Equatorial Guinea: Squandered Riches
February 5th, 2014
Courtesy of the Financial Times, a detailed look at how the tiny oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea is suffering from the resource curse: Standing nearly five storeys high, the granite headquarters of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea epitomises the power of this small country’s ruling party. A pastiche of Middle East extravagance, false […]
Read more »World’s Fastest Growing Economies
February 5th, 2014
Courtesy of The Economist, a list of the world’s fastest growing economies: Africa and Asia share the honours in the top 12, but the list of the world’s fastest-growing economies in 2014 lacks a heavyweight—China, long a fixture, is absent now that it is a slower-growing, middle-income country. The top growers are here because of […]
Read more »Venezuela And Argentina: The Party Is Over
February 5th, 2014
Via The Economist, a report on Latin America’s weakest economies: WHEN the euro crisis was at its height it became commonplace for struggling European economies to insist that they were not outliers like Greece. Whatever their woes, they declared, Greece’s were in a class of their own. In Latin America, by contrast, the unwanted title […]
Read more »MINT, BRICS, And The Fragile Five
February 3rd, 2014
Via the Business Insider, an article on an interesting Venn Diagram tweeted by economist Duncan Weldon: At the moment, everyone’s focused on the group in the center, the Fragile Five, since each of those have unique domestic stories threatening their growth status. The circle on the right, the BRICS, is the old grouping of hot […]
Read more »How Goldman Sachs Rescued Libya
February 3rd, 2014
Via The Daily Beast, a report on a new lawsuit by the Libyan sovereign investment fund which – if it is to be believed — suggests that Wall Street bankers were able to accomplish what decades of sanctions could not—Gaddafi’s downfall: “Geopolitics is now a game best played with financial and commercial weapons. The new […]
Read more »Is Cuba Going Capitalist?
February 3rd, 2014
Via Ozy, an interesting look at Cuba: Cuba’s new business leaders are as different from the 1950s’ legendary bearded guerrillas as an all-electronic Tesla is from the vintage gas-guzzling Chevys that still cruise the streets of Havana. In post-Soviet Russia, ambitious bureaucrats connived to purchase state-owned oil and gas companies. In Cuba today — emerging […]
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.