Author Archive

Ethiopia, Once One Of World’s Fastest Growing Economies, Facing Challenges

Via Quartz, an updated look at Ethiopia: Ethiopia’s once promising economy has run into a wall as the global economic crisis unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic devastates the nation of more than 100 million, forcing IMF to slash its GDP growth forecast for 2020 down to 3.2% from 6.2%. The Horn of Africa country, home […]

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The Trade and Transit Woes of Landlocked Afghanistan

Via The Diplomat, an article on how Pakistan plays a big role in dictating the fortunes of the Afghan economy: Being landlocked remains one of the most disadvantageous positions for a state, especially in the modern global economy dominated by maritime trade. Prominent Oxford University economist Paul Collier listed being landlocked with bad neighbors as […]

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Mexico’s Pemex: From Cash Cow To Resource Drain

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 […]

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The End of Emerging Markets?

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 […]

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Venezuela’s New Oil Minister

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. […]

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Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call North Korea’s Guy in Spain

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 […]

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ABOUT
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.