The event will take place on March 12 in Milan, the home of Italy’s investment sector. It will run on Zoom to comply with current social mixing restrictions.

The launch replicates the success of Investment Week’s Select programme of events in the UK, which ran throughout the lockdowns in 2020 using Zoom. Prior to 2020 the events were run face-to-face and proved extremely popular with both fund managers and fund selectors, says Incisive Media.

The events allow discretionary investment professionals who actively invest client money, or researchers/analysts who influence decisions relating to the buying or selling of funds, to meet with fund managers in an effective and concise format.

This is the first time that Italian investment professionals will be given the opportunity to proactively select who they want to meet from a roster including RWC, Candriam and Vontobel.

“Select Italia gives Italian professional investors the opportunity to virtually meet portfolio managers they are really interested in, allowing them to build their own agenda organised around their personal needs,” said Investment Week’s head of fund selector relationships for Italy Vanessa Orlarey.

According to the publishers, delegates to previous UK Select events praised them for being “a fantastic opportunity to meet several fund managers at the same time, both in terms of types of fund and the geographic / asset split, and the opportunity to get a feel of how the fund manager works by talking with them directly”.

“I am delighted we are launching this successful new format into the Italian market,” said Kevin Sinclair, Managing Director of the Financial Services division at Incisive Media. “We have extensive knowledge and experience of the Italian fund buyer market and our research suggests this format of event will be as popular here as it is in the UK.”