Experts to Be Featured at Pacific Basin Conference
The second annual Pacific Basin Development Conference in Maui, Hawaii, on Aug. 17-20 will be attended by 100 American real estate developers and leaders of Japanese real estate investment firms in the United States and Japan to explore potential joint ventures.
Featured speakers will be Taizo Watanabe, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, and Jim Deane, prominent California home builder. They top a panel of 12 speakers representing a cross section of investment bankers, developers, trading companies and trust banks.
The conference, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, will focus on direct capital investment by the Japanese in the United States.
Watanabe, who served as consul general in Los Angeles from 1984 to 1987 before his Washington assignment, is highly experienced in international and economic affairs and will deliver the keynote speech. Deane, chairman of the board of Deane Homes in Rancho Mirage, is currently developing a joint-venture resort home project in Coachella Valley with a Japanese firm, Marufuji Shoji.
Other speakers are Yukuo Takenaka, chairman of Project Japan for Peat Marwick Main and popularly referred to as the “East-West matchmaker,” based in Los Angeles; Prof. Wolf Reitsperger, director of the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Hawaii; Gunpachi Okamoto, senior manager and director of Kowa Bussan Co., Japanese trading company; Yasuo Sento, vice president of North American Taisei Corp., of Los Angeles.
Also, Roger Hobbs, president of Century American Homes, Orange, who is experienced in dealing with Japanese firms and joint ventures, and Richard Hake, president of Pacific Union Capital Corp., San Francisco.
Bryan Hardwick, president of the Pacific Basin Development Conference Management Co., said the Stouffer Wailea Beach Resort is the site of the meeting. A limited number of delegate places are still available, as well as corporate sponsorships, for a $495 registration fee. Information: 213/772-3753.
