Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe. Wisn'tal Joe? Do you
Speaker 1: remember a few months ago? Wow? It seems like ages
Speaker 1: ago actually, But back in January we spoke to an
Speaker 1: investor in Iranian markets. Yes, and I was thinking, actually,
Speaker 1: we should we should invite that guy back, because when
Speaker 1: we talked in January, um, you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: a run and what investing in that market was like.
Speaker 1: But that was, of course, obviously before it got hit
Speaker 1: with COVID, which it was one of the countries that
Speaker 1: really got hit hard very quickly after China. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad you mentioned that because let's reminder to us to
Speaker 1: have him back and see how things are going there.
Speaker 1: We should definitely do a follow up. But one of
Speaker 1: the sort of themes that came out of that episode,
Speaker 1: I guess, was the idea that you can find yield
Speaker 1: and you can find returns if you're willing to put
Speaker 1: in work that basically no one else is willing to do.
Speaker 1: So if you're willing to go to Iran all the
Speaker 1: time and sort of deal with all the sanctions issues
Speaker 1: and things like that, and really get to know that
Speaker 1: particular market, well, maybe you can find some decent investment opportunities, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important point, and I like
Speaker 1: the way you put it in terms of like putting
Speaker 1: in the work, because you're not going to find much
Speaker 1: sort of like yield or obvious alpha if you're just
Speaker 1: sort of like looking through a screen of liquid stickers
Speaker 1: traded on a US exchange or at least, it's going
Speaker 1: to be very hard to find an edge. But what
Speaker 1: what made that episode striking was just the sheer amount
Speaker 1: of legwork required to even invest uh in Iranian companies
Speaker 1: as a foreign investor instead of up the broker relationships
Speaker 1: and getting money in out of the country. And if
Speaker 1: you can find a way to do that, and you
Speaker 1: can make that smoothly, you know, operate that, then there
Speaker 1: are opportunities. But that's a lot harder than what most
Speaker 1: people are willing to do. Right, Most people will just
Speaker 1: put their money in SPX, and I think that will suffice.
Speaker 1: But clearly, again, if you're trying to generate alpha, a
Speaker 1: lot of people do look to emerging markets. They look
Speaker 1: to frontier markets because those are considered sort of lesser
Speaker 1: known than the rest of the world and that per
Speaker 1: the around example is really where do diligence comes in?
Speaker 1: So and this has been a theme in emerging markets
Speaker 1: for a long time, but we've had people, you know,
Speaker 1: who go to those markets and try to become experts
Speaker 1: in them and really get to know what's going on
Speaker 1: in those particular countries. And I'm happy to say that
Speaker 1: while we aren't talking to the Iranian investor today, we
Speaker 1: are talking to two investors who have basically made traveling
Speaker 1: to various emerging markets their raised on DETRA for almost
Speaker 1: the past year. They've gone to I think it's something
Speaker 1: like ten countries and lived probably a month in each one,
Speaker 1: all in the name of getting that edge, doing the
Speaker 1: due diligence and getting to know the market better. I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. I think I love this topic.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of um putting in the legwork,
Speaker 1: actually getting to know U countries now just sort of
Speaker 1: looking at screens and looking at pe ratios and saying
Speaker 1: that they're going to mean revert or actually uh, putting
Speaker 1: on the work. And I'm looking I think this is
Speaker 1: a topic, and especially now, like in the middle of
Speaker 1: this crisis that we're still in. I feel like there
Speaker 1: is going to be a real I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe bifurcation isn't the word, but there
Speaker 1: are some companies that will thrive and figure out ways,
Speaker 1: some companies that won't in different countries are going to
Speaker 1: come back in different ways eventually, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be up. There will be rewards for the investors that
Speaker 1: actually figure out sort of what works and what recovers faster,
Speaker 1: and what what can thrive and the sort of post
Speaker 1: COVID order whatever that may be. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: absolutely right. And the other thing um that that sort
Speaker 1: of at play at the moment is just how countries
Speaker 1: are dealing with coronavirus. And I do think it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to get a sense of how different places are
Speaker 1: are grappling with it without actually being on the ground
Speaker 1: and seeing everything that's happening. So this is gonna be
Speaker 1: an interesting episode. We're going to talk em We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk coronavirus without further ado. Let's bring on our guests.
Speaker 1: We have Burton, Flynn and Ivan. Burton is managing partner
Speaker 1: at Terra Nova Capital, which advises the every Emerging Frontier Fund,
Speaker 1: and Ivan is a senior investment professional for the same
Speaker 1: fund at Tara nov So thank you both for coming
Speaker 1: on today. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having this.
Speaker 1: So I guess just to begin, where did this idea
Speaker 1: actually come from traveling around emerging markets? I think when
Speaker 1: you originally set out you wanted to go to twelve
Speaker 1: countries over the course of twelve months. Why do that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been traveling as part of our investment
Speaker 1: strategy for UM for over five years, and UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we've spent about a week a month, usually visiting about
Speaker 1: two countries, and you know, I think that's already more
Speaker 1: than most most managers typically do. Uh. We we go
Speaker 1: out and we meet management and we get a lot
Speaker 1: of value out of those meetings. I had a friend
Speaker 1: who was kind of perpetually traveling for five or six years,
Speaker 1: and I I was always interested in, you know, doing
Speaker 1: something like that but applying it to kind of our
Speaker 1: our business model, and so this is something that's been
Speaker 1: in the works for years. Finally we we kind of
Speaker 1: made the plans, and um, we set out to not
Speaker 1: just visit, but live in twelve emerging markets for for
Speaker 1: one month each and with our families moving our families,
Speaker 1: you know, one month at a time and um, you know,
Speaker 1: really immersing ourselves. So what what countries did you go
Speaker 1: to on this tour? And what does immersing yourselves actually mean?
Speaker 1: Because a month, you know, it's obviously a little longer
Speaker 1: than sort of a tourist trip. It's longer than a
Speaker 1: typical vacation, but still not you know, necessarily long enough
Speaker 1: to really sort of no place and know what data
Speaker 1: life is like. But what is how do you learn
Speaker 1: about a country in a month? Yeah? Absolutely, But we
Speaker 1: started out with the Philippines. From there we went to
Speaker 1: Malaysia and then Indonesia, and then we were in Bangladesh
Speaker 1: and Pakistan. UH. From there we went to Thailand and
Speaker 1: then Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey, and
Speaker 1: we had planned to go on to Egypt and Argentina,
Speaker 1: Chile and Mexico. Um, and that's actually more than twelve.
Speaker 1: We started out with the idea of twelve. We we
Speaker 1: got really excited and added a few more countries before
Speaker 1: before things kind of came to a screeching halta with
Speaker 1: with UH with coronavirus. But the idea was, you know
Speaker 1: that we wanted to really get to know these smaller
Speaker 1: emerging markets. I mean, there's a lot of experts out
Speaker 1: there that no China and no India, but we really
Speaker 1: wanted to get to know these these smaller markets. M hmm.
Speaker 1: Just on that point, can you maybe walk us through
Speaker 1: a little bit of the investment strategy of the fund
Speaker 1: that you manage, Like what exactly is it that you're
Speaker 1: investing in and what are you looking for when you
Speaker 1: go to these countries? Yeah, absolutely so. Our strategy is
Speaker 1: a value of value of strategy. So we we are
Speaker 1: value investors UM. We are going on location and trying
Speaker 1: to find companies that aren't just cheap, but that are
Speaker 1: growing and you know that are that are high quality
Speaker 1: companies and so you know, it sounds like we're trying
Speaker 1: to get the best of you know, all worlds. Most
Speaker 1: people are either value investors, growth investor quality investors UM,
Speaker 1: but we're really looking for a combination of of all three.
Speaker 1: So if you look at our portfolio UM statistics and
Speaker 1: you compare it to you know, to the index for example,
Speaker 1: you know, our pe ratio is is less than half
Speaker 1: that of the index UM, while are you know that
Speaker 1: the average growth of the portfolio is quite quite a
Speaker 1: bit higher, and the you know, the return on equity
Speaker 1: is double. Um, the you know, the net debt to
Speaker 1: eve it does a fourth. So you know, it almost
Speaker 1: seems like too good to be true. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got something that's cheaper, that's growing faster, that's more high quality.
Speaker 1: But but that's what we're going for. And it's not easy,
Speaker 1: and so that's why we spend so much time on
Speaker 1: the road looking for these companies. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not easy to put together portfolio like this, you know,
Speaker 1: but we've managed to find, uh, somewhere in the range
Speaker 1: of thirty companies that that we're that we're really excited about.
Speaker 1: Talk about that the easiness, because Tracy and I alluded
Speaker 1: to that in the introduction when we talked about the
Speaker 1: guy who invested in Iran. It's work, and it's not easy,
Speaker 1: and it's not looking at a screen, and it's not
Speaker 1: looking for some sort of pe ratio, historical Norman reversion
Speaker 1: or some other quantitative strategy. It actually seems difficult to
Speaker 1: find opportunities in a way that you know, you're it's
Speaker 1: a lot harder than just looking at a list. Talk
Speaker 1: about like obviously there's the travel part and going to
Speaker 1: a country, but then like just sort of the grinding
Speaker 1: it out and figuring out which companies are traded in,
Speaker 1: which companies have the characteristics that you like for your portfolio. Um,
Speaker 1: what is that process like? Yes? So, so basically you
Speaker 1: know this kind of project of twelve markets and twelve months.
Speaker 1: It's not only meeting the companies that already look attractive
Speaker 1: on paper fundamentally, which we could probably find just off
Speaker 1: the computer screen. So we actually try to meet every
Speaker 1: company that's willing to meet with us. Part of this
Speaker 1: is research if there is any signal whether the company
Speaker 1: is willing to meet or not, but also it really
Speaker 1: helps us build the knowledge and expertise in these markets.
Speaker 1: And so the more companies you meet, the more CEOs
Speaker 1: you meet, I think you also learned the colleges of
Speaker 1: people and the managers, because I think at this point
Speaker 1: it already kind of came to this stage that when
Speaker 1: we walk into the into the meeting, sometimes it's enough
Speaker 1: to talk to the CEO for two or three minutes
Speaker 1: to realize whether they're just trying to promote their business
Speaker 1: or they're being authentic in the in the responses to
Speaker 1: our questions so so, so this implies that we meet
Speaker 1: a lot of companies. So for example, I think it's
Speaker 1: somewhere between forty companies the minimum we met in a
Speaker 1: country to ninety companies the maximum we met. And I
Speaker 1: think we were going to meet over a hundred companies
Speaker 1: in a month in Chokey, but obviously COVID kind of
Speaker 1: disturbed our plans. And after we meet the company, obviously
Speaker 1: we before that, we already have the research done, Our
Speaker 1: team does the research, we have the qualitative quantitative data
Speaker 1: about the company, then we have the data from the
Speaker 1: meeting itself. Then a big component of the process is
Speaker 1: also to a questionnaire that we ask the companies to complete.
Speaker 1: And when we have all of this data of this
Speaker 1: information with them, make investment decisions and as an investment committee,
Speaker 1: of course, some of the companies probably would never qualify
Speaker 1: as investors, but you know, at the same time, for
Speaker 1: research purposes, this is an invaluable experience. I think Brkin
Speaker 1: can kind of explain a bit more about the research itself.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, and and it's not just it's not just
Speaker 1: meeting companies that we are setting out to do. So
Speaker 1: so basically, in addition to these kind of forty two
Speaker 1: you know, hundred company meetings that we've done each month.
Speaker 1: We've also set out to meet with some of the
Speaker 1: best macro experts in the country. And and that starts
Speaker 1: with the finance minister and the central bank governor and
Speaker 1: you know, and then the president of the Stock Exchange,
Speaker 1: the commissioner of the local sec you know, the financial
Speaker 1: regulator UM and then and then many more. In South Africa,
Speaker 1: for example, we also met with the Commissioner of their
Speaker 1: Black Economic Empowerment Initiative UM. And you know, we also
Speaker 1: attempt to meet with the UM Minister of Climate Change
Speaker 1: where environment in in each country as well, which which
Speaker 1: we met in Pakistan for example. So so we we
Speaker 1: set out to meet kind of these important macro players
Speaker 1: and and you know, government officials. We we also meet
Speaker 1: the U s Ambassador and and you know, the Finnish
Speaker 1: ambassador and in each country that that we're able to UM.
Speaker 1: But then in addition to that, you know, we also
Speaker 1: try to triangulate what we're learning in those meetings as
Speaker 1: well as in the you know, company meetings with UM
Speaker 1: with other kind of business leaders and and the best
Speaker 1: way we found to do this is, you know, is
Speaker 1: to reach out to alumni from the business school that
Speaker 1: we went to. So Ivan and I both attended the
Speaker 1: work the Warton Business School. Uh. And so we've reached
Speaker 1: out to, you know, to too many of the Warton
Speaker 1: alumni in each of these countries, you know, starting with
Speaker 1: the Philippines, which was interesting because there's there's quite a
Speaker 1: broad base of Worton alumni there. So we we had
Speaker 1: lunch every single day with a different Worton alum in
Speaker 1: the Philippines. But this has given us a great opportunity
Speaker 1: to you know, to basically meet more people in a
Speaker 1: different setting. Um, you know, people that are more comfortable
Speaker 1: talking to us and and you know, talk about like
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in in these company meetings, in these
Speaker 1: macro meetings, and and um get a better idea of
Speaker 1: you know, of what of what the real situation is. Mhm.
Speaker 1: Just on this note, Um, how do we actually go
Speaker 1: about arranging these meetings? I think Joe and I as
Speaker 1: journalists probably have an interest in anything you can teach
Speaker 1: us about access. But what's it like to actually approach,
Speaker 1: for instance, the central Bank governor and get a meeting
Speaker 1: with them? Like, how does that work? Well, the typical
Speaker 1: way that fund managers, you know, get meetings with companies
Speaker 1: UM or with with uh you know, macro players, UM,
Speaker 1: like the Central Bank governor is through the broker and UM.
Speaker 1: You know, in the past, we've we've had we've had
Speaker 1: okay experience working with our brokers, UM. But actually in
Speaker 1: our in our second and third countries that we were in,
Speaker 1: we kind of had a bad, bad experience with with
Speaker 1: our brokers. In in the second country we were in,
Speaker 1: our broker quit the first week we were there, and
Speaker 1: uh kind of send us an email on you know,
Speaker 1: on on our fourth day there and and just said, hey,
Speaker 1: today is my last day, by the way, and then
Speaker 1: and then our our you know, in in the third
Speaker 1: country and in the Indonesia, you know, the broker just
Speaker 1: didn't respond to emails and so so we so we
Speaker 1: just started actually reaching out ourselves to two companies just
Speaker 1: off their investor relations website or you know, off the
Speaker 1: Center Bank governor website, and uh, we were really surprised.
Speaker 1: Actually so so the brokers. You know, they're big value proposition,
Speaker 1: UH is that you can't get these meetings yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: you just can't do it yourself. You have to have
Speaker 1: the local networks and everything. So we started emailing these companies. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know. In the first country we did it, we
Speaker 1: sent to a couple of you know, I think we
Speaker 1: sent one follow up. Um. And the more we did this,
Speaker 1: the more experience we got. We actually hired an administrative
Speaker 1: assistant to help us. And um, you know, the last
Speaker 1: country we were in, for example, UM, I think we
Speaker 1: sent fifteen follow up emails. So it's literally every single
Speaker 1: day we would send another, you know, another follow up
Speaker 1: and and you'd be surprised, actually how many companies. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: there's there's not that many, but you'd be surprised that,
Speaker 1: you know, there are companies that on the fourteen email
Speaker 1: you know, reply and say, oh, I'm sorry I missed
Speaker 1: your first thirteen you know email to so UM. So
Speaker 1: it's really been and an effort of reaching out cold,
Speaker 1: of course, explaining who we are, kind of working it
Speaker 1: that way. Of course, then we you know, if we
Speaker 1: can't get ahold of companies that we really want to
Speaker 1: get a hold of or or um, you know, government leaders,
Speaker 1: we might try other sources. We might ask you know,
Speaker 1: the broker still um. And we'll also go through the
Speaker 1: work network, and we'll go through kind of you know,
Speaker 1: any any channel that we can UM. So, for example,
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia, you know, we we were able to
Speaker 1: actually we write about this in in our trip report
Speaker 1: that we have published on our on our website. But
Speaker 1: we asked our broker to help us get a meeting,
Speaker 1: you know with with kind of the central bank governor,
Speaker 1: with the finance minister, with the stact Exchange president. And
Speaker 1: they said that, you know, it's just really too hard
Speaker 1: in Saudi. Those people never you know, never meet with investors. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not even worth trying, really, and
Speaker 1: so we you know, we got on LinkedIn and we
Speaker 1: found somebody who was an advisor to the CEO of
Speaker 1: the Stock Exchange and reached out to him and through
Speaker 1: him we were able to get a meeting with you know,
Speaker 1: with with the president of the stock Exchange and um. Actually,
Speaker 1: in the meeting with the president of the Stock Exchange,
Speaker 1: we mentioned that we were trying to get a meeting
Speaker 1: with the sec you know, commissioner and the Central bank governor.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, no problem, and he pulled out his
Speaker 1: phone and you know what's apped, you know, the the
Speaker 1: commissioner and the governor and and I said, no I've
Speaker 1: got a meeting arranged arranged for you guys. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no problem. So it's it's really you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really just kind of being scrappy and um,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and you know, reaching out to
Speaker 1: everybody we we want to meet and you know, explaining
Speaker 1: explaining who we are. So uh, Burton, you mentioned your
Speaker 1: blog just then and I was sort of flipping through
Speaker 1: it earlier. And one of the meetings you describe was
Speaker 1: with I think it was Donald Trump Jr. Which is
Speaker 1: kind of unusual for someone to go to Indonesia and
Speaker 1: then end up meeting um, someone like that. How did
Speaker 1: that come about? And how did the meeting actually go? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still wonder how that how that really all all happened,
Speaker 1: because basically, you know, we we went to Indonesia, and
Speaker 1: I think maybe ten days after we arrived, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're sitting across the table at a small group dinner
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump Junr. And um, some others from the
Speaker 1: Trump you know, Trump organization and then a company that
Speaker 1: we you know, the we were investigating as well as
Speaker 1: as a potential investment. So basically, you know, we showed
Speaker 1: up the CEO of this company there that's a media
Speaker 1: company that also has real estate holdings. UM accepted our
Speaker 1: meeting request. We went and met with him and had
Speaker 1: had dinner afterwards. A very prominent individual in Indonesia UM
Speaker 1: who's a billionairerand, very well known. We were sitting at
Speaker 1: dinner with him and uh he was he was, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of dropping names of people that he knows, but
Speaker 1: you know, in in the classiest way you can you
Speaker 1: can imagine. Um. So so basically, you know, he would mention, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, having having a vacation house where his neighbor
Speaker 1: is justin Weaver or uh you know, or or you know,
Speaker 1: hanging out with Donald Trump or something UM. And then
Speaker 1: he would he would grab his phone and uh, you
Speaker 1: know to show us the pictures. But instead of going
Speaker 1: to his photos app like most of us would do,
Speaker 1: he went to Google and typed in his name and
Speaker 1: the person's name showed us showed us the pictures with him.
Speaker 1: So he so he mentioned, uh, you know, at this
Speaker 1: dinner and this was Friday night after our meeting. He
Speaker 1: mentioned to us that a couple of days later, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump Jr. Was flying flying in for a pre launch
Speaker 1: event for their their properties that they that they're selling
Speaker 1: together with the Trump Organization, and that they're also you know,
Speaker 1: going to Bali to tour a project that they're working
Speaker 1: on together. He said, you know, if you guys would
Speaker 1: like to come to this pre launch event, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: you're you're welcome to come. And um, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: if you'd like to, if you'd like to come to
Speaker 1: Bali and um, you know, spend four days hanging out
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump Jr. Please come and Uh. The purpose
Speaker 1: for us was really a chance to one observed the CEO,
Speaker 1: this chairman owner of a company that, uh, that we
Speaker 1: were really interested in, and to also tour the assets
Speaker 1: that that the company owned. Um. And so so then
Speaker 1: we were you know, we were sitting sitting at a
Speaker 1: small group dinner. We were invited to four you know,
Speaker 1: four dinners with Donald Trump Jr. And I sort of
Speaker 1: got more and more comfortable in each meeting, and by
Speaker 1: the you know, by the third dinner, I kind of
Speaker 1: made some jokes and uh, I ended up getting uninvited
Speaker 1: to the fourth dinner. So let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the countries and places we can get to the sort
Speaker 1: of current crisis and how COVID is affecting your view
Speaker 1: of the world and various emerging markets or frontier markets.
Speaker 1: But pre crisis, as you traveled the world, where were
Speaker 1: some of the places that particularly stood out to you
Speaker 1: in terms of places where there are a lot of
Speaker 1: companies doing interesting things that people didn't appreciate at compelling valuation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess there are countries that stood out
Speaker 1: for good or for bad reasons. I think in terms
Speaker 1: of evaluations, I think the very we had a very
Speaker 1: interesting month in Pakistan because when we came to Pakistan,
Speaker 1: the country was basically coming off very I think pronounced
Speaker 1: currency crash I think about over thirty and there was
Speaker 1: economic crisis in the country, and we kind of captured
Speaker 1: the very bottom of it. And so many companies, especially
Speaker 1: the good companies with good corporate governance, with good cash flows,
Speaker 1: they were trading at like four or five times B,
Speaker 1: which if you compare it to some other countries like Thailand,
Speaker 1: where we went to after Pakistan, you would actually you
Speaker 1: never find the company that trades even at like ten
Speaker 1: times B in Thailand. So in Pakistan evlations were very,
Speaker 1: very cheap. But we found some companies that were very
Speaker 1: good quality um with growing earnings and good aspect um,
Speaker 1: I mean from the bad countries. I mean not bad countries,
Speaker 1: but countries with let's say, unfortunate macro situations. So unfortunately,
Speaker 1: South Africa comes to mind us number one country that
Speaker 1: is really really challenged from macro perspective. So you know,
Speaker 1: it still is considered an emergent market, but it's the
Speaker 1: only emergent market in the world that failed to grow
Speaker 1: it's g D peper capital over the past ten years.
Speaker 1: So we we witnessed many kind of issues staming from
Speaker 1: uh inefficient political system and just basically failed institutions all
Speaker 1: over the place, unfortunately for the people of the country.
Speaker 1: But there is a lot of corruption, there is no
Speaker 1: credible opposition there is basically they have the decades of
Speaker 1: institutionalized racism and unemployment rate is attent and about six
Speaker 1: young people. So we really felt that the country has
Speaker 1: so many challenges. And actually we were there right before
Speaker 1: the moody Is moody Is downgraded their credit rating and
Speaker 1: since then the currency collapsed another before even coronavirus, And
Speaker 1: this is kind of the interesting part of investing in
Speaker 1: emerging markets. We have really countries in different stages of
Speaker 1: their you know, politics, economics. For example of South Africa
Speaker 1: Pakistan dimensioned. You also have Vietnam with a very very
Speaker 1: strong command communist regime which actually makes economic wonders like
Speaker 1: at this point of the country's development. Then you also
Speaker 1: have Bangladesh which was growing like seven eight percent gdpeoper year. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this diversity is very very interesting. I mean, Malaysia
Speaker 1: probably stands out and I think Burton will give you
Speaker 1: some good reasons for why. You know, people look at
Speaker 1: our portfolio and today we have about thirty percent of
Speaker 1: our portfolio invested in Malaysia, and they often you know,
Speaker 1: one of the first questions I often ask us is
Speaker 1: why do you guys love Malaysia so much? But before
Speaker 1: you go on, I just want to interrupt you. I
Speaker 1: used to live in Malaysia and I love it, so
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about hearing this. Well, so people ask
Speaker 1: us why do you love Malaysia so much? And our
Speaker 1: answer is we don't. We hate Malaysia the exact office.
Speaker 1: So that's so good. Sorry. So, so you know, we're
Speaker 1: really passionate about emerging markets. We love emerging markets. I've
Speaker 1: I've spent my entire career in in emerging markets and Um.
Speaker 1: You know, emerging markets are exciting. There's always something, you know,
Speaker 1: something happening. Um. You know there's there's some kind of
Speaker 1: air strikes or you know, currency to valuations, hyper inflation.
Speaker 1: There's always something interesting happening in emerging markets. UM, but
Speaker 1: not Malaysia. You know, Malaysia's boring. It just it grows
Speaker 1: at five percent a year and maintains three percent unemployment.
Speaker 1: You know, it keeps inflation around two percent a year. UM,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it just never has these really riveting,
Speaker 1: exciting stories. So you know, it's it's uh, it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's the most boring of all the emerging markets. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know my point, My point is we're not
Speaker 1: macro investors, So we're not you know, we're not We're
Speaker 1: not trying to pick countries and say, okay, we really
Speaker 1: love Malaysia, let's invest in Malaysia. It just happens to
Speaker 1: be the case that we have found several really really interesting,
Speaker 1: exciting companies in Malaysia that we are you know, that
Speaker 1: we're really um confident will grow their earnings and that
Speaker 1: are trading at very reasonable cheap valuations. And for you know,
Speaker 1: that's the reason that we have thirty percent invested in Malaysia. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know outside kl is an amazing city. Something I'm
Speaker 1: curious about is, you know you talk about all the
Speaker 1: great companies you find in Malaysia, and I think when
Speaker 1: I often think about from tier markets investing, I think
Speaker 1: about these or emerging markets, whatever you want to call them. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, not many listed companies, uh exchanges dominated by
Speaker 1: some privatized banks or commodity or utility or telecom companies maybe, Um,
Speaker 1: but what are the types of companies, sort of industry specific, um,
Speaker 1: that you find exciting? Like are there interesting tech companies
Speaker 1: and on these markets? Like what are the sectors within
Speaker 1: these same Malaysia or any others that you tend to
Speaker 1: see interesting opportunities? Yeah? Absolutely, UM. You know, often we
Speaker 1: find some very interesting industrial companies that you know, are
Speaker 1: kind of boring and overlooked. Ivan can share with you
Speaker 1: a couple of examples, but I'll share with you you know,
Speaker 1: one example that we actually found in Malaysia. That's that's
Speaker 1: currently our our highest weight in the portfolio. UM and
Speaker 1: uh this is a a tech company, but tech hardware company,
Speaker 1: so they produce testing equipment for three D sensors. UM,
Speaker 1: so the kinds of sensors that you find on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: for example, they test, you know, they test the the
Speaker 1: equipment that UM, you know, does facial recognition recognition. UM.
Speaker 1: They test the air air pods, uh, you know for Apple.
Speaker 1: Apple is one of their biggest clients. UM. They test
Speaker 1: the equipment that goes on to UM, you know, onto
Speaker 1: autonomous cars and elect vehicles. UM. And and this company, UH,
Speaker 1: this company, what's what's really interesting about it? Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's been growing at over fifty percent a year, both
Speaker 1: top line and bottom line for five years now. It's
Speaker 1: a company that is high quality and in a lot
Speaker 1: of respects. And UM one that we actually owned several
Speaker 1: years back when the pe was was was ten times
Speaker 1: or even less, and we did quite well on it before,
Speaker 1: but we ended up selling it because the valuation got
Speaker 1: into the twenties and thirties. But when we went and
Speaker 1: revisited this company, we actually learned that they had since
Speaker 1: restructured their listing and they now have essentially a dual listing,
Speaker 1: one on Malaysia and one on the Hong Kong Stocking change.
Speaker 1: And what was really interesting is that the the listing
Speaker 1: on the Hong Kong Stock Change where it was trading
Speaker 1: for less than half the valuation of the listing on
Speaker 1: the Malaysia Stock Exchange. So you know, we got really
Speaker 1: excited not only about the fundamentals and the prospects of
Speaker 1: growth prospects of this company, but also you know, this
Speaker 1: sort of arbitrage opportunity where you know, we could own
Speaker 1: this company that was growing at over fifty percent a
Speaker 1: year for uh multiple of of ten times or less.
Speaker 1: And so we immediately after after that meeting, I think
Speaker 1: within within a couple of days, you know, put in
Speaker 1: put in our order and made that company the you know,
Speaker 1: the largest weight in in our portfolio. And it's actually
Speaker 1: paid off. So so since since we started this trip
Speaker 1: back in June, until the coronavirus crisis hit, you know,
Speaker 1: our performance for that I think seven or eight month
Speaker 1: period was ten and just to give you a reference,
Speaker 1: the closest index to you know, to our strategy, which
Speaker 1: by the way, we're very different from what the index
Speaker 1: looks like, but the closest index was up four and
Speaker 1: of of that ten percent return, about four percent came
Speaker 1: from this this one company. Um and so so it's
Speaker 1: been it's been a huge win for you know, for
Speaker 1: our fund. So just going back to the Malaysia example,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna pile in on on Joe here
Speaker 1: a little bit. And you mentioned that that market tends
Speaker 1: to be quite boring. But we have had one exciting
Speaker 1: thing that happened, and that was the one MDB scandal.
Speaker 1: And this is sort of a repetitive theme in emerging markets.
Speaker 1: We all often have scandals, we often have corporate governance issues.
Speaker 1: How do you get comfortable with that risk as emerging
Speaker 1: market investors? Is there something specific that you look out
Speaker 1: for when trying to judge a company, Yeah, a company
Speaker 1: or country, because I mean the example you you share,
Speaker 1: so in terms of getting comfortable with the country, you know,
Speaker 1: using your example of of kind of the one MDB scandal. Um,
Speaker 1: we used to do absolutely nothing on on the macro front.
Speaker 1: So you know, we were true bottom up investors that
Speaker 1: we're just looking for amazing companies to add to the portfolio.
Speaker 1: And you know, for the first four or five years
Speaker 1: that worked really well. And in ten we had a
Speaker 1: fairly heart high weight in Turkey and in Pakistan and
Speaker 1: that year um Turkeys lira, the Turkish lira fell within
Speaker 1: a twelve month period fell by and the you know,
Speaker 1: the the rupie fell by in in a twelve month
Speaker 1: or maybe an eighteen month period, and as a result,
Speaker 1: we actually ended up massively under performing. Um So, so
Speaker 1: up to that point, for the first three or four years,
Speaker 1: we actually are performance was in the top one percentile
Speaker 1: of you know, of of all of our peers um
Speaker 1: that year. Had it not been for Turkey and Pakistan,
Speaker 1: we would have actually maintained that seller performance. But as
Speaker 1: a result, we ended up massively underperforming. And so, as
Speaker 1: you know, what we ended up doing was doing a
Speaker 1: lot of research on macro events. UM. I'm actually currently
Speaker 1: listening to, uh, the audiobook of Ray Dalio's Principles, and
Speaker 1: you know, he does a lot of these case studies,
Speaker 1: these macro case studies, and that's essentially what we what
Speaker 1: we did is we started digging into, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to all of the currency crisises that have happened in
Speaker 1: emerging markets. By the way, UM, do you guys have
Speaker 1: any idea how many times the currency in emerging markets
Speaker 1: has devalued by fift in a twelve month period, let's say,
Speaker 1: in the last thirty years. M No, But I'd like,
Speaker 1: what's the idea. So so it's only happened twelve times
Speaker 1: UH in the last in the last thirty years, and
Speaker 1: four of those twelve times was related to the Asian
Speaker 1: financial crisis. So if you take away those those four
Speaker 1: related Asian financial crisis, there's only been eight times that
Speaker 1: a currency has devalued by fifty or more. And um,
Speaker 1: four of those eight we're Turkey and two two of
Speaker 1: those eight were Argentina, So there there are some repeat
Speaker 1: offenders in terms of emerging market currency to valuations. And
Speaker 1: so we did these these big case studies and UM
Speaker 1: we also built a kind of macro risk quantitative model
Speaker 1: and as a you know, as a result, we have
Speaker 1: now overlaid this macro risk model to get comfortable with
Speaker 1: UH you know, with countries on both quantitative basis looking
Speaker 1: at their current accounts, looking at their their fiscal deficit
Speaker 1: and their you know, debt UM and also on a
Speaker 1: qualitative basis UM, you know, looking for UH events that
Speaker 1: that have been associate it with currency crisis in the past.
Speaker 1: That's on the country level. On the on the company level,
Speaker 1: you know, UH, we obviously go on the ground and
Speaker 1: do our diligence on the company's UH. You know that
Speaker 1: we're interested in. But we also spend a lot of time,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, kind of you know, meeting with those
Speaker 1: outside of the company. Um, you know, really trying to
Speaker 1: meet with locals who are you know, alumps from our
Speaker 1: business school or uh, you know, competitors, ideally suppliers, people
Speaker 1: that are familiar with the company, because we want to
Speaker 1: make sure, you know, that the people that we're talking
Speaker 1: to are reliable. And you know, if we get uh,
Speaker 1: if we get conflicting accounts or we get questionable reports
Speaker 1: of the integrity of the managers, we won't invest. And
Speaker 1: so so just to give you one example actually, which
Speaker 1: was also in Malaysia, there was a company we were
Speaker 1: really excited about and and would have ended up investing in.
Speaker 1: You know, we got some conflicting accounts about the integrity
Speaker 1: of the managers and and we decided not to invest
Speaker 1: in that company. Now, unfortunately for us, it was it
Speaker 1: would have been one of the best performers. It turns out,
Speaker 1: you know, it turns out that the what the you
Speaker 1: know CEO that we met with was telling us was
Speaker 1: in fact true, and and uh, it would have been
Speaker 1: this amazing investment. But you know, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. That's that's what we need to do to UH,
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are you know, that that
Speaker 1: we're protecting our investors. So talk to us. Now, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the sort of current situation a
Speaker 1: little bit more because obviously, yeah, it's kind of a cliche,
Speaker 1: but the current crisis in a sense has changed everything.
Speaker 1: We don't know how much will permanently be changed, but
Speaker 1: presumably a lot. And they're also just questions about who
Speaker 1: will even make it from a sort of company standpoint
Speaker 1: to the post crisis era, given the collapse, cash flows, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So talk to us, UH and Iven, maybe you can
Speaker 1: come in here about how you're monitoring who's making things
Speaker 1: work or who's getting by or who's driving in this
Speaker 1: current moment um. Yeah, absolutely so. So I think in
Speaker 1: our of you, actually we see some great opportunities to
Speaker 1: buy good businesses at attractive valuations. I mean some some
Speaker 1: of the purchases could could probably be the percent related
Speaker 1: to take an advantage of the current environment. So for example,
Speaker 1: I mean speaking of Malaysia, but we bought a globe
Speaker 1: like a rubber rubber globe manufacturer in Malaysia to protect
Speaker 1: against this COVID related kind of market clubs, and so
Speaker 1: we bought it about two two and a half months ago,
Speaker 1: and since then it already went up one because the
Speaker 1: demand for rubber globes has skyrocketed. But but also you know,
Speaker 1: because we spent so much time on the ground, we
Speaker 1: try to select the very best company we can get
Speaker 1: for the valuation, for the strategy, prospects and demand and everything.
Speaker 1: So in Malaysia are four very large globe manufacturers. So
Speaker 1: the one we bought went up, as I said, about
Speaker 1: hundred fifty since we bought it, but the other three
Speaker 1: went up probably like between thirty five and so, so
Speaker 1: you know, it takes it takes some time on the
Speaker 1: ground to really understand which companies are undervalued. So in
Speaker 1: this case, we had the right call um. Of course.
Speaker 1: Uh we recently did this survey of all the companies
Speaker 1: we met over the last ten months, so six hundred
Speaker 1: thirty two companies. We asked each one of them thirteen
Speaker 1: questions about the impact of coronavirus on their operations, and
Speaker 1: I think over nine of them said that the impact
Speaker 1: is negative. So of course, in this environment it's not
Speaker 1: so easy to uh, you know, select only de winion companies.
Speaker 1: But what we can do if you think long term.
Speaker 1: Obviously there are some like this rubber glove company, But
Speaker 1: at the same time, we can positional portfolio very well
Speaker 1: for the long term. For example, businesses that were hit
Speaker 1: the most because of the panic sell off, but that
Speaker 1: have great management teams, great cash flows UH and the
Speaker 1: customers will return quickly. So we believe those companies are
Speaker 1: positioned very well too to keep performing. I mean, some
Speaker 1: of those could be some of the largest and most
Speaker 1: stable banks in let's say each of the emerging markets.
Speaker 1: Some of those could even be retailers when people start
Speaker 1: and I think more grocery retailers than some other type
Speaker 1: of retailers. UM. But but you know it, I think
Speaker 1: everyone has hit about the same all around the globe,
Speaker 1: but you always have these pockets of opportunity. For example,
Speaker 1: in Pakistan, we had this company which makes hydrogen peroxcite.
Speaker 1: So I mean, of course it's UH, it's basically luck.
Speaker 1: But during these tough times they started producing the disinfectants
Speaker 1: for UH because they used Drosian third site for food industry.
Speaker 1: But now they started producing it as a disaffectant, so
Speaker 1: there their shares also went up about six um. So
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's skilled, but sometimes, I mean you
Speaker 1: also get like Tracy, remind me to tell you after
Speaker 1: the podcast about the time I was in a nightclub
Speaker 1: in kl by the way, listening to a palm oil
Speaker 1: CEO telling me about why the world will forever need
Speaker 1: palm oil and why it's one of the greatest businesses
Speaker 1: in the world. But that's for another time. I was
Speaker 1: a bit worried when when Ivan was talking about you know,
Speaker 1: like disaffectant and the immediately segue to remind me to
Speaker 1: tell you about the time I was in a club
Speaker 1: in kl Okay, I will definitely ask um, well, okay.
Speaker 1: So clearly COVID has had an impact on businesses and
Speaker 1: is definitely going to continue to do so. It's also
Speaker 1: had an impact on the market itself. I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: but in terms of investment appetite for emerging market assets
Speaker 1: at the moment, what are you seeing, Like how bad
Speaker 1: is it and how difficult is it to convince people
Speaker 1: to invest in e M at the moment. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we don't spend a lot of our time marketing our fund,
Speaker 1: so we spend we spendent of our time on the
Speaker 1: on the investment side. UM, what I can tell you is,
Speaker 1: I've been really surprised by the limited amount of redemptions
Speaker 1: from our fund. Typically during you know, during drawdowns like this,
Speaker 1: you'll get a lot of you know, investors heading heading
Speaker 1: for the doors. Um, we've only had one investor really redeem,
Speaker 1: redeem their investment aside from Aside from that, the flows
Speaker 1: have been very stable. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: part of that is that we when we do meet
Speaker 1: with clients, uh, we try to make sure that they
Speaker 1: understand what our strategy is and and the you know,
Speaker 1: the volatility that's you know, that's related to it. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think part of it might be. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's you know, emerging markets are scary right now,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to say what's what's scarier. I mean
Speaker 1: there's also very very high, you know, inflated valuations and
Speaker 1: developed markets, so you know, it's it's it's maybe it's
Speaker 1: difficult to know where you know, where to optimally put
Speaker 1: you know, put put one's money. But uh, emerging markets,
Speaker 1: relative to you know, to develop markets have definitely been
Speaker 1: out of favor for the last decade. In some sense
Speaker 1: are an interesting place to be obviously, you know, central
Speaker 1: banks have much more limited ability to uh manage the crisis,
Speaker 1: and and that's you know, that's something that we're looking at,
Speaker 1: and so we spent a lot of time analyzing, you know,
Speaker 1: as part of our macro risk management, you know, commend
Speaker 1: meant analyzing, you know, where each of these countries are
Speaker 1: at and reducing or eliminating our weight in countries that
Speaker 1: we see, you know, having excessive risk related to coronavirus crisis.
Speaker 1: Do you do either of you have or do both
Speaker 1: of you have a favorite moment from your recent trip.
Speaker 1: I realized it was cut short, but I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have a lot of memories, a lot of interesting takeaways
Speaker 1: and lessons. What's one thing that sort of stood out
Speaker 1: for both of you? Yeah? Sure, I'll let even think
Speaker 1: about that for for a second. I'm gonna go back to,
Speaker 1: you know, the situation that I had shared with you
Speaker 1: earlier about you know, sitting across the table from Donald
Speaker 1: Trump Jr. Yeah, you know, they're they're already mentioned the
Speaker 1: access we can get simply by sending emails to companies
Speaker 1: and to stakeholders in its markets. And I think maybe
Speaker 1: half of the companies they never met foreign investors before
Speaker 1: and here we come, we send them an emails. Of
Speaker 1: course they're happy to meet, which kind of means the
Speaker 1: brokers don't always hold the keys. So for example, I
Speaker 1: think for me it was when we spent a month
Speaker 1: in Bangladesh. Basically just send a simple email too to
Speaker 1: the Nobel Prize winner Mohammed Unus, doctor Yunus, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, our fund has a very kind of pronounced
Speaker 1: E S G focus, but we always want to learn
Speaker 1: more about E s thre how can we create impact
Speaker 1: throw investments And you know, we would really appreciate meeting you.
Speaker 1: And you know, he himself here resppointed and he said,
Speaker 1: look I'm in Bangladesh right now, so we can meet
Speaker 1: next week. And it's been a great half an hour
Speaker 1: one on one meeting, just kind of talking about his
Speaker 1: involvement in the UN Sustainable Development Initiative and just kind
Speaker 1: of really getting this experience and wisdom from the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize winner how we could also try to be kind
Speaker 1: of more sustainable investors. So this kind of meetings on
Speaker 1: the ground really are worth a lot for us. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you to you both for walking us through your
Speaker 1: experiences and of course it's a shame that your your
Speaker 1: trip got cut off early due to the coronavirus crisis,
Speaker 1: but hopefully you get to go out again, um at
Speaker 1: some point and you can tell us what you've learned
Speaker 1: on on that trip as well. So Burton Flynn and
Speaker 1: Ivan Nichev, thank you so much for being on all thoughts.
Speaker 1: That was great. Thank you great. Yeah, thanks to lood
Speaker 1: So Joe. I was gonna say something summing up that conversation,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm just gonna go right to your
Speaker 1: k l your Koala lump or club experience with a
Speaker 1: palm oil CEO. Yeah, I think he was definitely an executive.
Speaker 1: And it was like this like filping nightclub. It's like
Speaker 1: really loud, like you know, like you try to have
Speaker 1: conversations of the club and it never worked. But this
Speaker 1: guy was like really trying to give me this detailed,
Speaker 1: like sort of like technical argument about why palm oil
Speaker 1: is this great business in the middle of a club,
Speaker 1: and he like talked about all the uses for palm oil,
Speaker 1: like women's lipstick and how there's no substitute for it.
Speaker 1: And then he also said, and I thought this was
Speaker 1: really interesting, which is that, um, you can't really automate
Speaker 1: um palm oil production because of the way the because
Speaker 1: of the way they're on trees, and so it's not
Speaker 1: like say like potatoes or wheat where you could just
Speaker 1: like have someone out there with like a machine and
Speaker 1: get a big field. You really need to have people
Speaker 1: in uh in the jungles or in the plantations um
Speaker 1: picking the stuff. And so he was talking about how
Speaker 1: much that of an advantage that was for Malaysia, and
Speaker 1: labor costs were essential, so you couldn't do it in
Speaker 1: a high labor cost country, etcetera. So I don't really
Speaker 1: know where I'm going with it. It's just if if
Speaker 1: I were doing a tour, that would have been my highlight.
Speaker 1: I I like how this is just like this episode
Speaker 1: has morphed into share your sort of random emerging market experiences.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite random emerging market experience? I got a lot, Joe, Well, Okay,
Speaker 1: one time I was in Pakistan with my mother's then
Speaker 1: boyfriend who owns a very large company, and we were
Speaker 1: going up through the mountains in Pakistan. We've just gone
Speaker 1: to dinner somewhere um, and then we were coming back
Speaker 1: down and suddenly he stops the car and he starts
Speaker 1: to panic, and my mom and I are going, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, what's happening. What's the problem here? And her
Speaker 1: boyfriend gets on the phone. Um calls his like personal
Speaker 1: assistant and starts talking to him and Urdu and he
Speaker 1: finally like hangs up the phone and he comes back
Speaker 1: to the car and we go, what's what's the problem,
Speaker 1: And he says, I just reached down for my gun
Speaker 1: underneath my car seat and it's not there. So basically
Speaker 1: he's really unusual in that he's a rich CEO who
Speaker 1: drives himself UM, and that's pretty unusual in Pakistan. And
Speaker 1: he thought because his gun was suddenly missing that someone
Speaker 1: had basically set him up to get robbed or kidnapped
Speaker 1: or worse. It turns out that his driver or the
Speaker 1: guy that cleans the car just forgot to put the
Speaker 1: gun under his chair. But that kind of gives you
Speaker 1: a snapshot of what it's like to live in Pakistan
Speaker 1: and do business right. This is this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff we need. No more of this, Like the
Speaker 1: FED is going to lucid policy and that a week
Speaker 1: of the dollar and that'll cause and flows into countries
Speaker 1: with high real GDP blah, blah, it's like these this
Speaker 1: is the kind of stuff that really matters for investors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which CIOs have to carry a gun? The late competitive
Speaker 1: labor cross advantage of picking palm oil in Malaysia. This
Speaker 1: is where we need to go. H this is this
Speaker 1: is what we need to be talking about. Know what
Speaker 1: we need to do. Like a call in show where
Speaker 1: everyone just shares their sort of like emerging market business
Speaker 1: investment experience. That okay, but on a serious note, I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that conversation. I think it gets back to
Speaker 1: what we were discussing in the intro, which is that
Speaker 1: if you are investing in these types of markets, you
Speaker 1: really have to do the legwork, and that should mean
Speaker 1: really going to these places and experiencing both the country
Speaker 1: and the business that you're investing in. It's also interesting
Speaker 1: to think about like the sort of even in the
Speaker 1: midst of this crisis, the sort of competitive advantage of
Speaker 1: having having gotten to know markets. So it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: suddenly this virus breaks out. Oh there's a well run
Speaker 1: Malaysian um rubber glove company that could stand to benefit.
Speaker 1: Like how many people would know that? Yeah, absolutely bad
Speaker 1: company even exists, but so so yeah, but very good. Uh,
Speaker 1: very interesting, and of course it'll be interesting too, and
Speaker 1: it always comes up with e M things or frontiers, uh,
Speaker 1: the degree to which the macro overwhelms the micro. So
Speaker 1: obviously even good companies are going to have a hard
Speaker 1: time and extreme severe negative macro scenarios. But it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see um sort of which wins out and
Speaker 1: whether there are companies that really sustainably thrive even during
Speaker 1: what is expected to be an extremely sort of difficult
Speaker 1: time for the foreseeable future on a macro front. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing I was thinking is that Burton and
Speaker 1: Ivan sound like they would be good financial journalists, you know,
Speaker 1: sending fourteen emails to Yeah, sending fourteen emails to try
Speaker 1: to get one meeting and just sort of like wearing
Speaker 1: down the CEO of a company in order to get
Speaker 1: that interview. That Yeah, that sounds a very journalistic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very much so. And I would listen to a podcast
Speaker 1: of there's two they should do one for each country
Speaker 1: they go to. Yeah, that'd be interesting. Okay, well, now
Speaker 1: that we've created a competing podcast to All Thoughts, uh,
Speaker 1: let's wrap it up. Oh, this has been another episode
Speaker 1: of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway, and you should
Speaker 1: also follow our Bloomberg colleague Felipe Paschecko. He actually wrote
Speaker 1: a really good article about what Ivan and Burton have
Speaker 1: been doing and their travels in various emerging markets. You
Speaker 1: can follow Felipe on Twitter at Felipe A f I
Speaker 1: L I P E pasheco p A c h E
Speaker 1: c o uh. And I'm Joe Wisn'tal. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our producer on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson Laura and Carlson. Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast,
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi at Francesca Today, and check out all of
Speaker 1: our podcasts at Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, e