Rethinking the ‘Africa Play’: Why One Firm Held Back from the Africa Investment Frenzy
November 6th, 2019
Via Next Billion, interesting commentary on why one firm held back from the Africa investment ‘frenzy’: In [northern hemisphere] spring 2019, the investment committee at Blue Haven Initiative’s Ventures team raised a painful question: Did we miss the boat? Running an in-house venture fund, my team had made only one new investment in 2018 (Shortlist). We’d held back […]
Read more »Africa’s Experience With Chinese Investors Has Some Parallels With Central Asia
November 4th, 2019
Via Eurasia.net, an article on China’s investment activities in Central Asia: Poorly governed, resource-rich countries with exploding populations that are hungry for investment: Africa and Central Asia have much in common. Both are also aggressively courted by Chinese investors, these days under the catch-all Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. Africa got a head start, […]
Read more »Massive Congolese Copper Play
October 31st, 2019
Via Ozy, a look at Kamoa-Kakula, a huge untapped copper deposit worth at least $10 billion: When Felix Tshisekedi, the new president of the Democratic Republic of Congo visited Washington, D.C., in April, the mining billionaire Robert Friedland was waiting in a room at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel to greet him. Also waiting were the U.S. ambassador to Congo and Sun Yufeng, […]
Read more »Somaliland: How Climate Change Is Pushing This Desert State To Fish
October 31st, 2019
Courtesy of Ozy, an interesting look at how climate change is creating new industrial opportunities in Somaliland: Danish shipowner Per Gullestrup had been through the trauma of negotiating the release of his vessel and crew — hijacked by Somali pirates — when he decided to tackle the problem at its source by developing alternative opportunities […]
Read more »China’s “Maritime Road” Looks More Defensive Than Imperialist
October 27th, 2019
Via The Economist, a look at China’s BRI-related foreign port-building that seems to focus more on protecting existing trade routes than expanding such: An old saying warns about Greeks bearing gifts, but it might fit the Chinese better. In the 1400s Zheng He, a Muslim slave who became the Ming empire’s admiral, led seven voyages south and west. […]
Read more »An Undone Buckle? Trouble for Belt and Road in Myanmar
October 23rd, 2019
Via China Dialogue, an article on China’s new infrastructure route through Myanmar: A year ago, Myanmar and China signed an agreement to establish the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), as part of China’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. Today, that corridor is mired in conflict between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups. Stretching 1,700km, […]
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.