Christopher Mayer has been writing the
Capital & Crisis
newsletter since 2004, and in that time he has travelled the
globe looking at emerging markets for investment opportunities.
Mayer has the ability to see ideas where others might not, to put
aside preconceived notions and popular ideas. Much of this
information can be found in his new book,
World Right Side Up
, which is available now through Agora Financial. Mayer spoke to
Benzinga to tell us all about it.
First of all, could you give us a little background on
you?
I started out in commercial banking. I was a corporate loan
officer. I started at Riggs National Bank, and I had a ten year
career in corporate banking before I started writing newsletters.
It was great training, because I got to look at a lot of
different industries and a lot of different companies. I really
liked doing that, but I also had a passion for investing and for
writing, and so I freelanced for a while. In 2004, I started
writing my own newsletter called
Capital & Crisis
. I sent that out to everyone I could think of, as well as money
managers and other bankers and people on the business. It
eventually grew and I got the attention of Agora Financial in
Baltimore and made a deal with them. I was able to take what was
a nights and weekends hobby and turn it into a full time gig.
I've been writing
Capital & Crisis
since 2004, and what it really it is a globetrotting financial
newsletter. I look all over the world for deals and trends, and
try to advise my readers of the best way to play those different
ideas. I've accumulated a lot of travel miles since that time,
visiting a lot of different countries, and I thought that there
was a certain trend that started to fall into place, and I
thought that would be a great idea for a book. That's how this
book came about - putting together a lot of the research that I'd
done for my newsletter, a lot of travel over the last eight years
or so.
Who is the book aimed at?
I would say it's aimed at the general investing public, anyone
who is trying to figure out what to do with their money and where
to invest it over the long haul, and is interested in exploring
some out of the mainstream ideas. In this book, I take you beyond
markets in the U.S. and Canada and look at a diverse set of
markets. In the course of that exploration I really uncover some
fantastic ideas for investors. It's aimed at the investor, but I
also think that anyone who is really interested in the larger
changes that have gone on in the world over the last decade will
be interested in reading the book. We've really witnessed some
profound, remarkable changes to the global economy over the past
ten years. I think it's a really exciting story.
It looks like it was a blast to research…
I had a blast putting it together. I've had a great run over the
last eight years. I've really enjoyed travelling the different
markets, and I've met some extraordinary characters. It's one of
the things I love about my job - I'll get up in the morning and
sometimes I'll have an email from Bangkok that came in overnight,
or Dubai, and it gives you a fascinating window into what's going
on in the world.
Which countries / markets surprised you the
most?
Most people, when they think about investing in emerging markets
or when they think about markets outside of the U.S. at all, they
probably think first of the so called BRICS - Brazil, Russia,
India and China. I would say that most of the more remarkable
markets I've found were not in that category. I was pleasantly
surprised by what I saw and experienced while in Cambodia. I
recall some very pleasant nights at their riverside restaurants
and seeing a young population and nightlife there, and consumers
shopping and wearing American brands of things. That was
surprising. I was pleased by what I found in Columbia, how
developed and safe that had become. As someone who had grown up
in the '80s, back then Medellin was Pablo Escobar's hometown, and
now you can go there and it's a perfectly safe place, and again
fairly developed. People generally think of Dubai as being a
flash in the pan, but I think it has some long term advantages.
It is a place that's very friendly towards money, so it's become
kind of the Switzerland of the Middle East. It's their Singapore
or Hong Kong - it's a place where the wealthy people in the
Middle East go to put their money. Not only that, it's attracted
capital from all over the world. For that reason, I think it has
staying power. It did have a huge real estate bubble, and then
bust on the other side of that, but I think they will have an
advantage as the trading hub for the Middle East. Dubai will be
ok. Another market that I really like now is Mongolia, which is a
market that certainly is on no one's radar, but is really coming
on fast and growing 50% this year. There's a lot to look at
there. I'm going back in June, so I look forward to that trip. In
general, I think that my trip has made certain markets more
appealing than others. I would prefer Columbia over Brazil. I
would prefer Cambodia over India, and I would prefer Mongolia
over China. Exploring these different markets, you find some
markets that are not so much in the limelight that are
appealing.
One of the one that is much less appealing is Brazil. Brazil
is a market that I think a lot of investors generally have a
favorable opinion of as a place that will bloom and continue to
bloom, but a lot of investors don't appreciate how difficult it
is to do business in Brazil. You can look at the "ease of doing
business" rankings compiled by the World Bank every year, and
Brazil scores very low. It's easier to do business in Rwanda or
Pakistan according to those rankings. The Brazil tax structure is
very unfavorable - it's one of the highest in the emerging world.
They've already got a very large welfare state they are trying to
support that is more comparable to what you'd find in France or
Norway. There are a lot of those kind of overhangs that make
Brazil challenging. That's not to say that, over the long haul,
there won't be interesting ideas from there, but that was one
market that surprised me because it wasn't what I expected it to
be, in a bad way.
Is there anywhere you wanted to go, or would want to go
to now, but didn't?
I always wanted to explore a little more of Africa. I've
successfully invested in some African ventures. Mozambique in
particular is one that interests me. They have some very large
coal deposits opening up, and I just never got around to going
there. Another area I'd be interested in exploring is Eastern
Europe. Some of these places like Georgia, the Ukraine, those
kind of places I'd love to explore but I have yet to be.
How hard is it to go to these places and keep your
investing head on, to avoid slipping into tourist mode?
For me, I seem to be hardwired. Even when I'm on vacation, I
always have my investment antenna alert. I always seem to pick up
something. It's amazing what you can learn just by talking to
regular people that you meet along the way, either in restaurants
or in your hotel, or taxis on the way. Just asking people in
general how things are. It's not hard because I love doing it. I
don't feel any particular pressure to recommend anything. I was
in Chile, for example, and it's a great country in a lot of
respects but I didn't necessarily come away with a grand new
recommendation. I did come away with some interesting contacts
and some experiences which I'm sure I'll use at some point. When
you're traveling around, don't feel like, because you're visiting
a country, you have to pull the trigger and invest in something
right away. Some of this is just accumulating intelligence that
you can use down the road, getting contacts and things like
that.
Finally, where do you vacation?
I love going to Nicaragua. I wrote about that a little bit in the
book. It's got beautiful Pacific beaches, the food there is
cheap, good and fresh, the people there are very friendly, and
it's a pretty country. The last couple of years, my family and I
have gone down there. One of the nice things about travelling to
South and Central America is it's not that far. It's a whole
different thing when you're going to Asia with the 12 hour time
difference.
Follow me
@BCallwood
.
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