A year after the implosion of Lehman Brothers, private banking leaders will gather in Geneva, Boston, Tokyo and Singapore on October 5

– 7 to share their views about the future of wealth management across the globe.The industry is at a crossroad. After the Madoff scandal and the collapse of bank secrecy in Switzerland and other major offshore banking centres many players have to rethink their banking model and work hard to regain their clients’ trust.

Swiss bank giant UBS, once the world’s biggest wealth manager, was badly hit by a U.S. tax fraud investigation and is challenged by new industry heavyweights.

Will UBS regain its leadership or will emerging Asian and Australian banks continue to chip away at UBS’ dominant position in the Asia-Pacific? Is offshore private banking doomed? Will private banking remain a profitable business? Where are clients putting their money as the world emerges from the subprime crisis? How different are the new rich in Asia and Latin America from Europe’s old money?

These are some of the questions Reuters reporters will put to top private bankers as the industry struggles with what may be its biggest challenges ever. Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit will generate exclusive interviews and investable insights from our team of expert reporters, as well as online videos and blog postings, which will be immediately available only to Thomson Reuters clients during the Summit.

As part of the Reuters Summit on global climate and alternative energy, Reuters.com asked Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club and Ian Hore-Lacy, director of public communication for the World Nuclear Association to discuss the role of nuclear energy. Here are their responses.

(Carl Pope's rebuttal was posted at 8:30 a.m. ET on September 10.)

By Tim Hepher 

Las Vegas casino legend Sheldon Adelson launched a quest for America’s most boring city on Tuesday in a comeback to President Barack Obama’s criticism of bankers who hold meetings in the famous gaming capital.
    
Obama last month warned companies that get bailout cash against spending it on activities potentially seen as perks — sparking a row with hotel and resort operators who say they are already struggling to fill rooms and may have to cut jobs.
    
“The good news is that Las Vegas has become a synonym for a good time for adults. Let me not say adults, I’ll say grown-ups, I don’t want to give the wrong impression,” Adelson, majority owner of casino operator Las Vegas Sands, said.
    
“The bad news is that because it is a place for a good time, President Obama says that he doesn’t want taxpayer’s money to go there,” Adelson told the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit. 
    
“But I’m going to conduct a survey and I’m going to provide a prize for people who will submit the name of the worst city in the country to go to, where people can enjoy it the least. Because that’s the alternative. The alternative is you go to a place where you enjoy, or you go to to a place you don’t enjoy.”
    
The self-made billionaire, who tore down the original Sands to build the Venetian Resort complete with canals, and brought business conventions to Las Vegas, declined to nominate places for his ‘dive prize’ but took a swipe at Obama’s home town.
    
“Look, Chicago has got nine casinos. Now, God forbid if they hold a convention there someone should go to one of those casinos and enjoy themselves. God forbid. And then they’d say ‘Oh I can’t go there’,” he said.

A scandal over perks erupted in October after insurer AIG flew top brokers and executives to a Southern California resort at a cost of $440,000 shortly after it received an $85 billion government bailout.
     
“You can’t take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime,” Obama commented last month.

It isn’t easy being a manufacturing CEO these days.  
   

Industrial production has plummeted around the world, falling commodity prices are hurting sales of equipment used in mining and oil and gas exploration, and even once-robust emerging markets like China are feeling the squeeze from the recession in developed markets. Another key market, construction, is in its worst decline in generations. 
   

Large U.S. manufacturing companies have responded to the lean times by becoming leaner themselves, in some cases by cutting tens of thousands of jobs. 
   

Yet one of their biggest challenges may be the lack of visibility, what some have described as “blizzard conditions,” which makes planning an already cyclical business especially difficult. 
   

The 2009 Reuters Manufacturing and Transportation summit, held in Chicago February 23-25, will tackle these topics and more. Reuters has invited a group of manufacturing sector CEOs to give their views on what companies do in this environment to protect profits, how to cut costs without cutting too deeply, and the likely impact of the Obama stimulus.

By Tony Munroe

When markets boomed, India’s star was shining bright and deals were plentiful, but the hard landing means any recovery will be painfully slow.

Indian stock markets are still down more than 50 percent so far this year, making them the third worst Asian performer after China and Vietnam.

But even when markets look to stabilise, India may have a harder time in deal-making, given its heavy exposure to the global services sector, said Rory Tapner, chairman and chief executive for Asia-Pacific at UBS.

“India may be one of the markets that is going to perhaps find some of this tougher,” Tapner told the Reuters Global Finance Summit, adding that overseas companies look set to cut back on outsourcing as unemployment in their home countries grows.

He said Australia will drive deals as demand for resources grows when conditions improve, while asset management and insurance firms will also do deals.

“If the world gets going again, I think that will be one of the first places that start to recover.”

By Jeffrey Hodgson

Increasingly risk-averse hedge fund managers are in no mood to chase exotic trades as they scramble to boost returns.

Given the current environment, Robert Appleby, chief investment officer at ADM Capital, told the Reuters Global Finance Summit there was no need to seek out exotic trades or markets for healthy returns.

“You don’t have to go to weird, wonderful places … you don’t have to take exogenous risks — its right at your doorstep,” he said, referring to his funds’ focus on the main markets of Hong Kong, China, India and Turkey.

ADM began investing in distressed debt in 1998 following the Asian financial crisis. Its funds often buy out existing creditors to initiate financial or corporate restructuring of companies that are delinquent or at risk of bankruptcy.

By Kevin Lim

Some companies are taking cost cuts pretty seriously.

That’s the message from Aberdeen Asset Management’s Asia chief as the firm pulls out all stops to trim costs in these lean times.

“Obviously, we’ll travel less. Business class only if more than 6 hours or no business class at all,” Hugh Young said in an interview for the Reuters Global Finance Summit. “There is a big variable element when it comes to bonuses and that’s something we’ll look at.”

“We are also looking at what is small beer like no Coke in the fridge. We can do all that. The last thing of course, which we don’t want to do, is cut people, if it ever comes to that … But on existing budgets annualised from today, we are still profitable.”

Women have long bumped up against glass ceilings as they try to advance to upper level executive jobs.
According to research from the Harrison Group, a market research and strategy firm in Waterbury, Connecticut, when it comes to housework wealth men are dealing with barriers too, although it’s unclear where those barriers come from.
“Women handle the household’s employment, treasury and other functions” and are making real money for the family, said Jim Taylor, the group’s vice chairman who regularly researches how rich people behave.
Men work long hours at their jobs and at home they are now allowed only to care for lawns, shrubbery and maybe the swimming pool. That gives rise to the new term “the grass ceiling,” Taylor said at the Reuters Wealth Summit.

–Svea Herbst

How worried are the richest Americans by the current economic turmoil?
It’s fair to say, “very.”

Forty-six percent of the wealthiest U.S. families believe they can lose everything, said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, a market research and strategy firm in Waterbury, Conn.

“That’s up from about 35 percent in June, up from a little under 20 percent in April, and up from zero percent a couple of years ago,” Taylor told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit on Tuesday, citing the findings of his latest quarterly survey of affluent individuals taken Sept. 19-23.

Respondents were asked if they agreed with the statement that “I worry that at some point I could run out of money.”

“We have seen an astonishing increase in the perception of risk. And the risk is not generally to the business, the risk is to their own personal wealth,” he said.
Other highlights from the survey by the Harrison Group and American Express Publishing include:

– Sixty percent of wealthy families believe the U.S. economy will slip into a recession that will last more than a year, starting in September. Only 4 percent expect it will be over in six months.

– In 2005, 93 percent of America’s affluent and wealthy people were confident about their future. Last December, that number was down to 70 percent. In the September quarter, it slid to 55 percent.

- By Jason Szep in Boston