Q&A: PE Associate - Investments

Brief Background:

  • MBA in Finance from top European Business School.
  • 4 years in PE firm based out of Buenos Aires
  • 5.5 years at a Bank in IBD in the FIG and CF teams
  • Investor in the public and the private markets

I’m pretty open on WSO so I’ll likely answer just about anything. Feel free to ask away.


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Thanks for doing this.

Why Argentina? Not a knock, just interesting choice of geography.

How do you get comfortable around the quality/fidelity of information and disclosures in the companies you invest in? Have done some work in EM/frontier markets and building trust around financials etc. was always a challenge given how much leeway there is to be "creative" in these sorts of countries. 

 
Most Helpful

Hi rabbit,

Thanks for your comment. Argentina has a favorable time zone for doing business and is also a great country for those earning in strong currencies (EUR, $USD, YEN). Buenos Aires is earlier to rise than NY (+1 or +2 hour time difference) and if you like late night hours in the office you can start trading in the APAC region at the start of the Asian markets, such as Singapore. Also, the economy of the country is highly reliant and dependant on the US dollar. 

We get comfortable with the quality of information and disclosures from the companies we invest through the deal selection process and the due diligence process. It is always a challenge working with EM/frontier markets; however, some of the managers here are very disciplined and have some solid exposure. Since there is vast opportunity in these markets, companies can diversify rapidly into different streams. An example is Mercado Libre (NASDAQ: MELI), a business started in the e-commerce space but now has evolved into a fintech in the lending and payments space.  One can be very creative in EM/frontier markets. 

 

What were your networking strategies? What do you think is the most effective networking strategy you can recommend?

 

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