–Leviathan Evolving: New Varieties of State Capitalism by Harvard’s Aldo Musacchio and Sergio G. Lazzarini,
-Third Point’s Daniel Loeb on video (long, but brilliant),
-Also on video: Nassim Taleb at Stanford (via Farnam Street)
–Brooklyn Bridge Ventures‘ Charlie O’Donnell on “The Money and Interestingness Trade”
-John le Carré at The Times: ” a brilliant writer for whom spies are merely subject matter“.
An overview of restructuring/distressed activity in Brazil last year by the Cleary Gottlieb LatAm restructuring team posted at Latin Lawyer – all major cases had significant government involvement.
“Brazil saw a more active restructuring market in 2012 with bankruptcy filings of a few highly leveraged issuers. Rede Energia, a distressed utilities holding company controlling eight power distribution entities throughout Brazil, filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2012 with a sale of the company expected to close in early 2013. Despite the successful transfer of former Rede subsidiary, Celpa, to the Brazilian utility company Equatorial Energia after its bankruptcy filing bankruptcy earlier last year, Rede continued to grapple with a quickly deteriorating financial structure. Meanwhile, newly enacted legislation aided the intervention by electricity regulator Aneel, which seized operational control of Rede’s eight subsidiaries last summer, and allowed Rede’s controlling shareholder to engage in exclusive negotiations for a sale of its assets to a consortium formed by Equatorial Energia and CPFL Energia. Although recent provisional measures have helped open the sales process up to other interested bidders, the events highlight the active role played by the Brazilian government as well as the accompanying challenges created for creditors in restructurings in Brazil.
Distress in Brazil’s banking industry has also highlighted the active role played by government and the difficulties faced by creditors seeking to engage in a restructuring in the financial sector. The banking industry in Brazil has seen frequent regulatory intervention in recent years as the country’s booming economy has begun to slow and the industry struggles to find long-term financing. Banco Cruzeiro do Sul attempted to restructure its debt in 2012 following the banking regulator’s discovery of accounting inconsistencies. Bondholders initially confronted the choice of accepting a steep haircut in a tender offer conducted by Brazil’s Depositary Insurance Fund (FGC), which assumed control of the bank last summer, or facing liquidation. Although the tender offer obtained the requisite level of creditor approval, the restructuring was conditioned on FGC’s successful sale of the bank and it ultimately entered liquidation proceedings following a failed sales process last September, highlighting the difficulty of conducting restructurings in highly-regulated industries.”
According to the Knight Frank Wealth Report: Sao Paulo is #9 on High Net Worth Individuals population globally but #36 on “The Cities That Matter to High Net Worth” list and also LatAm High Net Worth money massively going out of Cash, Gold and Government Bonds and into Equities, Gold and Corporate Bonds…
Brazil poised to be the second largest market in the world for personal care products in 2013 – over USD $36 billion according to Euromonitor (via Quartz) and apparently the country has more than two times more pharmacies and drugstores than the USA.
Fred Wilson (from Union Square Ventures) on “Why The Unlocking Phones Debate is Important”.
If you haven’t read this yet, you should: George Saunders in The New York Times earlier in the year, an education: “In our lives, we’re many people,”.
Originally published by The New Yorker in 2002 – this Malcolm Gladwell article on Nassim Taleb and Victor Niederhoffer is still a decent read. Specially when it highlights Daniel Kahneman’s influence on Taleb and the complex music/volatility conundrum (“Mahler is not good for volatility,”). and this final paragraph is harrowing:
“This kind of caution does not seem heroic, of course. It seems like the joyless prudence of the accountant and the Sunday-school teacher. The truth is that we are drawn to the Niederhoffers of this world because we are all, at heart, like Niederhoffer: we associate the willingness to risk great failure — and the ability to climb back from catastrophe–with courage. But in this we are wrong. That is the lesson of Taleb and Niederhoffer, and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable.”
Hedge-funds:2 books, 2 visions (the average and the “genius” ) as reviewed by The Economist
“When valuing a startup, add $500k for every engineer, and subtract $250k for every MBA.” – Ben Horowitz from Andreeseen Horowitz
“…when beer writers imagine heaven, it looks exactly like the Southampton Arms.“
a brilliant review by Geoff Dyer of Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station
“Brokers try to flog you things, good advice costs a lot less.” – The last in a line of gentlemen bankers,
“A little business with a little profit and an entire regularity is happiness sterling to the true merchant; while a large business, expecting large profits, but in confusion and disorder, may be flattering but creates much anxiety and little comfort.” – advice from Barclays’ founding families,
naming particles – “The name (quarks) was based on a line from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!”
Leap Motion:3D gesture control….
Granta and the ‘best young Brazilian novelists’
Lockmann.org 