Sunday, September 25, 2011

My Return from the Belly of the Beast

I have survived my travel into the land where central bankers plot and applaud each other.

The event I attended was put together by Emerging Markets, so it was pretty much an emerging markets affair. The full list of award winners is here.

Much of the action took place in the back of the room where the CBs mingled with private sector operators. Most fascinating was the number of money printing firms that were represented. Small countries, unlike the United States, do not have their own printing presses and use outside contractors.

Most prominent was DeLaRue. I personally ran into five different DeLaRue employees. If you spotted a pretty girl in the crowd chances were she was a salesperson for DeLaRue or one of the other private money printing firms.

I was most disappointed when I met a private sector banker from Austria. He had no idea what Austrian economics was and seemed to have no interest in the topic.

The most serious player I met at the event was John Finigan, a Brit, who formerly operated a banking operation in the very oil and natural gas rich Qatar. He sees so much opportunity in Mongolia that he has left Qatar and now operates the Mongolian bank, Golomt.

I have written about Mongolia in the EPJ Daily Alert and consider the entire country one great investment opportunity. If you are young, extremely adventurous and can handle a very cold climate, Mongolia is the place to be (and Mongolian women are some of the most beautiful on the planet)
Mongolia is extremely mineral rich, Finigan's daughter, Emily-Jane, who is with a private equity firm in NYC, told me that elements from across most of the periodic table can be found in Mongolia. She told me that in a very short period, as the mineral deposits are developed, she expects every one of the 3 million Mongolian citizens to become millionaires.

A former-JPMorgan banker at the event told me that Jamie Dimon has turned off many of the Chicago-based employees with his gruff style. She told me of one townhall-style meeting in Chicago in 2008, where he came into the room told the employees that there would no be pay raises, there would be no bonuses and that they were lucky to have a job.

She also said that regardless of how he poses in public, Dimon considers the "green" movement a total scam.

4 comments:

  1. Hey, you linked to the Golomt bank twice once when you were talking about the Golomt bank and a second time when you were talking about Mongolia in the EPJ Daily Alert, I don't think you meant to do that....

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  2. oh, i thought you were talking about detroit......

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  3. Every Mongolian a millionaire, seriously? Sounds a bit exaggerated...

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    1. Not very exaggerated at all, she didn't suggest they will become cash millionaires, but if you take into account the value of their real estate (homes) once appreciation beings it is feasible.

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