Posts Tagged: Saxton Bampfylde

Economic Stimulus / Financial Services / Governance / Non-executive — Comments Off
20
May 10

Why the euro will continue heading south

Investing in vice

Late one night, over a cigar and a 1958 Armagnac in the craftily hidden Garden Bar of the Lanesborough Hotel, I was told of a great investment opportunity. The Vice Fund, a mutual fund that had outperformed its benchmarks by “an order of magnitude.”

As a rule, investment tips exchanged in bars where billionaires lurk darkly should be ignored. But the appeal of a fund that invests in industries that are automatically excluded from corporate responsibility indices, ones that appeal to self-destruction and the destruction of others (smoking and arms manufacturers), as well as addiction (gaming and alcohol), tickled my fancy. Philip Morris is its biggest holding, along with Lockheed Martin and Carlsberg, among others.  Continue reading...

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22
Mar 10

Why the IMF needs to rescue the UK

Corporate governance: a Lent tale

Giving up chocolate for Lent proved impossible so I decided to do something more proactive, namely trying to be more patient. Note my realism: trying rather than being, else it would have been as impossible. I presume Prime Minister Gordon Brown is on a similar quest, following recent allegations of phones being flung amid volcanic rages.

Patience is all the more apropos, I realised, when a wise chairman told me it was one of the attributes I would need to make a success of my new career, as I cosseted prospective non-executive directors through the process of board level headhunting.  Continue reading...

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19
Feb 10

Emerging Markets: The BRIC Myth

The Templars at War

Religion, politics and sex are not fit subjects of conversation for a dinner party, an old saying has it. To add sparkle to my blog – which today deals with PIGS, BRICS and taxes – I have ensured they are all alluded to in this post.

The imagination of financial market participants is often captured by absurdly named arbitrary groupings. PIGS is one of them. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are all very different countries, even in their debt levels, deficits and economic capacity.

BRICs is another misnomer. Coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs to stand for the high-growth emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the thesis is that by 2050 their combined economies could be larger than those of the current richest countries of the world.  Continue reading...

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12
Feb 10

Stiglitz on the Ultimate Emerging Market

The Terminator departs

The US is the ultimate emerging market.

I remember first hearing this from Alfonso Prat-Gay, former central bank governor of Argentina – a man who had quite a bit of experience of irresponsibly high spending governments.

If the old-style IMF were in charge, it would have ordered the Obama government to cut spending radically, jack up interest rates and suffer through the ensuing recession to come out healthily on the other side.

But the new warm and fuzzy Bretton Woods institutions (IMF/WB) won’t do that.  Continue reading...

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