Mr. Druckenmiller has over 30 years’ experience, his Duquesne Capital manages $12 billion and since 1986 never had a down year (although it is down 5% YTD). He worked with George Soros (while still managing Duquesne!) and was there for the famous British pound trade. So why quit? Interestingly, he’s “frustrated by his failure in the past three years to match returns that had averaged 30 percent annually since 1986.” Why, in his opinion, did it happen? “Managing more than $10 billion seems to challenge my long-term standard for investment performance.” A fund manager’s mandate is all about investment performance and not AUM growth – the opposite is not just wrong, it can also be self-defeating.
Economies, in the plural, since two recent articles have dealt with the “unofficial” sides of the Chinese Economy. First there was a Bloomberg article on Chinese banks getting the order to move their off-balance sheet stuff to the books. It makes us wonder who still trusts short-term bank earnings in China. We suggest a “translation” to the funny part inside, along with the second article, a LEX on China’s “grey” economy, mentioning research by Credit Suisse. In it CS researches China’s “real” wealth distribution, and surprise surprise, it looks more like South than North America. Why? Because incomes may be as much as 90% higher than official stats. Would the real China please stand up?
Interesting way to improve funding costs, while also pleasing the banks involved. Oi, the Brazilian telecom giant, also happens to own a lot of real estate – for instance the spots in which they have antennas. It’s transferring 263 properties to an SPC, for which Oi will pay rent. At the same time the SPC raises money to pay for the property by selling these rent receivables as CRIs, the portuguese acronym for “certificates of real-estate receivables”. The flip side for banks is that they get to invest their savings accounts regulatory requirements in a “better-quality” CRI. For Oi, through the cost of this debt and the tax benefit of paying rent, they get to secure a lower cost of funding than that achieved in their recent (May ’10) bonds issue.
The 1st one regards AB-InBev and the fact that it’s still hard for “foreigners” to fully grasp it. Yesterday’s LEX column on the company has flattering but less than enlightened comments and puts way too much weight on the P/E ratio. The 2nd one is about Netflix, and this NYT story sheds some (more) light on the company. It’s about creative destruction stimulated by the company itself. It doesn’t guarantee Netflix will win as the technology shifts continually challenge its business model, but it gives the company a fighting chance. Again, such a shifting business model is probably not the best playground for investors, but Netflix is still worth tracking for all the other reasons.
As we blog and try to become more transparent for investors, potential investors and even invested companies, we’re aware of the dangers of over-exposure and “posing”, as these two NY Times pieces highlight. We feel we’re safe because 1) Transparency has always been our culture: we pioneered fund reports in Brazil, then annual investor meetings, and now this blog – and more to come; 2) We’re aware of the risks and have built our processes and incentive systems accordingly; and 3) We tend to assume we’re wrong – meaning we’re conservative. Since we recognize we’re learning as much as everybody else is, we will prefer to err on the side of omission.
Zynga keeps popping up on the news as it reportedly heads for an IPO, and one piece asked if it can become the Google of online games. Sure, the business model seems fantastic – precisely what usually attracts competitors. So far they have suffered and didn’t really appear to threaten Zynga. Now Disney is making a move and it’s easy to imagine other players joining the battle. Plus, thinking about games reminded us of Electronic Arts.
Thought-provoking presentation on (buzzword alert!) “information shadows”, “the sensor web”, cloud computing, data collection/ processing/ visualization, local marketing + micropayments, P2P credit-card payments, social network risk evaluation… and how all this is coming together to create new products and services that feed on the cloud and/or organize it. It’s still impossible to tell just how practical this is and who will make money from this, but it’s nice food for thought. Also a comment on the skill of networking.
The WSJ had an interview in late June with Carlos Brito about his plans for Anheuser-Busch Inbev. The video inside is focused on the corporate culture aspect, and it’s always refreshing to watch. That said, we wonder if the video registers for foreign investors as much as it registers for investors who have been exposed for so many years to the effects that Brahma’s/ AmBev’s/ InBev’s and now ABI’s culture really has over time.
Strategy & Business published a review for The Curse of The Mogul, which we’ve read recently. It’s a must-read for several reasons: media, capital allocation, competitive strategy and leadership. Not that we agree with Greenwald 100%. Chapter 2, on competitive strategy, is especially interesting because it assesses the competitive strategy framework from a specific industry’s standpoint (always better than ‘generic speeches’) and it was useful for thinking about other industries as well.
Three WSJ articles related to consumers in emerging markets and how CG companies are adapting. The 1st one highlights the bullish comments on emerging markets in Nestlé’s Investor Day, with some detail on the capex plans and the goals they intend to achieve through these investments. The 2nd story is about India and the P&G vs. Unilever battles over there. Finally, a 3rd story (weaker) highlights 3 chinese companies supposedly exposed to China’s increasing “consumerism” – the stock analysis is superficial and the trend is far from “new news”, but it complements the other two articles.
