Questions of Leadership

“There is no global EM champion.”

IFC and EMPEA’s Global Private Equity Conference came and went in a blur, but that comment from Nicolas Rohatyn has remained lodged in my brain. There are many ways to read it.

One is to ask: qué? There are global champions that do well in EM. Warburg Pincus comes to mind.

Equally, there are well-known champions within specific markets. A sampling from the BRICs: Pátria in Brazil; Baring Vostok in Russia; Multiples and True North in India; CDH and Hony Capital in China.

Some are less well-known. Some are in other markets. Some are up-and-coming.

Another is to ask if the issue is the lack of a thought leader, like Jim O’Neill (“Mr. BRIC”), who can articulate a fresh vision for the attractions of emerging markets en masse. I’m a fan of Morgan Stanley’s Ruchir Sharma, though he’s a realist not an evangelist. (Maybe that’s why I like him).

Another is to ask if there can ever be a proper EM champion. Can one firm or individual credibly champion all markets at the same time? I think so, but it’s a tough task. Markets across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America are often at different points in the cycle, with idiosyncratic risks that defy generalization.

Rohatyn’s comment came during a panel titled Global Private Equity Leaders on the State of the Industry. The panelists included a few traditional PE funds (Africa, India, global), but also an energy investor, an Asia credit specialist, and Rohatyn’s firm, an EM hedge fund that acquired a global PE firm (CVCI), as well as EM-focused infrastructure and real estate platforms.

If it’s an uphill battle selling the complexity of EM as a geography meriting investment, is it more so when a discussion with “private equity” leaders includes multiple asset classes?

In any event, if EM private markets are confronting a leadership void — and for all my quibbles it’s a view I share — then who will assume the mantle of leadership?

Alas, questions of — and questionable — leadership were top of mind last week, and they infused the four key themes that I took away from the conference:

• Crises of Governance
• Managers not Markets
• Sustainability Now
• DFIs and the Mid-Market

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Mike

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Crises of Governance

Piggybacking off of last month’s newsletter, governance — or the lack thereof — was the biggest theme I observed throughout the conference, and this was on display across three levels of analysis: the individual / firm, the state, and the international system.

At the individual / firm level, there were numerous discussions about corporate governance, alignment of interests, and deal / fund terms and structures. However, the most powerful comment came from Jim Yong Kim, who said to David Rubenstein, “The biggest problem is the explosion of aspirations around the world.” Relative deprivation amidst a global political awakening is a potent cocktail for radicalization and unrest.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Mo Ibrahim provided some memorable commentary bridging the firm and state levels. Madame Sirleaf implored, “It is the responsibility of shareholders to use their boards to ensure transparency and accountability, and improve corporate governance.” Ibrahim quipped, “It’s really hard to improve public governance without improving corporate governance.”

At the international level, Ambassador Chas Freeman gave a rundown of the reasons why “risks are reallocating themselves for reasons that are structural,” and set the stage for numerous discussions about political risk.

Ambassador Freeman also introduced troglonomics to the lexicon — “knuckle-dragging mercantilism that emphasizes bilateral trade balances above all else.” It is a delightful, if depressing, addition for our times.

Freeman’s overarching thesis that “international law no longer protects the weak” evokes Thucydides — not only the Melian Dialogue (“the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”), but also the “terrible chapter” on Corcyra’s civil war (see this month’s From the Bookshelf selection).

It’s hard to be constructive, and I’m generally dour on the world’s prospects in the near term. However, I am cautiously optimistic that we are on the cusp of a generational transition — from a culture of fear and anger at losing what was, to one with the confidence and energy to build what can be (h/t Sir Kenneth Clark).

Hopefully this translates to a revivification of a rules-based, harmonious international system.

🤞

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Managers not Markets

In years past, much buzz would be made about the market du jour. Panels were populated with prospective private equity kingpins, and the audience would be serenaded with those sonorous words: structural drivers, rising middle class, boots on the ground.

There was an energy and excitement about the prospects of [pick your market]. Never mind that this frequently happened just as the market was topping. It was fun. Remember Mongolia?

Yes, there were regional panels this year (and even one on blockchain), but that invigorating splash of euphoria gave way to more measured discussions around the evolution of the industry (from private equity to private markets), the need for new metrics (on impact), and more practical issues of managing funds and investments.

All of this may be an indicator of a more institutionalized asset class; but it seems to me a subtle endorsement of the idea that it’s managers that make money for investors, not market timing.

One wonders whether it was ever sensible to hype up specific markets, particularly when there are managers that consistently do well in out-of-favor geographies. I’m reminded of a recent interview with the famed short-seller Jim Chanos:

Barry Ritholtz: The last time you and I sat down for a conversation, about three years ago, you mentioned that back in the day there were a few hundred hedge funds, and out of those, 20 or 30 were reliable alpha generators. Today, there’s 11,000 or so hedge funds …

Chanos: And probably 20 or 30 reliable alpha generators.

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Sustainability Now

There has been a palpable shift in investor sentiment toward the importance of sustainable investing. The Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) permeated many speakers’ comments, and there seems to be an effort afoot to segment “impact investing” from mainline PE, with the latter being viewed as key partners for attaining the SDGs.

Most allocators are not keen to sacrifice financial returns for “impact” — define the term as you will — but they are looking for managers that deliver responsible, sustainable alpha.

The irony is that some of these managers may very well be “impact investors!”

Nevertheless, the SDGs seem to offer the biggest tent for the array of investors seeking to do well while doing good, and it is manifestly the direction in which large institutional capital is heading.

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DFIs and the Mid-Market

Trillions of dollars of private capital will be needed to meet the SDGs. IFC’s CEO, Philippe Le Houérou, spoke about the organization’s new strategy for mobilizing private capital, which includes working with governments to unlock investable projects, and de-risking investments for private capital.

Presumably this was the rationale behind the “DFI Leaders Panel: Moving from Billions to Trillions” — a chance to proselytize about the benefits of investing in emerging / frontier markets before a quasi-captive audience of institutional investors.

And yet, about 15 minutes into an abyss of DFI navel-gazing, a delegate from a university endowment turned to me and asked, “What’s a DFI?”

🤣

The DFIs do amazing work. But I do worry that the emphasis on mobilizing large volumes of private capital will exacerbate the financing gap for mid-market funds and businesses.

To wit, there’s scuttlebutt that some DFIs may be spending less energy on fund investments going forward. Who will intermediate capital flows to smaller companies?

We’ll see; but these discussions brought to mind two of the findings from our July 2017 report The Mid-Market Squeeze.

Basically, are DFIs catalyzing private capital into EM PE funds if: (1) their preferred ticket size is in the sweet spot of commercial investors; and, (2) most commercial LPs would not be more likely to commit to a fund < $250m in size if its investors include DFIs?

No sé.

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From the Bookshelf

Certainly it was in Corcyra that there occurred the first examples of the breakdown of law and order. There was the revenge taken in their hour of triumph by those who had in the past been arrogantly oppressed instead of wisely governed; there were the wicked resolutions taken by those who, particularly under the pressure of misfortune, wished to escape from their usual poverty and coveted the property of their neighbours; there were the savage and pitiless actions into which men were carried not so much for the sake of gain as because they were swept away into an internecine struggle by their ungovernable passions. Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colours, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice; the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice. Indeed, it is true that in these acts of revenge on others men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress, instead of leaving those laws in existence, remembering that there may come a time when they, too, will be in danger and will need their protection.

— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Classics: 1972).

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