(CNS Business): President George W Bush will be heading to Cayman for a brief visit in November as the star speaker at an inaugural specialist investment conference. Bush and Sir Richard Branson will be key note speakers at the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit, with the former Republican president topping the bill for his speaking debut in the Cayman Islands on the eve of the US presidential election. Sponsors of the event, which will run at the same time as the Legends Tennis Tournament at the Ritz Carlton, said the conference is about the “crucial ingredients for sustaining a vibrant global alternative investment industry”. George Bush is scheduled to speak at 7pm on Thursday 1 November between cocktails and dinner.

Business magnate Richard Branson will be the Summit’s closing key note interviewee on Friday 2 November at 4:30pm when, according to the website, the chairman of the Virgin Group will talk about providing certainty in an uncertain world, knowing the limitations of existing models, turning problems into opportunities, ensuring that your brand means "a promise kept" and providing strategic leadership.

"I am excited to be in the Cayman Islands for the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit,” Sir Richard said in a release from organisers. “The event has a very impressive range of speakers from the alternative investment industry that will make for some very interesting discussions on the future of the industry."

The two day conference, which is expected to attract the world’s leading institutional investors, CEOs, economists and academics, will be held in conjunction with the 11th annual Legends Tennis event, in which Martina Hingis, Stefan Edberg, Wayne Ferreira, Jimmy Arias and Murphy Jensen will be among the tennis stars on show. Nick Bolletteiri, the world's most successful tennis coach, and golf superstar Greg Norman will both speak at a special sports business lunch on Friday.

Anthony Cowell from KPMG in Cayman, the main sponsors of the event, will chair the conference, which will present the glitterati of speakers from the international financial world. “The Cayman Alternative Investment Summit is an opportunity for the industry’s elite to take an introspective look at itself, seeing where the industry has been and predicting where it will go in the future,” he said “KPMG is proud to be at the centre of the event and looks forward to the stimulating and thought provoking debate, set against the backdrop of the domicile of choice for alternative investments.”

Aside from Cowell, local stars including Ingrid Pierce from Walkers and Neal Lomax, the managing partner at Mourant Ozannes, who said the launch of the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit is a significant milestone for the Cayman Islands. “We are delighted to be a major sponsor of the Summit in its inaugural year and we are confident it will prove to be unparalleled in terms of the quality of its participants, content and organisation,” he added.

The key theme of the Summit is ‘Innovation in Alternative Investments: Seeing What’s Next’ and the 68 industry speakers will address the economic challenges that affect the alternative investment industry.

Event Director Dan Kneipp said the Summit, which is organised by Alternative Investment Research Ltd, would “provide a dynamic forum for collaboration and networking between attendees, speakers and influential business leaders in one of the world’s top international financial centres." 

With over 9,000 open-ended investment funds registered in Cayman, the organisers said the Summit will connect the leading domicile of choice for offshore investment funds with the alternative investment industry’s most influential leaders.

For more information on the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit and to register online visit www.CaymanAI.com.