The Eurasia Foundation, 67 Fizuli St., 6th floor

Baku, AZ 1014, Azerbaijan http://www.crrc.az/

Latif Kengerlinskiy                                    Sabina Rustamova
Center Director                                                     Program Manager

A Financial Sector Perspective on Diversification and Risk

With Application to Azerbaijan’s Banking Sector;

A Presentation and Dialogue with

 Nancy J. Scannell

University of Illinois, USA scannell.nancy@uis.edu

And

Fariz Huseynov

University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA fhuseynv@memphis.edu

 ------------------- Presentation Outline ------------------

Risk and Return Metrics; a Two-Way Street

Risk Types: Country, Political, Exchange Rate, Event and Other

Diversification and Risk

Mitigating Risk and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (as time permits)

Economic Diversification via Privatization, IPOs, M&As and FDIs

Diversification in Azerbaijan’s Banking Sector

Questions and Discussion

------- Presentation Date, Time and Venue -------

Friday, 6 January, 2006, 16:00 – 18:00 Western University

Istaglaliyyat str. 27, Baku, Azerbaijan, Room: 207 Main Building

-------------- Language of Presentation -------------

English

Nancy J. Scannell

Bio

Ms. Nancy Scannell is an Associate Professor in the College of Business and Management at the University of Illinois in the State’s capital city of Springfield where she teaches finance. She has held previous lecture posts at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently a Faculty Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Russian, East European and Eurasian Center. She earned her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in economics from, respectively, Michigan State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research on emerging market economies is reflective of her global sojourns. She has engaged in visiting lecture, research and project capacities in Armenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Kosovo, Slovakia (University of Michigan’s International Executive Education program) and Ukraine. Ms. Scannell has twice served abroad as a Fulbright grantee. She will serve as a Fulbright Specialist to Saudi Arabia for the spring semester of 2006 followed by projected same-year engagements in Vietnam, Chile and Nicaragua. Ms. Scannell presently resides in Baku under the auspices of an IREX U.S. Embassy Policy Specialist (IREX ESP) grant.

Fariz Huseynov

Bio

Mr. Fariz Huseynov is a doctoral degree student and graduate research assistant in the Department of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) at the University of Memphis, Tennessee. Mr. Huseynov earned his MBA degree from Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana and BBA degree from Istanbul University, Turkey. His research areas focus on capital structure and corporate governance.