Mexico’s Pemex: From Cash Cow To Resource Drain
May 5th, 2020
Courtesy of The Financial Times, a look at Pemex: At the end of 2016, Pemex came up with a new strategy: it would focus exclusively on profitable activities. The plan, a no-brainer for most businesses, was a novelty for Mexico’s state oil company, a national champion created in 1938 after Mexico expropriated US and UK […]
Read more »The End of Emerging Markets?
May 4th, 2020
Via Foreign Policy, sober commentary on how economies such as Brazil, Indonesia, India, Russia, and Turkey face a daunting new reality. The story of the coronavirus has so far been told mostly from the perspective of rich countries, but its harshest effects will still likely be felt by the world’s poor. Africa’s cases rose by […]
Read more »Venezuela’s New Oil Minister
May 4th, 2020
Via Ozy, commentary on Venezuela’s new Oil Minister: By selecting Tareck El-Aissami as his new oil minister, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has given the enormous task of fixing the country’s most important industry to a man who has little expertise in the sector — and who is wanted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. […]
Read more »Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call North Korea’s Guy in Spain
May 3rd, 2020
Via Bloomberg, an interesting article on doing business in North Korea: The message from Dubai in late 2018 wasn’t unusual. It’s just part of the day for Alejandro Cao de Benós to open his email and find some intrepid capitalist who wants to do a little business in North Korea. Recently, there was the one […]
Read more »Which Emerging Markets Are In Most Financial Peril?
May 2nd, 2020
Via The Economist, a look at the ranking of 66 countries shows which are in distress, and which are relatively safe: What to wear? The question puzzles many people shaken out of their routines by the pandemic. It also troubles investors. The world is full of “dirty shirts”, as Bill Gross, a legendary bond trader, once […]
Read more »Venezuela Proposes Major Overhaul of Energy Sector
May 2nd, 2020
Via The Wall Street Journal, an article on Venezuela’s plan downsize national oil monopoly while ambitiously aiming to double production: Venezuela’s government is proposing a sweeping overhaul of its energy industry, scaling back the role of the state and handing over greater control to private companies in an effort to boost plummeting oil output, according to […]
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.