This is the next in a series of guest blog posts by IntraLinks’ collaborators, partners, and vendors. Daniel Strachman is a financial expert with more than fifteen years of Wall Street experience. He is nationally recognized as a strategist, futurist and commentator on Wall Street, the economy, and investment strategy. Daniel is also the moderator of the HEDGEAnswers Conference Call Series, a unique educational program on hedge fund structures and investment strategies. He is also the author of seven books on investment strategies. Learn more about him at www.danstrachman.com. He can be reached at das@hedgeanswers.com.

A revolution here, a revolution there and before you know it, you have real change! Well, the events in the Middle East seem to point to some real change coming to that part of the world. With change comes volatility and investors around the globe are experiencing significant market dips and dives as the events continue to unfold. Price swings are not just occurring in oil and other commodities but in equities and fixed income securities as well. It is clearly critical to have investment products in your portfolio that zig when the markets zag in order to protect your assets during these uncertain times.

November closed with London’s first snow of the season and IntraLinks’ inaugural Client Symposium for Alternative Investments. The former slowed people down while the latter accelerated ideas on increasing investor satisfaction and reinvestment.

Clients from the Nordic and Alpine countries of Sweden and Switzerland made the trek to London to join their peers at the Symposium. In fact, four of Europe’s six largest private equity firms participated in the event. Not to be outdone, IntraLinks chief marketing officer Greg Kenepp and IntraLinks senior vice president of product management Wade Callison crossed the Atlantic to join the discussion.

I recently wrote an article for Hedge Fund Journal and asked the question, “Does having your investor letter or risk report leaked to the media (a.k.a. headline risk) hurt your ability to compete with other firms for allocations or is it just embarrassing?”

I would say both. However, for a magazine like HFJ I needed to answer the question more scientifically. I found a survey of investors conducted by Deutsche Bank. The survey showed that investors did in fact believe headline risk was damaging to a fund’s reputation and a deterrent to investing. What was even more interesting is the survey found that investors, particularly institutional investors, felt headline risk was more of a turnoff than invoking a gate, side pockets or changing liquidity terms.

I recently read an interesting series of blogs about mergers on The Wall Street Journal. I found myself wholeheartedly agreeing with many of the points, particularly that each side involved in a merger wants to feel like they’ve received enough concessions from the other party and that this inevitably leads to all the lawyers involved in the process bringing lots of questions and issues to the table (and forcing them into the transaction agreements). It is only human nature after all for people to want to feel like they’ve accomplished as many wins as possible, no matter how minor they may be.

One issue that this series of blogs made me think about that wasn’t extensively covered by the author is all the due diligence that inevitably precedes these agreements. As many people know, the due diligence process has improved and continues to change, with the longstanding goal being to accelerate the overall deal process and helping to reduce the time it takes to finalize negotiations. That’s why we have seen significant growth in the last 10 years in the use of technology such as online datarooms/virtual dealrooms.

Due to strong and sustained economic growth, Chinese firms have gained global attention with a series of high profile cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). With the Chinese economy now second only to the USA, surpassing Japan in terms of nominal GDP, this type of deal activity is predicted to soar. Cash-rich Chinese corporates are now spreading their wings abroad and growing market share across the globe.

I recently attended an IntraLinks and mergermarket breakfast discussing this very topic. Entitled “Driving Economic Change: The Influence of Chinese Cross-Border M&A” explored how domestic and international M&A will affect Chinese economic growth.