We at Institutional Real Estate, Inc. are currently working on our first Asian conference. Given the speed with which Asian economies have been recovering from the recent financial crisis and powerful demographic and political trends that are taking place in most Asian countries, we want to provide a venue for institutional investors and other real estate professionals to explore and understand the opportunities that Asian markets offer.

Initially, following my enthusiasm for Asia, I suggested that we put an exclamation mark at the end of the above title to emphasize the attractiveness of investment opportunities in Asia. However, during the most recent advisory board conference call one of the members, a long-time investor in Asia, suggested we should replace the exclamation mark with a question mark.

Although he shared my enthusiasm for Asia, he pointed out that between now and the time of the conference, which we slated for September, many things could go wrong, and