Month: October 2012

Burmese History – A Guide for the Future?

I wrote recently about the “crowd” high-tailing it out of Mongolia for Myanmar. They’ve gone to poke around and will likely leave the country with tales of beauty and opportunity, but not much else. Hot money (or in the case of Myanmar, hot money investors) will ruminate on how to

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Capitalizing on Exponential Growth

“There’s no way that company exists in a year.” – Tom Siebel, founder of software firm Siebel Systems. This was Tom Siebel talking about Salesforce.com, easily one of the hottest companies in the cloud computing space, and the reason behind founder Marc Benioff’s billionaire status. Siebel Systems, on the other

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Beating the Bank… Lessons from Mongolia

Having lived in several Frontier Markets, I’ve oft observed that when wacky rules are put into place, creating inefficiencies and costing people money, the free market almost always finds a way around it. This goes for everything from selling vegetables roadside without a permit, hocking gasoline out of soda bottles

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Mongolia – Where Did Everybody Go?

Myanmar!!! The crowd has disappeared from Mongolia like a fart in a windstorm. 2011 was “The year of Mongolia”, where asset prices skyrocketed and it was hip to have an operation on the ground. Now, many of those who made (or tried to make) their mark in Mongolia have flown

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Myanmar – In the Mix

(China, Missionaries, Methamphetamine and the CIA) As is often the case when investing in Frontier markets it is important to get a grip on what has come before, the current reality and what to be scared s*#tless of. Mark and I spend a great deal of time attempting to figure

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Myanmar, Hillary, God & Muhammad

It must be so…customs and immigration officials upon acceptance of employment are required to sign a mandatory statutory declaration before commencing their professional duties. In my estimation this is a declaration of unquestionable sullenness, objectionability, lack of common decency and an intolerance to humour. It also involves immediate termination of

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The “Informal Economy” – Makeshift

Today’s post comes to us from our on-the-ground man in SE Asia, Scott. You may remember Scott, who is now an integral part of our team, from his post Why I Ditched California for Mongolia. Before Scott left for Asia earlier this year he met an interesting guy. I’ll let

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