"Turbo capitalism versus social market economy" - Are German companies being sold out to foreign investment funds?

Do the short-term profit objectives of hedge and private equity funds hinder sound enterprise strategy and endanger the existence of traditional enterprises? This was the question examined at of a conference led by Dr. Wolfgang Quaisser and held at the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing on 20-22 October 2006. The conference was entitled: "Examining the teeth of the carnivore: turbo capitalism versus the social market economy". Friedrich L. Sell, University of the German Armed Forces in Munich, commented on the options available to the IMF for stabilizing international financial markets. Martin Hüfner, formerly of HypoVereinsbank, Munich, analysed the situation of German banks in international competition. Rüdiger von Rosen, Deutsches Aktieninstitut, Frankfurt, stressed that functioning capital markets present a key precondition for the growth and employment outlooks of national economies, and examined the capital market acceptance, and in particular the acceptance of stocks in Germany on the part of investors, enterprises and policy-makers. For Bernd Rudolph, LMU, private-equity funds and hedge funds assume "important functions in a financial system that cannot be exercised in this form and with this efficiency by other financial intermediaries. Overlooking a few deplorable instances, it is clear that in the convolutions of the financial system that these new investment instruments help perfect and complete the capital markets. Peter Aiello and Dieter Wermuth, Wermuth Asset Management GmbH, provided an overview of how hedge funds function and evaluated their advantages and disadvantages. Alexandra Krieger, Hans-Böckler Foundation, Düsseldorf, critically examined the business model of private equity funds. And Christoph Lütge, LMU, posed some fundamental questions on the "ethics of a market economy".