Archive for November, 2024

Kiirdom: The Sprawling Corporate Kingdom of South Sudan’s First Family

Via The Sentry, a report on South Sudan’s Kiir family’s secret business empire: Today, The Sentry published a massive trove of data exposing the control by the family of South Sudan President Salva Kiir over a secret business empire. “Kiirdom: The Sprawling Corporate Kingdom of South Sudan’s First Family,” provides a deep dive into the […]

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Grab Built Its Own Map in Southeast Asia, and Is Now Going After Google  

Via Rest of World, a look at how Grab – the Asian super app – uses its own drivers and cameras to create hyperlocal maps in eight countries: Grab began mapping locations because Google Maps and Here were inadequate for its drivers’ needs. It has trained drivers to use its own cameras to map streets […]

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Côte d’Ivoire: Africa’s Biggest Wine Importer

Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at Africa’s biggest wine importing nation: In 2023, Côte d’Ivoire imported the equivalent of $64m worth of wine. The rise of the middle class, paired with changing consumer habits, has made the country the continent’s leading importer. Côte d’Ivoire is Africa’s leading importer of wine, a fact confirmed […]

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Will Angola’s Big Bet on Biden Backfire?

Via The Africa Report, an article on whether Angola’s bet on the Biden Administration will backfire given the election of President Trump: President João Lourenço placed a multimillion-dollar bet on hiring expensive Washington, D.C. lobbying firms to put his southern African country on the U.S. agenda. Whatever they did worked because, over the past several […]

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The Cost of Tajikistan’s Melting Glaciers

Via Emerging Europe, an article on the economic cost – and potential opportunity – presented by Tajikistan’s melting glaciers: A mountainous country with diverse topography, Tajikistan is especially vulnerable to climate change, prone to earthquakes, floods, drought, avalanches, landslides and mudslides. The most vulnerable areas are the glacier-dependent river basins supplying hydropower and water resources […]

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Mali’s Junta Escalates Fight with Mining Groups Over Profit Share

Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the Malian junta’s efforts to gain a greater share of gold producers’ profits: The detention in Mali of an international mining boss and two of his colleagues has raised alarm across the industry about growing personal risks for executives in the gold-rich west African nation. Resolute Mining’s […]

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WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

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.