As senior portfolio manager of the Wilmington International Fund, Clem develops and maintains close working relationships with a network of investment managers located in Europe, Japan, and Asia ex-Japan. He is a voting member of the firm’s investment committee and a non-voting member of its portfolio management committee. He is a frequent contributor to the firm’s Wilmington Wire publications.
Prior to joining investment management, Clement was a senior relationship manager with M&T Bank’s international trade division. He led a team of four relationship managers who financed transactions supporting foreign buyers’ purchases of U.S. exports, often from firms in M&T Bank’s business regions. He received the President’s Council Award for his sales accomplishments. Before joining M&T, Clem served in a variety of positions with the Export-Import Bank of the United States. As a relationship manager, he shepherded U.S. firms’ export finance transactions through the bank’s credit approval process. He served on the bank’s credit committee, which approved all loans under $10 million and managed the bank’s workouts division, working within creditor groups to renegotiate the debts of foreign and U.S. borrowers. He participated as the bank’s representative on a U.S. government delegation to inter-governmental trade financing negotiations organized by the OECD in Paris. Clem also served as a country risk economist, advising the bank’s board on country eligibility and sovereign loan pricing decisions and participating in inter-agency working groups. Earlier in his career, he served as an international economist with business consulting firm WEFA, providing economic advice to a range of business clients.
Clem holds an MBA in finance and international business from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in international economics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is a CFA® charterholder and served five terms on the board of the 600-member Baltimore CFA Society, including two as its elected president. Currently, he is serving as the M&T appointed board member of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.
October 24, 2019— On Tuesday, October 22, by a vote of 329-299, the UK House of Commons approved in principle the revised EU Withdrawal Agreement (to implement “Brexit”) negotiated with the EU by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The PM has managed to achieve what his predecessor, Theresa May, could not, even after three attempts.
September 6, 2019 – Only weeks after Boris Johnson replaced Theresa May as Conservative leader and Prime Minister, he has suffered a humiliating setback regarding both his Brexit strategy–leaving the EU “deal or no-deal”–and his ambitions to strengthen his power as Prime Minister through victory in a new general election. We believe that new general elections will take place after the current Brexit deadline of October 31 is extended through January 31.
August 21, 2019—Brexit as well as the United States economic conflict with China, have so dominated U.S. business news that it is easy to overlook three important trade agreements that have recently gone into effect. These free trade agreements link markets whose governments remain dedicated to the preservation and expansion of economic globalization: the EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, and some other Pacific Rim countries. These agreements exclude the U.S.
