InFOCUS 2013 Volume 3

INFOCUSMagazine of the Financial Study Association SCOPE|FOCUSVolume 10 Issue 3 April 2013 3

Parsing the growth advantageof emerging-market companies

Brazilian banking sector - a view from 30,000 feet

Leveraging the opportunities in emerging markets

Emerging Markets

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terugzien. Ook wij hebben ons op geheel eigen wijze ontwikkeld. Professioneel én persoonlijk. Koenen en Co is een succesvolle

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KoenenenCo_Adv Groei A4_130165.indd 1 12-03-13 14:57

INFOCUS - Volume 10 - Issue 3

Editorial

SCOPE|FOCUS is the financial study association of Maas-tricht University for students interested in finance, account-ancy and controlling. Our aim is to be the best possible in-termediary between students and potential future employers

INFOCUS magazine is distributed freely by SCOPE|FOCUS among its members and relations four times a year

Circulation 950Composition/Design Paul Nuscheler

Mailing Address SCOPE|FOCUS P.O. Box 616 6200 MD MaastrichtVisiting Address Tongersestraat 43 Rooms 0.012 & 2.012

C.O.C. Number 40205432E-mail [email protected] www.scope-focus.nlFacebook facebook.com/scopefocus

Dear INFOCUS readers,

The Economist recently forecasted that by 2017 emerging economies will take up more than 50% of world GDP; and already around 80% of the world population live in emerging countries. Over the past 15 years, the news has consistently reported about the great success of emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India, and Turkey. However, it seems that the tide has turned. The growth of these nations is likely to slow down and they are not able anymore to report stellar numbers year in, year out.

This third INFOCUS edition aims at shedding light on both the current eco-nomic situation and the future outlook of these nations. First, Jelmer van de Mortel elaborates on the potential and challenges of emerging markets. Second, the McKinsey article “Parsing the growth advantage of emerging-market companies” provides insights into why emerging-market companies are growing on a higher level than their competitors from developed mar-kets. Third, Deutsche Bank research publishes an in-depth overview about the flourishing Brazilian banking sector. Finally, it is a Sigma board member, who answers the question whether emerging markets is the bullish trend of the year 2013.

Again exclusively in this third INFOCUS magazine is the world of SCOPE|FOCUS content, which provides you with interesting details about the most seen people at the SBE, FOCUS alumni, and various activities such as the Maastricht Business Days, the Ski trip, and many more.

Finally, I would like to thank all companies, alumni, university staff, active members, and especially the INFOCUS committee for their contribution to this magazine. I wish you an enjoyable time reading!

Best regards,

Paul Nuscheler


Content

Emerging markets

Leveraging the opportunities inemerging markets

Parsing the growth advantage of emerging-market companies

Brazilian Banking Sector

Emerging markets: Working on a lower risk profile

Emerging markets: the bullish trend for 2013?

The world of SCOPE|FOCUS

Most seen people at the SBE

Congress

Sigma Investments

Alumni Talks

SCOPE|FOCUS Committees

New SCOPE|FOCUS board

Ernst & Young Luxembourg Inhouse Day

Maastricht Business Days

Ski Trip

Activity Agenda

Advertisers

KPMG | kpmg.com/nl/nl/werken-bij/ PricewaterhouseCoopers | werkenbijpwc.nl

Roland Berger | rolandberger.com/careers Koenen en Co | koenenenco.nl/nl/carriere

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Word of the Chairman

Word of the Chairman

Dear readers,

Emerging markets: the defining megatrend of our age. Never have we wit-nessed a transformation in economic history of this scale. A recent UN report states that 80% of the world’s middle class will live in developing countries by 2030. A massive wave of urbanization and surprising gains in poverty reduction are propelling this growth. Urbanization is shifting the world’s economic balance toward the east and south at unprecedented speed and scale. In addition, emerging markets are praised for their prag-matic policies to help the poor. Besides having opened up to foreign di-rect investments and having heavily invested in infrastructure, emerging markets managed to put social floors on place. By focusing on the people, education and health standards have drastically increased.

The advent of a new consuming class in emerging markets is one of the biggest growth opportunities for businesses. For companies to benefit from the projected $30 trillion annual consumption in these markets by 2025 requires strong global leadership capacities. At the same time, com-petition for talent in emerging markets is heating up. Global companies therefore should remain looking for talent all around the world.

Focusing on this future, SCOPE|FOCUS takes on two roles. On the one hand we want to prepare students for doing business in emerging countries directly. After successful trips to Singapore, Chicago and Hong Kong res-pectively, the 2013 International Financial Orientation will visit Beijing. In June, 20 top students get the chance to experience the Chinese economy in its most traditional form and get a perfect feeling of what doing business in China entails. On the other hand we will continue to be the best possible intermediary between potential future global leaders and the companies that are looking for them.

Building on our long lasting relationships at our home base and in coope-ration with prospective partners abroad we are continuously looking to improve our activity’s portfolio. This, together with a strongly growing interest amongst students in SCOPE|FOCUS, will move our association for-ward and align incentives with global market trends.

Kindest regards,

Luc Nelissen


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In 2012, The Economist doubted whether the growth of the emerging markets would continue in the co-ming years. But in the recent March edition, The

Economist claimed that some emerging markets are doing better than ever before – and not only in terms of economic growth. Africa‘s economy, for example, „is flourishing“, and the region is seeing „record numbers“ attending school and rising life expectancy. According to the article, „consumer spending in Africa will almost double in the next ten years.“

There is no doubt that emerging markets still offer plenty of opportunity. But key questions remain for Western companies. What potential and challenges do emerging markets offer? How should companies res-pond responsibly? Three major trends are at play: the rising talent pool, the shift in innovative power, and the growing „middle class“ and „the bottom of the pyra-mid“ – attractive consumer markets.

Rising talent pool. In emerging markets, education is improving and getting closer to advanced economies‘ standards. The number of young people in emerging markets who enjoy a better education is steeply incre-asing. Between 2006 and 2011, the number of students in China and India increased by over 7% while Europe saw stagnation. Europe‘s impending shortage of edu-cated people can already be seen in the demand for technical employees. In the Dutch market, the shortage is expected to be 63,000 by next year, according to the Maastricht University‘s study for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.

Effective recruiting and HR management can help fight the skills shortage in Europe. Creating the right global footprint, integrating global talent at all levels, buil-

ding distinctive, open, high performance cultures and identities will guarantee an attratice work climate and ensure enough capacity. The Dutch company ASML, for instance, recently announced that it is recruiting signi-ficant numbers of knowledge workers from China, In-dia and Japan. Shift in innovative power. A second major trend is the shift in innovative power. The global R&D landscape is changing. Emerging markets are evolving from being production sites and work benches to becoming impor-tant innovation hubs. Between 2007 and 22012, China and India doubled their R&D spending between to USD

200 bn and USD 40 bn respectively. These two countries now account for almost 20% of global R&D spending. A rising share in R&D spending means a rising share of innovation output. Many emerging countries have not only increased R&D investments but have also moved up the global innovator league tables. Europe is already a net importer of R&D services from emerging market countries. In 2010, the EU-27 had a trade deficit in R&D services of USD 1.5 bn vis-à-vis China and India. More and more emerging country manufacturers deliver products with a speed, design and price that daunt the competition.

To stay competitive, European manufacturers may find that their innovation management and product deve-lopment expertise and experience is, ironically, a hin-drance. The challenge, rather, is for Western business to make emerging markets part of their global innova-tion chain, where emerging markets no longer serve as an outsourcing destination but as competitors and partners. Eight of the ten global companies funding the world‘s largest R&D budgets are establishing R&D fa-

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cilities China and India. Some companies, such as Mi-crosoft, Nestlé, Intel and Novartis, support both Chi-nese and Indian hubs. This R&D internationalization is expected to expand further as multinationals seek greater local capabilities and market access.

Emerging consumer markets. Fifty households in deve-loping countries join the middle class every minute. By 2030, an estimated 66% of the world‘s middle class will live in Asia, compared to just 21% in Europe and the United States. Indeed, China‘s burgeoning middle class is already bigger than the entire American population. As for the rich, the number of millionaires in China sur-passed that in America some time ago. Other countries – not least Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Nigeria, along with other African nations – are also seeing an expan-ding middle class with money to spend. These upward-ly mobile sectors of society share a common wish: to create for their children and grandchildren a world of affluence, political stability and opportunity.

Traditional consumer goods segments such as fashion, leisure and communications are likely to enjoy per ca-pita growth of about 30% by 2020 in emerging and developing countries. European fashion chains such as Zara are already a familiar sight in major cities across India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Thai-land and South Africa. Given that in 2030, about 80% of the world‘s middle-class consumers will live outside the US and Europe, and consumer spending is expected to double in developing countries over the next seven years, the challenge for Western companies is to build its share of local value added, find the right mix of glo-bal and local products, services, branding and marke-ting strategies for the middle class.

The poor are what we might call „bottom of the pyra-mid“ consumers. Thanks to new technology and novel distribution methods, they too have become a potenti-ally profitable market for companies. Consumer goods manufacturers are delivering inexpensive, easy-to-use products to them using low-overhead distribution. The most successful new products are removing non-essen-tial features and are thus significantly reducing the cost and complexity of manufacturing processes. An examp-le is Chibuku from the brewer SABMiller. The compa-ny plans to cater to lower-income rural Africans who drink „informal“ home-brewed beers. To this end, they developed a beer in a carton, which costs up to 40% less than bottled beers, has a similar taste to home-bre-wed beers and is hygienically produced.

In the coming years, consumers in emerging countries will experience change at rates unparalleled in econo-mic history. The range of goods and services available, innovative power, and disposable incomes will grow at a speed surpassing that seen in all previous econo-mic phases. Taking the right strategic steps will enab-le Western companies to benefit in a responsible way from the opportunities offered by new consumer mar-kets in emerging markets.

Best regards,

Jelmer van de Mortel Consultant

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants


8 Parsing the growth advantage

Parsing the growth advantage of emerging-market companies

Leaders of multinational companies are by now well aware of the growth potential that emerging-market consumers represent, an opportunity that

we estimate could exceed $20 trillion annually by the end of this decade. Many multinational players, howe-ver, don’t seem to be capturing that growth as well as their emerging-market counterparts are. That came to light last year as part of ongoing research that began more than five years ago and was the foundation for The Granularity of Growth. We examined the growth rates of companies headquartered in developed econo-mies and compared them with those of companies do-miciled in emerging markets, examining performance in both developed and emerging markets. One striking finding was that companies headquartered in emerging markets grew roughly twice as fast as those domiciled in developed economies—and two and a half times as fast when both were competing in emerging markets that represented “neutral” turf, where neither company was headquartered. We found this to be the case across industries.

One potential explanation was that the smaller size of emerging-market business segments would explain a large part of the outperformance. In essence, emerging-market businesses were growing faster from a smaller base. The smaller base point was true: the average re-venue for business units of emerging-economy compa-nies in our sample, at $3 billion, was less than half of the $8 billion size for units from developed-economy companies. We’ve recently done further research, how-ever, to isolate the effects of size on the performance

gap. Specifically, we compared the growth rates of $3 billion and $8 billion firms within the developed-mar-ket sample and found that $3 billion companies grew at 10.7 percent annually over the period we studied, while $8 billion companies grew by 7.3 percent. On this basis, the smaller size of emerging-market businesses, on average, accounts for 3.4 percentage points of the growth gap, or, at most, a quarter of the overall 13-per-centage-point differential (Exhibit 1).

It is impossible to definitively disaggregate the sources of the remaining growth differential. However, the fol-lowing three factors appear to be materially different for these two classes of companies:

Higher reinvestment rates. Emerging-market compa-nies paid dividends at a lower rate than developed-mar-ket companies, returning only 39 percent of earnings to shareholders, while developed-market companies returned close to 80 percent. They also reinvested ex-cess cash to grow fixed assets at a higher rate: 12 per-cent annually versus 7 percent for developed-market companies (Exhibit 2). The company in our sample with the highest rate of growth in fixed assets—rough-ly 30 percent annually over the last decade—was South Africa’s Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN). For most of that period, rapid asset growth accompanied aggres-sive expansion in the company’s Internet and cellular services in Africa and the Middle East. More recently, the company has been moving into mobile-money ser-vices, especially in African countries that lack finan-cial infrastructure. This, too, has required significant investment—for example, $784 million on recent net-work expansion in Ghana, and $1 billion on its Nigerian network.

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of emerging-market companies

Agile asset reallocation. Additionally, we found that on average, emerging-market companies have been real-locating capital toward new business opportunities more dynamically than those headquartered in develo-ped economies. Companies in India, for instance, con-sistently redeployed investments across business units at a higher rate than US companies. India’s Kesoram In-dustries is a notable example, shifting 80 percent of its capital across businesses units over the seven years we studied. Up until 2005, the company focused most of its capital expenditures on rayon and cement. Beginning in 2007, however, it moved the majority of new invest-ments to the tire business to capture the double-digit growth in India’s automobile sector, which has been spurred by improving highway infrastructure. This type of strategic reallocation, our research has shown, is correlated with higher total returns to sharehol-ders over time. Potentially contributing to agility was the fact that majority shareholders comprised a much more influential bloc among emerging-market compa-nies than at developed-economy companies. Although we aren’t suggesting this is the ideal governance model under all circumstances, it does create conditions for more effective shareholder alignment and more rapid decisions.

Growth-oriented business models. Emerging-market companies generally serve the needs of fast-growing emerging middle classes around the world with lower-cost products. Developed-economy companies tend to rely more on brand recognition while targeting higher-margin segments, which are relatively smaller and thus less likely to move the needle on the companies’ overall growth rates. We found that across a number of product segments—such as soft drinks, telecoms services, and

mobile phones—emerging-market companies’ price points were 10 to 60 percent below those of developed-market counterparts. Even in business segments such as construction equipment, emerging-market players offered more products at lower prices.

Consistent with that growth model has been the focus of many emerging-market players on R&D investments ai-med at lower-cost products that fit developing-market conditions (and sometimes fuel “reverse innovation,” which can make a dent in developed markets). That’s still the case, and in aggregate, emerging-market com-panies still file significantly fewer patents than their developed-market counterparts. But they are starting to catch Huawei, which was among the world’s top five companies in terms of international patents filed from 2008 to 2010. Huawei had 51,000 R&D employees in 2010, representing a stunning 46 percent of its total headcount, and placed them in 20 research institutes in countries such as Germany, India, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. Efforts such as these could boost the intensity of global competition.

As the locus of future growth continues to shift to emerging markets, companies across regions should be thinking systematically about strategies for pursuing it. For many companies, a clear understanding of where to place their bets will be key, and some will need to grapple with ways to overcome organizational inertia. Business unit leaders, for example, may resist cutting costs in home markets in order to invest more in emer-ging markets. Many companies, meantime, still find it difficult to convince senior executives to relocate to un-familiar locations and they may be reluctant to move teams en masse to emerging areas. In the quest to di-rect resources to regions with the greatest growth po-tential, it might be time for global players to start thin-king more like emerging-market companies.

Source: McKinsey Quartlery, May 2012

Authors: Yuval Atsmon, Michael Kloss, and Sven Smit


10 Brazilian banking sector – a view from 30,000 feet

Brazilian banking sector –a view from 30,000 feet

The Brazilian economy experienced an accelera-tion of economic growth over the course of the past decade. Economic growth was underpinned

by improving terms of trade, rising exports, broadly supportive macro-policies, solid credit growth and a supportive fiscal policy.

Rising domestic consumption was supported by – amongst other things – increasing government trans-fers, rising incomes, rising employment and expanding domestic credit. Consumption growth was particularly pronounced among the poorer classes. Increasing do-mestic credit, especially bank lending to the private sector, was itself a function of reform (e.g. bankrupt-cy code, crédito consignado or payroll-deducted loans) and the improvement in overall economic conditions (e.g. booming labour market, increasing formalization of the labour market, lower domestic interest rates).

As a result, Brazil experienced a sustained increase in lending to the private sector. Bank lending to the pri-vate sector almost doubled between 2003 and today, rising from 24% of GDP to 47%. Although many emer-ging economies experienced rapid credit growth, Brazil is among only a handful of major emerging economies that saw bank lending double (as a share of GDP).

Total bank credit does not appear to be unsustainab-ly high. Other emerging markets have far higher levels of bank lending. This suggests that credit has room to

continue to grow. It is worth mentioning, however, that sooner or later sustained growth will require a larger contribution from mortgage-related lending. Consumer lending is already relatively high in Brazil.

In terms of the composition of bank lending to the pri-vate sector, consumer credit has experienced the largest increase. This is to a large extent a direct consequence of the reforms mentioned above. Bankruptcy reform has improved creditor rights, making banks more wil-ling to lend. Payroll-deducted lending, allowing for civil servant social security payments to be used as a collateral, has induced banks to boost lending. Lower nominal and real interest rates, although they continue to be very high by international standards, have made borrowing more affordable for consumers (and busi-nesses). Last but not least, solid economic growth and a booming labour market, in turn, have helped improve overall credit conditions.

As regards the origin of bank credit, both the public and the national private sector banks have roughly doubled their lending as a share of GDP. By contrast, foreign-owned banks not only had a smaller market share initi-ally, their market share has also grown more modestly. It is noteworthy that banks wholly or partially owned by the state (BNDES, Caixa, Banco do Brasil) origina-te more bank credit than the national private sector banks. This, however, is not unusual in emerging eco-nomies.

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Brazilian banking sector – a view from 30,000 feet

Brazil has quite a segmented loan market. Loans can be divided into so-called ‘earmarked’ and ‘non-ear-marked’ credit. Earmarked credit refers to credit ope-rations with compulsory allocation and/or government resources. Specifically, there exist directed-lending re-quirements specifying that a fixed share of deposit lia-bilities needs to be lent to the agricultural and housing sector at below-market interest rates. In addition, BN-DES, the state-owned development bank, directly (and indirectly, so-called on-lending) offers credit at below-market interest rates. Non-earmarked credit, by cont-rast and by definition, is not subject to directed-lending requirements.

Lending rates remain extremely high. Historically, the cost of default (or loss given default) has been the most important contributor to loan spreads (that is, spreads over the risk-free rate), explaining as much as 50% of the total spread.1 By contrast, reserve requirements, which are similarly extremely high by international standards, explain, according to the central bank, only around 5% of the loan spread. Thanks to improving macroeconomic conditions and a fall in nominal and real interest rates, Brazil has experienced a modera-te lengthening of loan maturities in recent years. This trend will continue as domestic interest rate continue to decline over the medium term.

In spite of the rapid growth in domestic bank lending, the substantial increase in riskier consumer lending and the lengthening of loan maturities, the Brazilian banking sector (in the aggregate) remains in solid sha-pe.

» The capital adequacy ratio remains high. As a matter of fact, Brazil has the highest CAR of major EM-9 countries.

» In terms of liabilities, Brazilian banks’ dependence on wholesale funding is high, but manageable overall, not least because banks typically hold large amounts of liquid assets in the form of government debt securities.

» Brazil’s reliance on foreign funding (as a share of to-tal liabilities) – of special concern given the persisting risk of further rounds of global volatility – is quite low.

» Due to very high reserve requirements (far hig-her than in other emerging economies), the autho-rities have an important crisis-management tool at their disposal (as the 2008 shock demonstrated).

» Banks’ liabilities and assets are largely denominated in local currency and local foreign-currency lending is prohibited (unlike in Eastern Europe, for instance) and banks face strict limitations in terms of the FX risk they are allowed to run.

The outlook for the Brazilian banking system is also helped by Brazil’s solid economic fundamentals, its sensitivity to commodity price developments and the recent decline in economic growth notwithstanding.

First, external vulnerability (as opposed to sensitivity) is low. Brazil has been experiencing significant capital inflows over the past few years. However, a large equi-ty component has helped limit potential risks related to the now sizeable stock of portfolio liabilities owed to non-residents, as has the very significant increase in


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Brazilian banking sector –a view from 30,000 feet

Brazilian Banking Sector - a view from 30,000 feet

FX reserves. FX reserves have increased from USD 200 bn in early 2009 to USD 365 bn today. Brazil’s external solvency and liquidity position remains strong. In net terms, both the sovereign and the economy as a whole are net foreign (currency) creditors. While the currency itself is vulnerable to a sharp depreciation in the event of a balance-of-payments shock, such a shock, unlike in the past, would not have systemically destabilising con-sequences, including for the banking sector.

Second, the creditworthiness of the government is so-lid. For what it is worth, it carries an investment grade rating. The fiscal stance is sufficiently conservative to ensure the continued decline in the net debt-to-GDP ra-

tio. On current trends, it might fall to as low as 30% of GDP by 2015-16 from 36-38% of GDP at the moment. Gross debt remains relatively high, but to a significant degree this reflects public sector asset accumulation (e.g. lending to official financial institutions and FX reserve accumulation). The government’s capacity to support the financial sector in the unlikely event of a crisis is considerable and will continue to grow as government debt continues to decline.

The government has ample scope to recapitalise the banking sector. A back-of-the-envelope calculation demonstrates this. Gross general government debt at present amounts to 55% of GDP or so. Assuming – very conservatively – a real ‘equilibrium interest rate’ of 7%,

real GDP growth of 3% and a primary surplus of 2.4% (below the present 3.1% of GDP target), the govern-ment could afford an increase in debt of 10-20% of GDP (equivalent to 20-40% of total bank lending) without undermining debt sustainability. Given that the general government has claims on official financial institutions (mostly BNDES) amounting to 7-8% of GDP, with the latter accounting for 10% of GDP of bank lending, it is clear that the government’s ability to support the ban-king sector is actually far greater, potentially amoun-ting to 2/3 of all domestic bank lending – and this assu-mes that the government would not impose any losses on banks’ equity and debt holders. In short, the govern-ment is in a position to provide a very substantial back-stop in the unlikely event of a banking sector crisis.

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Author: Markus JaegerEditor: Maria Laura Lanzeni

Deutsche Bank Research is responsible for macroeco-nomic analysis within Deutsche Bank Group and acts

as consultant for the bank, its clients and stakeholders. We analyse relevant trends for the bank in financial

markets, the economy and society and highlight risks and opportunities. DB Research delivers high-quality,

independent analysis and actively promotes public debate on economic, fiscal, labour market and social

policy issues.

Brazilian Banking Sector - a view from 30,000 feet

Given large capital buffers at the systemic level actual losses will obviously be far smaller. Brazil and Brazili-an banks are currently benefiting from strong labour markets, rising real incomes, ample capital inflows and historically low real interest rates – and the econo-my is expected to pick up steam in the second half of this year. Historically, however, periods of rapid credit growth usually lead to an increase in credit risk. Brazil is unlikely to be an exception. The good news is that – at the systemic level – capital buffers look adequate to cope with rising default rates.

In short, the outlook for the banking sector is fair. True, Brazil has experienced bank failures over the past ten years, but they never represented a serious risk to sys-temic banking sector stability.The same is likely to hold true in the foreseeable future. That said, a sustained economic downturn, including a weakening of the la-bour market, would negatively impact on banks’ con-sumer loan portfolios, not least because this segment has experienced the highest growth in recent years. A moderation in consumer lending is desirable. Consu-mer lending (excluding mortgage lending) is already quite high. For consumer lending to continue to expand at a solid but sustainable rate, mortgage lending would have to take off. Declining nominal and real interest ra-tes, if sustained, might yet make this a possibility.


14 Emerging Markets: Working on a lower risk-profile

Emerging markets: Working on a lower risk pro-file and preparing for leading the new world order

By 2017 emerging economies (e.g. China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey) will take up more than 50% of world GDP. Nevertheless

the valid growth in the emerging nations is slowing down and they are not able anymore to report stellar numbers year in, year out. Growth is declining due to constraints in the availability of natural resources (like energy and materials), environmental concerns, investment capital access, local wage increase (or more general inflation) and declining demand in some regions (e.g. Eurozone still facing financial crisis). Although the reduced growth can be seen as a challenge, a period of relative stability can also be seen as an opportunity. For example, where in the past little attention was given to productivity (as labour costs were still only a fraction) this now can be overtaken by process optimization. The same may be true for safety, health and environmental consideration (SHE). Also opening up capital markets for foreign investment, governance improvements and advancement in financial reporting standards may be the actions taken to pave the way for another long-term period of substantial growth in the emerging economies. All the control measures mentioned and if taken appropriately (by governments and industries) may prohibit the emerging countries to run into unmanageable economies. And so the risk profile of the emerging zones may go down with this relatively lower growth, if this period is regarded as a good phase of reflection indeed. And as we all know it is not just growth which is a value driver, the inextricable risk profile is a dominant value driver as well. There is no growth without risk as there is no return without risk! Growth, return and risk are communicating barrels and go hand in hand consequently.

The impact of a reduced risk profile may be substantial as this may be applicable to the cumulative economic growth so far. In many aspect the economic fundamentals and growth

prospect of the emerging world remain superior to those of the more developed world. Typically this relates to the huge home markets as the emerging countries already account for around 80% of the world population (which is appr. 5.5bn people). Also the average customer purchasing power in these countries is picking up very rapidly. The typical management thinking of Western companies e.g. economies of

scale, skimming and standard costs based upon normal infrastructure occupation are not reserved to the West anymore. And so where the West will go into a phase of relative instability (e.g. restructuring) the East may enter a zone of relative stability which means the East may still be in an advanced position to run the future global economic order. In all the possible scenario’s the emerging countries will play a role in the global economic arena that is more radically than ever before.

FoedererDFK is an international chain of CPA, tax advisory and consultancy services that can help governments and companies to prepare adequately for the new world order that is arriving soon.

Johan Daams, chairman of the board of FoedererDFK, Netherlands

Tjeu Blommaert, part-time partner at FoedererDFK and accounting professor at the University of Maastricht

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Emerging Markets - The bullish trend for 2013?

Emerging Markets – The bullish trend for 2013?

At the beginning of the current year there was a heated discussion if the global economy will re-cover from the European sovereign debt crisis

and the slowdown of the US economy. Moreover, most investors were frightened to invest in equity markets with the result that many investors looked for a safe harbor in Gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Being aware of this cyclical movement Sigma Investments de-cided to look for alternative investments vehicles which are not heavily driven by systematic risk of the involved economies. After a promising analysis of the macroeco-nomy of emerging markets our members decided to ex-plore further the prospective investment instruments.

Besides the performance the other critical influencing factors for investing in the passively managed Fidelity Emerging Markets Fund (FEMKX) were low cost and a high degree of diversification guaranteeing us the abi-lity to minimize the idiosyncratic risk exposure of our investment.

The fund comparison of the best performing Emerging Market Funds showed that the FEMKX seeks capital ap-preciation. The fund normally invests at least 80% of assets in securities of issuers in emerging markets and other investments that are tied economically to emer-ging markets. It primarily invests in common stocks

and allocates investments across different emerging market countries. The fund uses fundamental analysis of factors such as each issuers financial condition and the industry position, as well as market and economic conditions to select investments.

Even if Stock markets, especially foreign markets are volatile and can decline significantly in response to ad-verse issuer, regulatory, market , political or economic developments our research showed that the risk expo-sure is justified by diversification of our other invest-ments. Nonetheless, with the diminishing GDP growth rates of some BRIC states Sigma Investments is con-fident that the chosen investment vehicle is the right choice to participate in an attractive recovering market segment.

Maxime von Wallenberg Pachaly External Relations Commissioner Sigma Investments

Performance (AS of 2/28/2013; *YTD as of 3/8/2013) Source: Morningstar


16 Sponsor Overview

Sponsor overview

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Sponsor Overview

FOCUS

The World of SCOPE|FOCUS

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Most seen people at the sbe

The Most Seen People at the SBE is an established series containing identical questions that will feature in total 20 persons from the university, who are seen the most by students. This third edition will bring to you interviews eleven to fifteen with Jos Lemmink, Richard Thal, Miel Moonen, Securitas employee Roy Smeets, and Sjef from the Preuverij.

Jos Lemmink is the current dean of the School of Business and Economics. Lemmink is one of the founders of the Ser-vice Science Factory, an inno-vative place for inventing new and improving existing servi-ces. On 1 May 2011 he was also appointed to the Canon-Océ Endowed Chair in Business Services Innovation.

If you could choose any job position for one week, which one would it be? Why?

I would like to have a carte blanche for being in char-ge of an experimental setting, where a new way of PBL system is introduced. In my opinion, we could change the PBL system to create a learning experience for stu-dents and companies at the same time. For that I would bring students and business people together, so that they can learn with and from each other.

What do you like about your current job?

It is great to contribute to strategic discussions for the SBE. I also like to connect the university to the outside world and create even more cooperation with interna-tional universities and establish an international envi-ronment.

Tell us, what book we should definitely read!

The book “Teaming” by Amy C. Edmondson is very valuable concerning team work. She also wrote an article “Teamwork on the Fly” about how to be pro-ductive in teams. The other book I would really ad-vice people to read is “The Mussolini Canal” by An-tonio Pennacchi. The book spans about 100 years of Italian history and deals with northern Italians who are sent down to farm the marches outside Rome. They face many difficulties such as Malaria.

The craziest food you have ever eaten? Where have you done so?

The craziest food I have ever eaten was definitely sea cucumber, which was still half alive. I have eaten it in China, but did not like it. The desert, that consisted out of sticky rice, was not much of an improvement to the meal.

What has been your biggest success?

As my biggest success I would mention that we, at the SBE, still manage to be excellent at PBL even with 4,500 students at our faculty. Further I am proud that we can maintain this excellence even though we face financial and scientific pressures.

What do you think about the situation of the university and its future as being one of the leading Business Uni-versities in Europe?

We’re right in the spotlight of the discussion of the fu-ture of learning and MBA programs. At the SBE we use the very unique PBL program, which is rarely used at other Business Faculties throughout Europe. When I visited the Deans Conference in Istanbul, people were really interested in the way of teaching at our faculty. Our situation is very unique in Europe, I would say.

What three advices would you give every student along?

1. Do not only learn, but also contribute. Be open and speak up.2. Really use your time at university to dig into the sci-entific part of your studies and be curious, but also cri-tical about theories. 3. Connect to people worldwide and take the chance of your term abroad. Try to gain as much experience as possible.


20 Most seen people at the SBE


Richard Thal is because of his role as facility manager the indisputable ruler of all buildings and facilities at the School of Business and Econo-mics. Due to his commitment, all operational processes at the university run smoothly and efficiently.

If you could choose any job position for one week, which one would it be? Why? I would choose any job position (voluntary) at The Foun-dation for Adopting Graves at the American Cemetery in Margraten to honour those who died for our freedom today.

What do you like about your current job? What I like about my job is, considering myself being a service provider, to get things organized. To arrange things you have to be a team player and I am proud to be part of a great team at SBE. Considering that as well, the job fits me like a glove.

What has been your biggest success? In short I am very proud of all my achievements so far.

However, reviewing my life (I am 43), I have also lear-ned that success is a subjective concept. I am married to a wonderful wife and we are blessed with three lovely children. Being able to live life our way is our biggest success so far.

The craziest food you have ever eaten? Where have you done so? Definitely me eating Escargots, a famous (French) dish of cooked land snails. I ate them in the Lyon area almost 13 years ago and had filthy thoughts of eating them. In the end they were delicious, but the filthy thoughts didn’t disappear. Never ate them again.

Tell us, what book we should definitely read! You have to read the book “From farmland to Soldiers Cemetery”. The book contains eyewitness accounts and other relevant information about the development of the American War Cemetery and Memorial in Mar-graten Netherlands, from 1944 on. It puts life in a diffe-rent perspective.

What three advices would you give every student along? To quote Marcus Aurelius “accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart”. A lesson of life I learned.

Miel Moonen is lecturer, course coordinator, and tu-tor of several courses at the School of Business and Eco-nomics. After having studied fiscal economics at Maast-richt University and having worked as a tax adviser, he joined the teaching staff of our faculty.

If you could choose any job position for one week, which one would it be? Why?I would love to present Top Gear for a week. Driving around a race track in fast and expensive cars seems like great fun. Furthermore, the show also films seg-ments on remarkable locations around the world.

What do you like about your current job?I really enjoy working with young people who are eager to learn and who I can help in this process, especially when it is combined with having some fun along the way. I also like the sense of accomplishment I get when students finish a course and express joy and gratitude about what they have learned and later demonstrate this in the exam as well. Furthermore, I have a bunch of great colleagues and I enjoy the freedom I have in my job, especially concerning the courses I coordinate.

What has been your biggest success?It’s difficult to call one particular thing my biggest suc-cess. Sometimes what seems to be a small success at first can have a bigger impact in the long run. From a teaching perspective I can say that I am especially proud of the positive feedback I receive on the two courses I have been coordinating for a number of years. Furthermore, I feel honoured to have been nominated

21



for several awards by colleagues in my department. Also, I am proud of the Leading in Learning project some colleagues and I have just finished for incoming exchange students in which we try to help them adjust to the challenges of our PBL system.

The craziest food you have ever eaten? Where have you done so?Perhaps unfortunately, I haven’t really eaten that much crazy food in my life, especially compared to many of the students to which I also ask this question during our introductions in the first tutorial. But I would love to try some crazy foods in life.

Tell us, what book we should definitely read!From some of the books I recently finished, I would certainly recommend The Big Short and especially Boo-merang, both from Michael Lewis. They provide great insights into events surrounding the financial crisis. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, although I am not even an Apple user.

What three advices would you give every student along?1. Make the most of your student life. It’s over before you know it2. Try to see the joy in everyday life, even if it’s just so-mething small.3. Find a job you love and you never have to work a day in your life.

Roy Smeets is one of the 20 “Securitas“ at the SBE. Roy and his colleagues are responsbile for all security concerns at the university and are especially valuab-le to FOCUS since they pro-tect our office from poten-tial burglars.

If you could choose any job position for one week, which one would it be? Why?

There are many job positions I would like to be in for one week. The most interesting one to me would be being a CEO of a big MNE. This is because as a CEO one can influence and change things and further earn a lot of money. Another job position, probably every Dutch boy dreams of, is to be a football player of the national team.

What do you like about your current job?

There is a lot of freedom, everyone can have a schedule that suits him. Further, I like working in the evening and at a university, because I like students and the SBE.

What has been your biggest success?

As my biggest success in life I would see my family and the fact that I went away from my home at a very young age but still managed my life well.

The craziest food you have ever eaten? Where have you done so?

In Egypt I had bull brain for dinner. It tasted very good. I had it twice there actually, but have not asked for cow brain at a Dutch butcher.

Tell us, what book we should definitely read!

Arthur Japin‘s „The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi“. It is about a true story of an African boy, who was sent to be educated in Holland as a guest of the royal family. It is interesting to read and shows the discrepancies and problems between the African and European people during the 19th century.

What three advices would you give every student?

1. Take your studies seriously2. Party, but study hard and succeed in life.3. Try to be there for all people, rich and poor, in the job you will be working at!



Sjef is the co-owner of the fa-mous Preuverij. The Preuverij is the place-to-be on Tuesday evenings, since all SCOPE associations come together for their weekly drinks. Sjef and his colleague Freek have been hosts of some of SCOPE|FOCUS‘s most memo-rable nights.

If you could choose any job position for one week, which one would it be? Why?That is hard question. I think I would like to be Pri-me Minister. There should happen some changes in Holland and the politicians are not doing much, so it would be great to try and bring some change as Prime Minister. I would not like to be in the media too much as a minister though.

What do you like about your current job?I like working with people and socializing. It’s also very nice to be in touch with many students as well as locals from Maastricht. Usually it’s not too stressful, but enjo-yable. Especially when people are having a great time.

What has been your biggest success?Well, in my business life it is that I have been owning the Preuverij for six and a half years now and that it is quite successful. In my personal life my biggest suc-cess was, that I started to ride racing bike and climbed one of the hardest routes of the Tour de France which is Mont Ventoux (The Mont Ventoux is also infamously known as the “Beast of Provence“, due to its degree of difficulty during the Tour de France).

The craziest food you have ever eaten? Grasshoppers. I bought them somewhere in Holland and cooked them myself in the deep fryer. It tasted like chips, as most things out of the deep fryer.

Tell us, what book we should definitely read!There is a lot I think. For students: You should read your study books. I’m also a fan of the Dan Brown se-ries including Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code. Furthermore, I very much like the diary of Anne Frank.

What three advices would you give every student along?1. Visit the Preuv as much as you can!2. Put enough effort in your studies and be successful.3. Enjoy your time in Maastricht and enjoy being a stu-dent while you can.

May 15 - May 17

German speaking Students Only

participation fee: 30€

Subscribe at scope-focus.nl

Registration Deadline:

April 21

FOCUS on your future!FinancialExperience

Düsseldorfthe stage is yours

Remember when you were a KID...

It still is - become an entrepreneur

Hotel l’Empereur 10th Congress May 8, 2013

and you thought anything was possible?

FOCUS on your future!


24 Congress

Congress

Dear readers,

SCOPE|FOCUS in partnership with Maastricht University is pleased to present the tenth annual congress. Over the past decade the congress has taken many shapes, offering students a direct look into the world beyond their study. Inspiring spee-ches by great minds such as Nobel prize winner Professor Harry Markowitz, for-mer German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer have given students a glimpse into their potential career.

What makes the congress one of Maastricht’s most prestige events is its ability to turn into something different every year by building around a topic we feel benefits you the most. Therefore we have chosen the theme:

“Entrepreneurship- In a down market: Is it better to create a job than to find one?”

Although the term “entrepreneurship” is used in everyday vernacular, the way in which it is used and what people mean by it vary. But what defines an entrepre-neur? And why are entrepreneurial skills so valuable? Can they be learned or are people born with them? Most of us want to start our own business. Some of us even already have a concept in mind. Something we want to create, change, alter or build that will revolutionize the way society (thinks). But how does an idea turn into re-ality? How do you turn the intangible into something real? Who will help you and can you trust them with your idea? How do you convince someone to devote their time, energy and money toward your idea? There are a lot of questions behind this topic that you have probably asked yourself. How far have your answers come?

This year’s congress puts you face to face with people that can answer all of these questions and more. Come hear an entrepreneur’s tale of how he and two friends built one of the largest and fastest growing Internet travel sites in Europe. Listen to a venture capitalist’s first hand opinion to find out what investors want to see in a product, how they choose their investments and what to watch out for. And last but not least, find out how these skills aren’t just for building, but also for main-taining and growing companies. Gain an entrepreneurial perspective and find out why, even if you don’t want to build your own company, you will still need these skill sets.

How do you survive in an ever-changing world? Some adapt to change in order to survive - others cause it. Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg… These people where thinkers, doers, innovators until they came up with a new word for them - entrepreneurs. They changed the way we think about what is possible and changed their surroun-dings forever. How will you change yours?

You are cordially invited to this year’s congress, which will take place on Wednes-day, 8 May 2013, at the Hotel l’Empereur.

On behalf of this year‘s Congress committee, we hope to see you there,Niklas Peulen

Time Schedule

13.30 Registration

13.50 Opening Speech Niklas Peulen

14.00 Word of welcome Prof. Dr. Philip Vergauwen

14.30 A Venture Capita- lists perspecitve: Oliver Gajada

15.30 Break

16.00 An Entrepreneur‘s success story

16.45 From Entrepreneur- to Intrapreneurship:

18.00 Network Drink

Location

Amrâth Grand Hotel De L‘Empereur Stationsstraat 26221 BP Maastricht

25


Congress speakers

Congress speakers

Oliver Gajda - chairman european crowdfunding network

Oliver Gajda is co-founder and Chairman of the European Crowdfunding Network AISBL. He also works as an independent consultant on sustainable, innovative and open projects, start-ups and non-profits. Prior to this he worked with private equi-ty and venture capital, microfinance, technology and social entrepreneurship in commercial, non-profit and trade association settings in Europe and the USA – and started his career in the publishing industry in the early 1990s. He holds Masters degrees from Solvay Business School and from the University of Hamburg and stu-died at SEESS (UCL) in London.

Malte Siewert - co-founder trivago

Malte Siewert is co-founder of Trivago and is responsible for the areas of finance, sales and business development. Prior to Trivago he worked for HSBC and Merrill Lynch for six years, where he advised numerous M&A and capital market transac-tions.

Malte studied in Greifswald, Washington, and Leipzig. He holds an MBA from the Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

Special guest

Will be announced soon!

Prof. Dr. Philip Vergauwen - Host of the event

He is the managing director of the international executive Master of Finance and Control (EMFC) program, a joint-venture of Maastricht University and the Univer-siteit van Amsterdam. Philip Vergauwen chairs the Accounting & Information Ma-nagement Department of the SBE and is professor in Management Accounting & Control. He completed his Master of Science in Economics at the London School of Economics in 1992 and completed a Ph.D. in Economic Sciences at the Katholieke Universiteit Leven in 1998. Afterwards, he has been active at several universities; he was the dean of the Faculty of Business Economics of the University Hasselt (Belgium) for the last three years and was chairman of the University Council of Maastricht University. As of September 1st, 2013 Prof. Dr. Vergauwen will assume the dean position for Maastricht University SBE.


26 Emerging Markets - A macro analysis

Sigma Investments

What is an emergent market?Defining an emergent market is nowadays rather complex than clear. Thus finding the

right definition for emerging markets can be some kind of a challenge. Emergent markets were not always emergent markets. The first description of emerging markets was originated in the late 1970’s: “Less Eco-nomically Developed Countries” (LEDCs). This term was simply derived from the comparison to developed countries such as the U.S., Japan and Western Euro-pe. Nevertheless, due to the fact that this caption was rather negative the displacement of LEDCs followed rapidly and the phrase “emerging markets” was intro-duced. Despite the new title discomposure still existed and continues to exists. No guarantee is present that countries actually can transform from a less developed country to a developed country or even worse, against the global general trend, have to step back from a de-veloped country to a less developed country. As is ap-parent, the definition of emergent markets is hard to encompass, not even including all the others qualitati-ve and quantitative factors. In 1999, Dr. Kvint, an eco-nomist, strategist and professor at La Salle University, Pennsylvenia, USA, published the following definition:

“Emerging market country is a society transitioning from a dictatorship to a free-market-oriented-econo-my, with increasing economic freedom, gradual inte-gration with the Global Marketplace and with other members of the GEM (Global Emerging Market), an expanding middle class, improving standards of living, social stability and tolerance, as well as an increase in cooperation with multilateral institutions”

This definition goes one step ahead and broadens the emergent market economically. It further takes into ac-count qualitative factors, such as living standards and political cooperation therefore additionally expanding the definition of emergent markets.

However, emerging markets and growth potential are jointly associated, so that in the recent years terms like “rapidly developing economies” have been used with succeeding titles such as: “BRIC states” (Brazil, Russia, India, China), “Next Eleven” (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indo-nesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Sou-th Korea, Turkey and Vietnam), “CIVETS” (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa)

Sigma Investments

Sigma Investments is the student investment club of the School of Business and Economics of Maastricht University. Sigma Investment was founded in 1976 by students of Maastricht University, it has since been Sigma’s goal to bridge the gap between theoretical academia and the world of professionals in the field of finance. Due to legal limitations Sigma had to change its structure in 2001.

Sigma Investment tries to bring financial mar-kets closer to students. To achieve this objec-tive, we hold every week meetings in which we present in a macroeconomic perspective industries and afterwards companies from a microeconomic perspective to give students the opportunity to invest their own money in one of our portfolios.

Ever since there have been two managed port-folios of about the same weight. Sigma Invest-ments cooperates with several other associa-tions of the School of Business and Economics, especially SCOPE|FOCUS (former: FS Focus. former: Future).

Because Sigma Investments has a long history, the industry ties and alumni database have improved over the years. Furthermore, it gives students the opportunity to get in contact with companies and professionals in the field of finance via in-house days or other events.

and Big Emerging Markets (BEMs) (Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey). From the BEM economies the latest description for emerging markets is derived: Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC’s). The-se are states that are not yet equal to developed coun-tries but have, on a macro point of view, outpaced their emerging companions.

At Sigma Investments we are of course not only inte-rested in qualitative factors but also quantitative data. In 2012, Julien Vercueil, assistant professor at INALCO, Paris, France, presented three characteristics for an emergent market:

“1. Intermediate income: its GDP (Gross Domestic Pro-dut) per capita income is comprised between 10% and 75% of the average EU per capita income.2. Catching-up growth: during at least the last decade, it has experienced a brisk economic growth that has nar-rowed the income gap with advanced economies.3. Institutional transformations and economic opening: during the same period, it has undertaken profound in-stitutional transformations which contributed to integ-rate it more deeply into the world economy. “

Looking further for investment opportunities the best guidelines to find an appealing country are investment information sources. These sources such as The Eco-nomist track national indexes and are well informed. Other examples are the FTSE list, the S&P list and the Dow Jones list. These lists can be employed to gather substantial information about emerging markets. Ne-vertheless, not every list considers every lesser develo-ped country as an emerging market and thus cannot be found in every list.

Analysis of an emergent market. When analyzing an emerging market there are several steps to take into account. First of all, it is of great importance to gain a general overview of the country. This involves se-arching for demographic data. Population size, GDP, Human Development Index (HDI) and unemployment rate might be factors to be considered when thinking about investing into an emergent market. In reviewing these demographic factors it is possible to assess the countries growth potential for instance the amount of

27


Emerging Markets - A macro analysis

Emerging markets - a macro analysis

young people in the population. More favorably if the domestic GDP has increased over the last years, this im-plies stable economic growth.

The trading behavior of emergent market should be re-cognized too. What are the main exports and imports and to what extent do they account for the national GDP? Do the emergent market experience an increase in trading? Are the main trading partners also emer-ging markets of developed markets? What are the judi-cial and legitimate regulations and laws to obey to such as tariffs and quotas? All these questions should be po-sitively answered when thinking about investing in an emerging market option.

As previous mentioned, several lists name different countries as emergent markets. Nevertheless, they all give an economic outlook for said emergent markets. In these outlooks, firstly the national GDP is forecas-ted, following several other factors including private consumption, government consumption, gross fixed in-vestments and of course net exports and imports. Fore-casts should most definitely be viewed with caution although spotting a positive trend in a forecast might be an interesting fact to consider. Currency risk is ano-ther factor that is highly essential to consider. This is a broad issue which encloses different characteristics such as inflation and deflation, debt analysis, possible budget deficits to GDP, yield of government bonds and their default risk and of course the currency itself his-torically compared to developed currencies. Financial stability should be one of the core aspects when analy-zing an emergent market.

Investing in an emerging market is a very interesting but time intensive task to fulfill. You have to consider several key factors and might want to ask if this emer-gent market really is an emergent market or is the country already on the way to being a newly industria-lized country or potentially a developed country.

Alexander StrasserPR Officer Sigma Investments

Sigma Investments

Sigma Investments is the student investment club of the School of Business and Economics of Maastricht University. Sigma Investment was founded in 1976 by students of Maastricht University, it has since been Sigma’s goal to bridge the gap between theoretical academia and the world of professionals in the field of finance. Due to legal limitations Sigma had to change its structure in 2001. Ever since there has been two managed portfolios of about the same weight. Sigma Investments cooperates with several other associations of the School of Business and Economics, especially SCOPE|FOCUS. Because Sigma Investments has a long history, the industry ties and alumni database have improved over the years. Sigma Investment tries to bring financial markets closer to students. To achieve this objective, we hold weekly meetings in which we present industries and companies to give students the opportunity to invest their own money in one of our portfolios. Emerging markets are also becoming an important factor at Sigma Investments. Therefore, Sigma Investments recently bought an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) consisting of a great variety of emerging countries.

The weekly meetings of Sigma Investments take place every Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the SBE. We are always looking for interested students and new members.

For further Information visit our webpage www.sig-mainvestments.nl or write an e-mail to:[email protected]


28 Alumni talk - Milo Houben

Alumni Talk - Milo Houben

Milo Houben

Age: 27

Residence: Frankfurt am Main

Employer: Royal Bank of Scotland

Current Position: Analyst ECA Orientation

FOCUS Committee: FS FOCUS Board 2007-2008

(PR&Magazine), Board Weekend Committee 2009

Studies: BSc IB & MSc IB (Finance track)

Year of Graduation: 2010

Favourite Drink: Gin - Tonic

Craziest Food: FOCUS Ski trip 2010, consuming a large “Americain” within a minute as a desperately needed midnight

snack…

Life Motto: “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody” – Bill Cosby

Reading through recent editions of the INFOCUS magazine reminds me of how much fun I had when I was an active member/board member. It was the kind of work hard play hard mentality with an international

mindset that prepared me for my internships as well as my first job, but it also gave me some very rewarding and long-lasting friendships. Moreover, it crossed the gap that sometimes exists between the Dutch and Germans in Maastricht (and might even have led me to take on my first job in Germany, who knows). Therefore I am happy to see that FOCUS is still organizing high-quality recruiting events and is thus adding value to the SBE by preparing students for working life. (And I trust they are also still organizing high-qua-lity social events…)

Following my graduation in August 2010, and after a two-month RBS gra-duate training program with colleagues from all over the world in London, I moved to Frankfurt where I focused on the origination and execution of M&A deals in the power & utilities and infrastructure sector in Germany and Cen-tral Eastern Europe. We had a great team and shared quite some successes. After RBS decided to withdraw from the M&A market in early 2012, I moved to the Emerging Markets DCM team where I am focusing on the origination and structuring of Export Credit Agency-backed loans. These are loans ty-pically extended to companies in emerging markets in order to finance the import of capital goods from western countries and these loans are insured by government guarantees from the exporting countries. In this role I cover exports originating from Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the Be-nelux and provide loans to large corporates in e.g. Russia, Indonesia or Ka-sachstan.

In my job I interact with a lot of different people with diverse backgrounds, both inside and outside the bank, and believe FOCUS has helped me to pre-pare for such a role. Being in one or more committees helps you get acquain-ted with the benefits and pitfalls of devising communication strategies, or-ganizing meetings and making joint decisions within a multifunctional team. Therefore, I can only recommend you to get (more) active within FOCUS. At least my experiences have served me well both in my professional and perso-nal life, and perhaps most importantly, they have also given me some clues as to how to combine the two.

Kind regards,

Milo Houben

29


Alumni talk - Sander Dassen

Sander Dassen

Age: 25

Residence: London

Employer: Morgan Stanley

Current Position: Analyst Global Capital Markets -

Insurance Solutions

FOCUS Committee: 2008 INFOCUS; 2008-2009 FOCUS

board: Treasurer & Secretary

Studies: BSc IB & MSc IB Finance

Year of Graduation: 2011

Favourite Drink: Cherry Coke

Craziest Food: I once ordered, by accident, a plate of chicken feet in China. However, I

did not manage to eat them...

Life Motto: Life is too important to be taken

seriously!

Writing this piece made me look back to my time with FOCUS. Probably one of the best decisions I made as a student was to join the FOCUS board in 2008. We had great fun that year and

it has been a very useful experience for me. I developed myself both pro-fessionally and socially during that year and made many friends that I am still very close to today.

After the board year, it was time to start thinking about what to do next. Having always been very interested in financial markets and wanting to start my career abroad, moving to London to start working for an invest-ment bank made a lot of sense to me.

In July 2011, I joined the Nomura 2011 analyst class. The banks graduate programs start with an extensive training with graduates from all over the world. After about six weeks of training, I joined the Insurance Solu-tions team, which provide capital solutions, such as reinsurance to Euro-pean life insurers.

In October 2012, I moved to Morgan Stanley’s insurance team. The team provides reinsurance solutions and hybrid capital to European insurers. Morgan Stanley is a great company; I work on a daily basis with peop-le that are friendly, driven and very bright. It gives me the opportunity to learn about innovative financial solutions and the latest development in the financial markets. However, you not only develop your technical skills, but also learn that teamwork and communication is essential in doing a good job.

It is definitely true that banking is not a 9-to-5 job, however, I still have enough time to enjoy London which is a wonderful place to work and live. The city is very dynamic with a large community of young, international people and there are always so many things going on. I love to try out new restaurants, have a pint in my local English pub, see a Premier League game or visit one of the many rock concerts or festivals in the city.

I may repeat myself here, but the FOCUS board was very good prepara-tion for the start of my professional career and I can highly recommend everybody to join FOCUS as an active member.

Kind regards,

Sander Dassen

Alumni Talk - Sander Dassen


30 SCOPE|FOCUS Committees

SCOPE|FOCUS Committees

At the beginning of the second semester, SCOPE|FOCUS recruited new active members for the following commit-tees: Maastricht Finance Day, Frankfurt Banking Tour, and already for the next Congress edition. Furthermore, we have introduced a new media committee, which will support SCOPE|FOCUS with PR activities and will also have the task to research for technology to streamline processes within our organization.

Maastricht Finance Day

Justus Haller - Dionne Mestrum - Phillip Meyer - Nicole Owczarek - Jascha Wrede - Pascal Lelkens

Congress

Thomas Genster - Sophie Xu - Jasper Seuren - Maren Ostheim - Phillip Zumbusch - Ellis Loohuis

Frankfurt Banking Tour

Christian Moeller - Maximilian Richter - Christoph Wechsler

Media Committee

Jack Chaffey - Britta Krämer

© 2012 PricewaterhouseCoopers B.V. (KvK 3412089) Alle rechten voorbehouden.

www.werkenbijpwc.nl

Soms weet je precies wat je wiltSoms sta je open voor suggesties

Kom verder op werkenbijpwc.nl

Je hebt tijdens je studie alle mogelijke kennis opgedaan. En nu wil je aan de slag. Op een plek waar je al je ambities kwijt kunt. Waar de lat hoog ligt en waar je samenwerkt met professionals. Je start je carrière vliegend en gaat recht op je doel af. Dat is: het beste in jezelf naar boven halen.

Neem voor meer informatie contact op met een recruiter:

Volg werkenbijpwc op Facebook en Twitter

088 792 87 [email protected] www.werkenbijpwc.nl/contact

PwC RC Standaard WO precies.indd 1 10/8/12 12:02 PM

Are you ready?

» to work together with 70 active members

» to cooperate with our 40 sponsors

» to organize 17 recruitment events

» to have the best year of your student life

Apply for a board position at

SCOPE|FOCUS!

More information at www.scope-focus.nl

Visit our information evening on Thursday, April 18!

Registration Deadline:April 31

33


New board 2013 - 2014

New board 2013 - 2014

Chairman - The Chairman represents SCOPE|FOCUS, guides it on the long-term, and acts as a manager on all levels within the association on the short term. The most important tasks adhering to the above are keeping track of all issues encompassing the association (its board, active members, and external parties) and the coordination of it. In a nutshell, the function of the Chairman of SCOPE|FOCUS is to be strong and guide the association as a whole, instruct and keep oversight on the full board, and be the first person to approach for external parties on the one hand, while on the other hand being that person to whom other board members can go and share and express issues with.

Secretary - The main responsibilities of the Secretary are ensuring smooth communication both internally, hence with active, passive members and within the board, and externally, i.e. with our sponsors, the university, and alumni. This means taking care of our member and alumni databases, performing administrative tasks, sending out mailings, and improving all communicational aspects within the association. As SCOPE|FOCUS organizes many activities the Secretary also functions as a coordinator of some of these events. This includes the Traders Trophy and several workshops at the University. Furthermore, one of the Secretary’s tasks over the past years has been to chair the International Financial Orientation committee.

Treasurer - The Treasurer is responsible for everything that concerns SCOPE|FOCUS‘s finances. The main task is to maintain the bookkeeping, set and watch the budgets and keeping track of outstanding debtors. As a Treasurer you should enjoy working with numbers but it is not necessary to have detailed knowledge about accounting. You will learn all you need to know about accounting and bookkeeping during your board year or in a special course. The tasks of the Treasurer are not isolated by themselves but require integration of multiple functions and input of fellow board members. Besides that, the Treasurer is also responsible for several other activities such as the International Financial Master Class.

Activities - Being the Commissioner Activities makes you responsible for all of SCOPE|FOCUS‘s academic and social activities. This means that you start the process by forming and starting the committees. Afterwards, you are there to guide, help and supervise all committees. While doing this you are the ‘contact’ between the board and the committees. It is a very interesting position within the board as you get the chance to meet many people, have an influence on all events and are res-ponsible for managing the committees. Furthermore, it is your responsibility that members feel at ease within SCOPE|FOCUS and bring them closer together by organizing social activities like the Active Member Weekend and Active Member Day.

External nl- As Commissioner External Relations Netherlands, you are mainly responsible for our Dutch sponsors. My main tasks are to maintain the contact with our existing sponsors, to acquire new interesting sponsors, to provide com-mittees with company contacts and to organize activities like the New Year‘s Drink, the End of Year Activity, and the Ernst & Young Luxembourg In-house Day. Are you extrovert and enthusiastic? Do you like to talk to recruiters and would you like to gain more insight into several different company cultures? Would you like to be the face of SCOPE|FOCUS to our Dutch exter-nal parties? Then Commissioner External Relations Netherlands is something for you!

External ger - As Commissioner External Relations Germany, you are responsible for all our German and internati-onal sponsors. Main tasks are to maintain the long-term contact with our existing sponsors and to acquire new interesting sponsors. Additionally, as External Relations you provide committees with company contacts and organize activities such as the the End of Year Activity, In-house days, and workshops. Are you extrovert and enthusiastic? Do you like to talk to recrui-ters and would you like to gain more insight into several different company cultures? Would you like to professionally repre-sent SCOPE|FOCUS to our external parties? Then Commissioner External Relations Germany is something for you!

Pr & infocus - The PR commissioner’s aim is to promote SCOPE|FOCUS and its activities mostly within, but also beyond the boundaries of our faculty and university. Therefore, you are responsible for the entire promotion campaign, for creating e.g. company brochures, flyers, and posters, and for maintaining and updating the SCOPE|FOCUS website. Coming along, is also the position as chief editor of the INFOCUS magazine, where it will be your task – in close cooperation with the INFOCUS committee –to come up with fascinating topics, and finally to publish two exciting and interesting INFOCUS magazines. Last but not least, the PR commissioner is also head of the Social Activities Committee, which is responsible for organizing the famous Wall Street parties and several other social activities.


34

Ernst & young luxembourg

Ernst & Young Luxembourg

On February 20th 2013, 37 highly motivated stu-dents set course for a one day trip to the Ernst & Young offices in Luxembourg. After a drive of ap-

proximately 2,5 hours we arrived in Luxembourg. The expertise of one of our native participants appeared to be of great help, after the navigation system failed to direct us to the right location. With a short delay of 20 minutes, we were warmly welcomed at the 3rd floor of the Ernst & Luxembourg office. After a short refresh-ment with coffee, tea, croissants and pains au chocolat, we were invited to the first two presentations.

Did you know that Luxembourg relatively speaking con-sumes most cigarettes and petrol per day? Did you know that Luxembourg counts 118 unique banks? Or did you know that Luxembourg only has a university for five ye-ars now?

These and more facts were discussed during the first presentation on working and living in Luxembourg. Although being a very small country, Luxembourg dis-tinguishes itself from other nations by favourable laws and niche strategies. It appears to be a highly attractive region for companies to settle due to the presence of multiple EC headquarters, the central location it has for transportation/logistics companies and the extensive R&D in mainly biotechnology. The effects of these well set niche strategies pays out and many large internati-onal firms now have European headquarters in Luxem-bourg.

These developments have direct consequences for the work done at Ernst & Young Luxembourg. Whereas, most of Europe has been highly affected by the econo-mic crisis, Luxembourg managed to have a relatively stable economy. Therefore, Ernst & Luxembourg ma-naged to grow from a 200 people business to a 1000 people business in less than 15 years. The second pre-sentation of the day elaborated on the projects Ernst & Young Luxembourg typically is involved in. Moreover, it addressed the interesting career path one can have, once being employed at Ernst & Young. A very interes-ting side note is that at Ernst & Young Luxembourg peo-ple from 48 nationalities are employed, making it a real international experience!

After the two morning presentations, a delicious lunch was prepared including, amongst others, a nice Italian

mushroom risotto, a spinach-salmon dish and even a little Luxembourgish cheese buffet. Not only did the students use this time to fill their stomachs, they made use of the opportunity to talk to one of the numerous present employees of Ernst & Young. After this high-quality network lunch the group was split in two; peo-ple interested in audit went to the audit workshop and students interested in advisory went to the advisory workshop. In the two hours these workshops last, the students got an even more detailed impression of the projects performed at each of these service lines. Here-after, a short presentation on the career opportunities at Ernst & Young Luxembourg finalized the official part of the program.

To end the day in style a network drink was orga-nized. While enjoying a nice glass of champagne and some snacks, students had the opportunity to gather some last minute tips and tricks that might be useful for the application process. After we said the staff of Ernst & Young goodbye and made a group picture, the SCOPE|FOCUS bus left for Maastricht. On the ride home, the majority of the students seemed to be meditating or already dreaming about a successful career at Ernst & Young Luxembourg, but most and for all were reflecting on a fruitful day!

Luc NelissenChairman SCOPE|FOCUS

35


Pictures

Pictures

Ski Trip Accounting Orientation Day Blockopening - Carnival

Wall Street Party

Maastricht Business Days Ernst & Young Luxembourg Pool Evening

Blockopening - Carnival New Year’s Drink Maastricht Business Days

Ski Trip Ski Trip


36 Maastricht Business Days

Maastricht Business Days - “One step ahead!”

On the 12th and 13th of March 2013 the 18th edi-tion of the Maastricht Business Days (MBD) took place. The biggest and most prestigious recruit-

ment event, organized jointly by the study associations SCOPE|FOCUS and SCOPE|3MA was again a very suc-cessful event, giving students and companies the chan-ce to get in contact with each other. This article updates you about everything that happened on the MBD 2013. We hope that you, together with us, look back on a great event!

Most of the work of organizing the Maastricht Business Days has been done before the event. The creation of the theme was a milestone upon which all other pro-cesses have been built. Students show their eagerness by attending the MBD and show to be “One Step Ahead”. In these times, companies cannot get behind, and need to be “One Step Ahead” of competition. Finally, a suc-cessful event as the MBD can only be made future proof if it is continuously improved, the reason why the orga-nizing team should also be “One Step Ahead”.

The morning of Tuesday March 12th, was the moment of truth. For us, as organizing team, for the boards of SCOPE|FOCUS and SCOPE|3MA and for all day crew and company buddies that helped out during the MBD. We were ready for it, and expected a lot, but honestly, not 15 centimeters of fresh snow. The location of the MBD, Kasteel Vaeshartelt, was even nicer with the plain white surrounding and falling snow flakes, but it caused some problems with the busses and the company representa-tives arriving. Looking back on this issue, we can only be very proud of everyone that helped during the MBD. All activities started half an hour later in the morning, and we are still thankful for the understanding of all

company representatives and students. A problem is only there to be solved! For the students who arrived early enough, the opening program was waiting in the restaurant. In the first 45 minutes the President of the Maastricht Business Days, Marien Pastoor, and a guest speaker from Danone: Anco van Schaik entertained the audience. Mr van Schaik gave a lively presentation about his career at Danone, where he was recently an-nounced Global Purchasing Director. His presentation, closely linked to the MBD theme of “One Step Ahead”, gave the audience a clear understanding of the hurdles that need to be taken, to become successful in an inter-national company. After this part of the program, the moment came that everything started running. Selec-ted students enjoyed their workshops, aimed to better understand what kind of work specific companies are doing. Workshops last for about 2.5 hours, and really gives more insights into the companies’ culture and professional work. Next to this, it also offers the com-pany representatives the chance to see how potential employees are behaving in teams, how creative they are and what kind of management and technical skills they

posses. At the same time as the workshops, interviews were running. In an individual dialogue with one or two company representatives the students get the chance to ask company-specific questions, but also to show his or her capabilities and competencies. For companies that wanted to reach a bigger audience, presentations were organized. A morning of hard work was about to end with a well-deserved lunch at the main restaurant. In the classic rooms, three companies reserved spots to meet selected students at a recruitment lunch. Students get the chance to ask questions to company representa-tives, often from several levels within the company, in a rather informal setting. Overall, we received many po-

37


Maastricht Business Days

sitive reactions on this, especially the recruitment lun-ches were appreciated a lot by the companies as well as the students.

The Tuesday afternoon program at Kasteel Vaeshar-telt was rather the same as the morning program. The organizing team managed it to let every activity start at the scheduled time slot, and workshops, interviews and presentations from different companies were run-ning. Interviews, workshops and company presenta-tions have also been running on Wednesday, both in the morning and afternoon. After lunch, day crew and com-pany buddies assisted in the rebuilding of the restau-rant area, including the classic rooms to start the buil-ding of the company fair. This famous end of the MBD, on both Tuesday and Wednesday is appreciated a lot by companies and students! After the official program ended at 16.15, everyone got the chance to meet com-pany representatives at the company fair for an infor-mal chat. Drinks and snacks were provided, and both on Tuesday and Wednesday many students took the opportunity to step by at one of the company stands. As mentioned before, the MBD is a fantastic event, but slight adjustments have to be made every year to im-prove the quality of the event. Year after year, the or-ganization noticed an increase of first and second year bachelor students subscribing for the MBD. Orienting on the labor market and the opportunities after your studies cannot start early enough, and therefore extra career workshops were organized. UM Career Services provided an elevator pitch workshop at Kasteel Va-eshartelt, and Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship, A.S.I. Wirtschaftsberatung and Bildungsinstitut Maerz

provided participants with insights in the world of ent-repreneurship, applications and the do and don’ts when living in a digital world. The last activities took place as

a side-event at the School of Business and Economics. However, also these students could join the company fair, as a special bus was arranged to bring them to Kas-teel Vaeshartelt right after their workshop finished.

The theme of this year “One Step Ahead” was care-fully chosen, to make sure the organizing team could manage to meet all expectations from all stakeholders, being students, companies, suppliers and the boards of SCOPE|FOCUS and SCOPE|3MA. We would like to thank you for your enthusiasm during the event and for your participation. The participation of all students and all 38 international companies was the key in achieving success, and we thank you for all the positive feedback we received after the event!

Marien PastoorPresident Maastricht Business Days

In case you would like to participate in next year’s editi-on of the MBD as a company, please contact [email protected]. In case you want to understand what it takes to organize the MBD, please contact [email protected] and we will get in touch with each other.


38 New Year’s Drink

New year’s drink

On the 17th of January during the first week af-ter the well-deserved Christmas holidays, SCOPE|FOCUS invited its active members and

sponsors to its annual New Year‘s Drink. This year the event took place at the Molo 5, next to the Bassin, the small yacht harbor of Maastricht. The Molo 5 was a great location due to its exclusive flair and the delicious canapés that were served. After a warm welcome of the organizers and the first raise of glasses in the new year, the memorable night at the Molo 5 should begin.

Everyone was happy to meet up with the SCOPE|FOCUS fellows again and to have a chat about his or her recent holiday adventures. Furthermore, some plans for the upcoming year were made and the committees could talk about their future events and exchange ideas. Some sponsors of SCOPE|FOCUS also took part in this event, which proved to be an excellent networking occasion to acquire connections to companies and especially foster the corporation with the sponsors. The present spon-sors also enjoyed the location of the Molo 5 and came from PwC, Koenen en co, Shell and Deloitte. The board members of Sigma Investments, the investment club at the SBE, which is also part of SCOPE|FOCUS, joined this great event in the new year too.

One of the topics of the night, was the upcoming ski trip of 20 members. Some talks about the best skiing gear and the skiing area, Les Deux Alpes, could be listened to during the evening. As some were already talking about their next holiday, others thought about organizing the next social occasion, which should be the second Wallstreet party of the university year. After the get to-gether and the snacks at the Molo 5, most of the people decided to continue the night at some of the bars and night clubs of Maastricht. This was a very nice start in the new SCOPE|FOCUS year and also a great evening most of us will never forget.

Christian Peters

39


Guys & girls day

Guys & girls day

On a nice Saturday, the Fun Valley in Maastricht was calling twenty of the SCOPE|FOCUS guys. There we should enjoy an awesome afternoon of

paintballing, followed by the first barbecue of the year for most of us. About half of us had never played paint-ball before, so we were really excited to see how the game works and what strategies would be best. Howe-ver, some of us were real pros and one also brought his own gear and paintball gun.

The teams were elected, the guns loaded and the safe-ty catches released. After a few shots on some tins and aims for practice, the first round, the Team Death Match should begin. This was already a fun part, because some members of the green team thought that the best ca-mouflage could be achieved behind a steep well, which ended for them in sliding down the muddy well into a big puddle. The first point went to the black team.

We received a refill of bullets and the second game star-ted. This time the teams had to be much more offensive, because the aim was to capture the other teams flag. The green team had the best strategy and managed to cap-ture the flag of the black team. After another refill and the change of the playing ground, the next game mode was introduced. There was only one flag in the middle of the field, which had to be captured by the teams. The green team was successful in doing this again and also won the majority of the following rounds. After a total of six to seven rounds all the bullets we bought were gone. Most of us had great fun and the green or black overalls had changed their color to muddy and oran-ge due to the high engagement of both teams in try-ing to capture the flag and score points. The next task we were facing was not of strategic nature as the ones before. Now, the problem was how to clean the boots that were covered in mud. After the cleaning exercise, everyone was hungry and looking forward to the first barbecue of the year. The barbecue was tasty and we were all grateful to get some food after the exhausting rounds of paintball. A special thanks to the Social Acti-vities Committee that organized this fun event. It was an awesome activity for all the guys who took part.

Christian Peters

With several new SCOPE|FOCUS active mem-bers it seemed like the perfect opportunity for the social activities committee to organise

an event for us all to get to know each other better and have a fun time together.

The girl’s day began with a jewellery making workshop where we learnt the basic techniques involved in ma-king bracelet and necklaces allowing us to go on and make our own pieces. Having being told that the har-dest part was think of a design we could all quickly see why with it taking us quite a while to find suitable pie-ces for our jewellery with the more creative members finding this easier than other. As we started to put the jewellery pieces together it provided a perfect opportu-nity for much conversation and entertainment as some girls struggled with the so-called “easy” techniques. With the variety of already made jewellery in the shop giving us much inspiration some chose a challenging design whilst other chose a simpler design. The pieces everyone made were of varying style and no doubt eve-ryone will take pride in wearing them.

With us all not needing an excuse to enjoy a dinner with each other the evening’s delights of an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant sounded perfect! With many being re-gular sushi restaurant goers deciding what to pick was no problem but for the few who had never experienced this it turned out to be quite an effort to interpret the picture! However, this was no trouble with everyone pitching in with which their favourite dish was. It cer-tainly proved a successful evening with us all eating a lot more than we imagined would could! This made the short walk to the Preuverij interesting with us all being so full, but keen to join with the others to hear how their day had been it was worth the walk!

Lucie Galloway


40 Ski Trip

Ski trip

Les Deux Alpes is an amazing skiing area situated in the south east of France with many English, French and Dutch people visiting the place to experience

the challenging slopes and well known après ski. This seemed like the perfect place for the SCOPE|FOCUS ye-tis for the next week! The yetis were easily recognised all wearing hoodies with SCOPE|FOCUS Après Skischu-le - Les Deux Alpes 2013 printed on them.

Arriving early Saturday morning saw the ski enthusi-asts head up the slopes to take advantage of the good conditions and an additional day skiing whilst the others enjoyed a breakfast at the „Vie“ where we would also have our evening meal for the trip. With several gone skiing eager to discover the skiing area and find the best slopes and powder the other choses to take in the views of Les Deux Alps and had a relaxed first day. With everyone exhausted from the long trip with litt-le sleep due to excitement is saw everyone head for an early night sleep to be in perfect skiing conditions for the week ahead.

The first day of official skiing the well-practiced headed off to the slopes as soon as the ski lifts opened for a day of exhilarating skiing. Meanwhile, the new skiers were more reserved in getting started not quite knowing what to expect. As a fellow SCOPE|FOCUS member was more than qualified to teach, we had Coach Ratz getting the new yetis used to the slopes and teaching the ba-sics. With some taking to it more naturally than others it was a challenging day for all whilst getting used to these strange things now attached to our feet, common-ly known as skis. For those well accustomed to skiing, the newbies provided much entertainment whilst they spent most of the day falling over and figuring out how to get up again! Nonetheless, it was an exhilarating day for all with everyone opting to have a good night’s sleep with muscles hurting many never knew they had.

The second day of skiing saw perfect conditions of waking with the sun shining and fresh powder falling over night providing an amazing day for skiing. With all keen to get on the slopes some of the experienced yeti’s choses to take an alternative off-piste trip to en-joy the untouched new powder which provided interes-ting stories that evening. For the newbies the powder snow provided a new challenge, but with their skilled

teacher it was no problem with all skiers making a vast improvement throughout the day. With the conditions too good to not spend the entire day skiing it saw all get back late meeting for the evening meal and the tales of the day. With everyone full from the evening meal and full of energy again it was time for the yetis to experi-ence the bars of Les Deux Alps. As we headed to the home of all yetis: the „Yeti Bar“ it provided an amazing night for all with all yetis enjoying the evening together.The following day saw a considerable decline in the number of skiers who were on the slopes early with the first rumours of previous night began to spread amongst yetis. It was the first day that two of the new-bies joined a small group of more experienced skiers and boarders. With the guide of this group not having the real yeti sense of direction, the group went down a black slope and the poor beginners were forced to

41


Ski Trip

take this challenge. With some sliding, all arrived at the bottom after a long and exhausting run down the black slope. Many returned early from skiing to enjoy the childhood enjoyment of sledging having purchased sledging shovels in the SCOPE|FOCUS colours to have fun sliding down the nearby slope.

As the new skiers became more confident and the ex-perienced skiers were enjoying their time on the slo-pes this provided the perfect day for all to enjoy the highlight of skiing for many-après ski! With several places to choose from it provided more of a challen-ge than expected. Some chose to experience the bars up the mountain and take the tremendous views of Les Deux Alpes whilst others chose an option lower down the slopes thinking the journey home would be consi-derably easier.

Hitting the half-way point of the trip the late nights and hard days skiing saw the majority take a more relaxed approach to the day. As some headed out for another day on the slopes and to others choose to take advantage of the spa close by. This proved to be a safe option with the first injured member of the trip returning early having taken an unusual landing after a jump. This didn’t dampen team spirits though with all SCOPE|FOCUS members making what seemed like a marathon trip to the infamous Dutch bar „Prince Van Orange“ for the evening leaving a few members more exhausted than they had hoped the following morning!With all skiers on top form the new skiers challenged themselves heading into the glacier trying a wider va-riety of slopes giving them the opportunity to put their

new learnt skills to the test. This provided much enter-tainment for the experienced skiers as they laughed along with the newbies as they figured out the “easiest” way down the slopes. As some of the new skiers chose to join the more experienced group, this proved an in-teresting experience for one yeti with the run we cho-se to take being icier than expected. Thinking it would be easier to slide down the slope this proved not to be the case with them taking an off-piste fall whilst others watched from the mountain bar. In true SCOPE|FOCUS style, help was at hand and all was okay with the story providing much entertainment at the evening meal.

As the trip came to end with skies and boots being re-turned many took the opportunity to look around the resort where a fair few hours were taken up with se-veral card games occupying us all. A small group of en-thusiasts still enjoyed the fresh powder even with bad

weather and managed to transport their luggage on the slopes proving to be easier than on the road. The ski trip was a huge success, which is evident with everyo-ne sleeping on the return journey after a week of ski-ing and having fun. Many thanks go to the organising committee for an amazing week and we look forward to next year, where the SCOPE|FOCUS yetis look to have just as much fun!!

Lucie Galloway & Christian Peters


42 SCOPE|FOCUS Activity Agenda

SCOPE|FOCUS Activity agenda

April

PWC Luxembourg Inhouse Day, April 17th

Kempen & Co Inhouse Day, April 17th

Focus on Wall Street, April 23rd

Big 4 Cycle, April 24th

May

Active Member Day, May 4th

Congress, May 8th

The 10th edition of the Congress will take place on May 8 at the Grand Hotel De L’Empereur and will touch upon the topic Financial Entrepreneurship. Oliver Gajda, chairman of the European Crowdfunding Network, and Malte Siewert, co-founder of Trivago, will elaborate whether it is more meaningful in a down market to find or create a job?

Big 4 Cycle, May 15th

Financial Experience Düsseldorf, May 15th - May 17th

Marketing Finance Battle, May 22nd

June

International Financial Orientation, June 17th - June 27th

The International Financial Orientation is a 10-day study trip full of both company visits, presentations, and workshops, as well as several cultural activities. This year’s is going to take place in Beijing, China, where students will get the chance to visit companies like Volkswagen, London Stock Exchange, SAP, Canon, PwC, and Booz&Co.

End-of-year activity, June 27th

General Members Meeting, June 28th

For more information about all upcoming SCOPE|FOCUS activities and career opportunities, visit

scope-focus.nl or follow us on facebook or linkedin!

WHERECURIOSITYJOINSOPPORTUNITY

It's character that creates impact!

Wil jij ervaren wat het vak van strategy consultant inhoudt?En wil jij je tanden in een case zetten?

Stap dan op 6 juni in de rol van strategy consultant en werk samen met een team van medestudenten aan een spannende overnamestrijd. Deze dag is de uitgelezen mogelijkheid om kennis te maken met het vak van strategy consultant in het algemeen en met Roland Berger in het bijzonder.

Wie? De strategy workshop is gericht op WO studenten in de laatste fase van hun studie (maximaal 2 jaar voor afstuderen).

Wanneer? De workshop vindt plaats op donderdag 6 juni. Het programma loopt van 10.00 uur tot 22.00 uur en is inclusief diner.

Waar? Op het kantoor van Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in het World Trade Center te Amsterdam.

Geïnteresseerd? Schrijf je dan in voor maandag 20 mei 24.00 uur via www.werkenbijrolandberger.nl. Bij inschrijving vragen wij je zowel CV, motivatiebrief en cijferlijsten (van middelbare school en Universiteit) mee te sturen. Na inschrijving zal er een

selectie plaatsvinden. Je ontvangt vanaf maandag 27 mei bericht of je geselecteerd bent voor deelname aan de workshop. Mocht je nog vragen hebben, dan kun je terecht bij Pam ten Doesschate, via telefoon-nummer 020 – 7960 600 of per e-mail naar [email protected].

STRATEGY WORKSHOP 6 JUNI 2013

Tien minuTen voor de presenTaTie

van een proposal a an de CFo

w w w.ga a an.nu

© 2011 KPMG N.V., alle rechten voorbehouden.

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InFOCUS 2013 Volume 3

Documents

Transcript of InFOCUS 2013 Volume 3