn group. Follow our We've secured a 50% discount hashtag on Twitter: #QuantAwards. for CFA Society France members at Morningstar ETF event in London on November 5 and 6, QuantAwards 2014 Media partner 2014. Please use the promotion code: "ETFUK14C505" in the payment page. This conference qualifies for 6 CE credits which you can update via your MyCFA account.

Media Relations Our sponsors

Media are important channels to raise the awareness for the CFA We want to thank our sponsors for program and CFA Society France. We've told you in the previous their continuous support. newsletter of our first Media Academy session on equities. We are currently planning the second session on fixed income, to be held in Conference Hosts: November.

Because journalists are delivering information to a broad audience, it is essential for us to help them stay up to date on technical issues. Better, more accurate editorial on finance plays a crucial role in educating investors, be they professional or not.

The Media Academy is in line with the overall objectives of the Future of Finance initiative, especially with those of Financial Knowledge.

Fund raising

Those of you who attended our latest AGM in July know that one of

our targets is to diversify our financial resources. We are actively engaged in signing sponsorship agreements with partners. Those agreements fall into 2 categories: 1) in kind, whereby the sponsor hosts our conferences 2) in cash, whereby the sponsor gets Research Challenge - French visibility. competition:

Board members and volunteers of your not-for-profit association are volunteer and don't receive compensation for their volunteering, but our main objective is to provide you the best possible services, and to achieve this objective, we need financial resources: raising funds from sponsors is one of the solutions.

On December 10, our yearly Charter Award Ceremony will take place at the Cercle de l'Union Interalliée in Paris. We are actively looking for Gold Sponsors CFA Program sponsors for this prestigious event. If you feel that your employer Prep Providers could be interested, don't hesitate to contact us.

CFA Candidates, why become a member of CFA Society France ?

Candidate membership with CFA Society France is specifically tailored for those studying the CFA Program® and designed to help with your studies and provide continuing education, career development and networking opportunities.

Exam support * CFA workshops: 4-hours instructor-led sessions organized with our Gold sponsors: 20EUR for candidate members (regular price 40EUR). * Mock exam: 25EUR for candidate members (regular price 50EUR).

Events * Attend over 20 continuing education events per year to help bring the CFA curriculum to life through real world application. * Attend our annual career event at no additional cost as part of your membership benefits package. * Attend seasonal social evenings to network with charterholders, candidate members and CFA Society France board of directors.

Professional networks * Become part of an influential network of over 800 investment professionals who recognise and share your professional values. * Interact directly with over 400 members via our dedicated member-only LinkedIn Group: CFA Society France Members.

Membership subscription year: 1 July - 30 June. Membership fee: €70,00.

To register, please click here or contact [email protected].

Events

Past events

Since our previous newsletter you've hopefully been able to attend several of the following events:

Putting Investors First in France - A Community Outreach Event We organized an Event to promote the better investor rights " Putting Investors First", hosted by Euronext where CFA Society France President was joined by the Association Française de la Gestion Financière (AFG), the Independent Financial Advisory Association Chambre des Indépendants du Patrimoine (CIP) & Fédération des Investisseurs Individuels et des Clubs d'investissement (F2iC) an individual investors association. We took this opportunity to promote CFA Institute's Statement of Investor Rights as part of worldwide initiative in which over 80 societies participated. We believe that promoting the values of CFA Institute can help raise the awareness and value of the CFA certificate.

Learn more about the global initiative. Watch a video from the Paris Event. Photos

Several educational events:

Attendees learned much about the complex nature of the Russian economy and political situation from the insightful and very well informed Professor Sergei Guriev (Sciences Po).

A lively panel with Isabelle Bourcier, OSSIAM and Etienne Vincent, THEAM de-mistified the topic of smart beta. This was the 3rd event organized by the advocacy committee on this topic (see advocacy section of this newsletter for further info). Photos

Two well attended networking events:

We held our Back to Work Networking Event at the Makassar Lounge, Hotel Renaissance earlier this month. Prior to the Summer break we organized a social event on the boat house La Balle au Bond including a soft skills workshop animated by Antionio Meza. Photos

The AGM of your society was held on July 8th where each Committee outlined achievements over the year ended June 2014. For those who were unable to attend the presentation is available here.

Upcoming events

Several Events are in the pipeline. The Charter Award Ceremony will be held on December 10th. The pipeline includes Events on fee transparency and on the revival of securitization. Watch your emails and the website for future events as they are confirmed.

For the month of October you can already book your place at the following events:

Market Strategy with Daniel Fermon (Societe Generale): "Get Ready for Desynchronisation of Central Bank Policies"

Professor Dr Francois Longin, ( Essec) on Extreme events in finance : how to manage risk and seize opportunities?

We would like to take the opportunity to thank our volunteers Erik Bobbink, Pouya Azimi, Fanta Amine, Adil Lahlou, Olivia Tangomo, Anmol Save, Dung Pham, Andreea Agrigoroae, Zhefang Wu, Julien Valarcher, Julien Le Goueff, Andreea Michaela for the valuable contribution to the success of our events over the last year.

We look forward to seeing you at our coming events.

Volunteering with the Programming Committee

The Programming Committee is looking for volunteers to help organize events : choice of the topics, sourcing of the speakers, organization of the event. Please contact Don Fitzgerald, CFA, Chair of the Programming Committee: [email protected].

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