Buying Behaviors of Emerging Middle Classes
July 10th, 2012
Courtesy of Kellogg Insight, some commentary on how consumers in developing nations choose their brands: A key feature of the modern world is the “emerging middle class”—the demographic group resulting from the rise into relative economic comfort of once-poor populations in developing nations. The phenomenon—particularly notable in Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia—has obvious interest for […]
Read more »Nigeria: A Rugged Road To High Returns
July 10th, 2012
Via Reuters, a look at Nigeria’s investment potential: Bomb blasts, gun attacks, airline crashes, kidnappings, industrial-scale oil theft, armed robberies and fraud costing billions of dollars. Such things might give pause to anyone thinking of opening a business. In Nigeria, they happen with alarming frequency, and yet investors just keep coming. The reasons are many: […]
Read more »As Exxon Mobil Weighs Oil Bid, Afghans Move Closer To A Foreign Investment Goal
July 5th, 2012
Via The New York Times, a report on the latest battle of global and regional bulls over Afghanistan’s potential oil and gas riches. The country’s Ministry of Mines recently announced eight finalists to bid for an estimated 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in northern Afghanistan. ExxonMobil has been pitted against companies from bitter regional […]
Read more »Complexities of Future Energy Investment in Libya
July 5th, 2012
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), some very interesting analysis of what Libya’s upcoming elections may mean for international investors: Libya’s citizens will head to the polls July 7 in the first national elections since the October 2011 ousting of former leader Moammar Gadhafi. The upcoming election will select a prime minister, Cabinet and a constituent authority that […]
Read more »Can Mongolia Avoid Nigeria’s Mistakes?
July 5th, 2012
Via The Globe and Mail, an article examining Mongolia’s commodity boom: In much of the developing world, natural resources seem to offer a handy way out of poverty. But they also present a curse. Mongolia, where the centre-right Democratic Party led last week’s elections on a wave of resource nationalism, would be wise to avoid […]
Read more »Africa’s True Mobile Revolution: Yet to Start
July 4th, 2012
Via the Harvard Business Review, an interesting commentary on the potential for mobile-enabled growth in Africa: The United States economy is nine times the size of Africa’s, but Africa has twice as many mobile phones. This tantalizing statistic would seem to indicate that, in the mobile era, Africa’s time has come. But the mobile subscriber […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.