Hold onto your loincloth, it’s a jungle out there

The answer on where to be seen and who to avoid is remarkably simple. Be seen where the freebies flow and avoid talking to me at all costs.

It should be quite an interesting convention when you think about it. Don’t you wish they could get back some of the international equities soothsayers from last year? We could set up a dunking machine like they have at the school fete. At two bucks a go, we should be able to shout someone a trip on the next Russian space mission.

At this year’s convention it will be interesting not to hear the excuses, but to see how the stands shape-up in the exhibition section.

Fortunately, it’ll be easy to spot the exhibition section. Just look out for the 300 armed security guards protecting the fund managers from the investing public.

Regular attendees to these dos will have noticed that most of the fund managers like to get a bit of a theme running on their stands.

Last year, I remember one funds manager had “Beers of the World”. You got to try a beer from each country if you showed up after 5.30pm and before 5.32pm.

I figured I would work through them in alphabetical order, but got kicked out by the time I got to Algeria. I saw one bloke who looked like he’d made it right through to Zimbabwe and was starting to work backwards.

This year it’s likely to be a bit of a battle in the creativity department, what with the level of general depression and all.

I thought I could help by offering some theme suggestions to a few of the fund managers, desperate for some creative ideas — given that they’ve sacked most of the people that had them.

AMP:How about a stand made to look like an Employment National office? They could have one job vacancy — managing director. The idea is you drop a business card in and the winner gets a phone call in two years time.

BT:Okay, so maybe they won’t show. There’s a rumour going around they would like the exhibition fee halved, but no-one’s buying it.

How about anAll Saintstheme for BT? Have the stand dressed up like the inside of an intensive care unit with a little ECG machine feebly beeping away, attached to a screen marked cash flow.

Every now and again it flatlines and then the whole stand, connected to a 240 volt supply, is suddenly live. Everyone on the stand gets a massive electric shock. The old grumpy farts who keep knocking BT will die anyway and the young’uns will walk away with their hair standing on end shouting “Yes! Yes! BT is such a buzz”.

Credit Suisse:Now you’ve gotta hand it to Brian and the guys, this one’s got a certain exotic class about it. Pronounced ‘Kradit Sweees’, it conjures up images of watches, mountains and chocolate.

If I were them, I’d go the full distance and combine the whole lot on the one stand. Get a competition going where you guess the time it would take someone to build a chocolate mountain as large as the standard deviation on their international share funds.

Colonial First State:Dress up the stand as an Australian bush setting with eucalyptus trees, red dirt and a southern cross windmill. All the staff could dress in parrot outfits, taking on a cocky buggers theme.

Rothschild, sorry, Sakata WealthManagement:Call me dumb, but I just can’t see the connection between a rice cracker and funds management. Although the ad on TV is catchy — and I guess the Sa...ka...ta jingle sticks in your head.

Anyway, it seems to make sense to reduce costs for all concerned to stick the rice cracker people next to the cocky buggers and that way they can keep each other happy.

ING:These guys should drop the Billy Connolly and lion thing, and go with the obvious.

Almost everyone I talk to is convinced ING is named after some south-east Asian business tycoon (Mr Ing) and pronounces it accordingly.

Why don’t they do the jungle theme with vines and ferns on the stand and give away a trip to Phuket? (Let’s hope there’s no pronunciation misunderstanding with that when they announce the winner.)

UBS Global Asset Management:I have one of these on my computer and the joystick plugs into it.

MLC:Now the egg thing’s been running for years and in case you hadn’t noticed, gold on a computer screen looks like a darker shade of brown. And if you’re unlucky to have a screen where the aspect ratio is not quite right, the egg takes on a different shape which, when combined with the brown colour, is less than flattering.

How about a competition about what’s in the egg and then, on the final night — it hatches? You could have Frank Cicutto, NAB’s chief executive, arise from inside the egg, Cathy Freeman-like, dressed in a chicken outfit with smoke billowing out, bright lights and yellow lasers shooting through the smoke.

Frank could release a giant seagull to watch it circle the stand and then dive down to steal everyone’s chips.

Whaddya reckon?