Events

The Phillips, Hager & North Centre for Financial Research continues to foster research by supporting winter and summer finance conferences. The conferences not only raise the profile of UBC Sauder faculty and doctoral students, but also is a vital outreach and networking activity. The 10th Winter Finance Conference was held on March 2 to March 4, 2018 at Whistler, BC. The Conference attracted 300 submissions from around the world, from which 10 papers were selected for presentation in areas of stock return predictability, mutual funds, corporate governance, and production-based asset pricing. More than 50 participants attended the conference.

The recognition of the success of the Winter Conference is apparent in the fact that the Society of Financial Studies (SFS), publisher of a top three journal in the finance field (The Review of Financial Studies) co-sponsored the 2018 Winter Conference. Those who submitted papers to the conference also had the option to have their paper considered for publication by two SFS journalists (The Review of Asset Pricing Studies and The Review of Corporate Finance Studies) under the Dual Submission Program.

The 16th Summer Finance Conference was held on July 26 to July 28, 2018 at the facilities in the Sauder School of Business. We were pleased to welcome 70 finance academics from North America and around the world, including two past presidents of the American Finance Association. This year’s speakers included researchers from top research schools including Stanford University, London Business School, Carnegie Mellon University, UCLA, and Northwestern

March 2 – March 4, 2018 – Whistler, BC – 58 participants

July 26 – July 28, 2018 – Vancouver, BC – 70 participants

March 1 – March 3, 2019 – Whistler, BC  
July 25 – July 27, 2018 – Vancouver, BC 

PH&N Distinguished Speaker Series

The Distinguished Speaker Series is an opportunity for a small group of undergraduate, M.Sc. and MBA students specializing in Finance to interact with members of the business community. During the event the invited speaker presents a brief talk about his/her career and then leads a discussion about careers, education, and industry. Students gain knowledge about making difficult decisions, exploring career choices, creating one’s own personal brand, and/or adapting to changing markets.

Tracey McVicar, Managing Partner, CAI Capital Management Co.  

September 12, 2018

This year’s Distinguished Speaker Dinner was led by Tracey McVicar. Tracey is the Managing Partner at CAI Capital Management Co., a mid-market private equity firm she joined in 2003. She is a former investment banker who started her career at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto and Vancouver, and later joined Raymond James Ltd.’s predecessor company Goepel, Shields & Partners in Vancouver. Tracey is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has received the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors. She is currently Chair of Feeney Brothers Utility Services, GeoStabilization International and White House Design, and a director at Canadian Heating Products - all of which are CAI portfolio companies. She is also a director and Audit Committee Chair at Teck Resources Limited (TECK.B – TSX) and a former director of BC Hydro Corporation.

In addition to her business commitments, Tracey also serves with a number of not-for-profit organizations; she is a member of the UBC Sauder Faculty Advisory Board, a director of the Fraser Institute, a member of the Big Sisters Honorary Advisory Board and Science World Chair’s Council and the Chair of Golf for Good, an annual golf tournament that has raised over $2,000,000 for non-profit organizations that “do a lot with a little”. She is a past director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, UBC Investment Management Trust, the BC Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (“FWE”) and the Central City Foundation.  In recognition of her achievements, Tracey has been honored with Business in Vancouver’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, the Association of Women in Finance’s PEAK Award for Knowledge and Leadership, Business in Vancouver’s Influential Women in Business Award, WXN’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women, Top 100 Award, and BC Business Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Women in BC. Most recently, she was featured in the publication “Canada 150 Women” by Paulina Cameron.

Tracey is dedicated to mentorship and helping others. She serves on the Vancouver selection committee for the Loran Scholarship Awards, she is an advisor to the National Investment Banking Competition, and she remains heavily involved in mentoring and coaching both current and former UBC PMF students, FWE members and women in the investment industry. 

PH&N Lunch Seminar

The PH&N Lunch Seminar provides an opportunity for members of the business community, Sauder alumni, and PhD students to attend a seminar session led by a Sauder faculty member. The invited speaker presents a brief talk about current research he or she is working on, followed by a Q&A session from the audience. The event provides industry practitioners with potential investment strategies and provides PhD students with prospective research ideas.

Jack Favilukis, Assistant Professor, Finance Division, UBC Sauder School of Business  

September 18, 2018

This year’s PH&N Lunch Seminar was led by Jack Favilukis, Assistant Professor of Finance at the Sauder School of Business. Jack joined Sauder in 2014, previously, he served at the London School of Economics from 2007 to 2014. His main areas of research interests include Consumption and Production Based Asset Pricing, Incomplete Markets, Heterogeneity and Inequality, and Real Estate, and he has published papers in top academic journals in the fields of finance (including the Journal of Financial Economics) and economics (including the Journal of Political Economy).

This year’s talk was on the topic of “International Capital Flows: Implications for US Treasuries, Vancouver Real Estate, and the Economy”. The last 40 years have seen tremendous growth in cross-border capital flows, with annual flows growing from below 5% of global GDP in 1980, to above 20% by 2007, with a modest decrease since the financial crisis. Even more striking, for developed economies, the sum of financial claims and liabilities has risen from below 70% of GDP in 1980, to 440% by 2007. Jack started with a review of some of the issues around these flows and discussed two specific types of flows. First, foreign capital flows into the real estate market of Vancouver. Second, foreign capital flows into the U.S. treasury market. In each case, the capital flows affect much more than just the price in the specific market that receives these flows. Flows into the real estate market will impact the rental and labor market. Flows into the U.S. treasury market will affect the risk premium of U.S. equities. These flows also have a very uneven effect on households, creating winners and losers (i.e. renters versus buyers, savers versus borrowers, young versus old). I will discuss the net cost and benefit of such flows, as well as suggest potential government policies (i.e. foreign buyer taxes, relaxation of zoning laws) to mitigate the losses. The topic was of high interest to industry practitioners in the investment and asset management field, as well as graduate students interested in topics related to empirical asset pricing and market inefficiencies.