Gambling.Now!

While a fairly good piece on China over @ VentureBlog, I take issue on no disclosure of the blog potential in the following:

… But the most interesting discussions, to my mind, were with the leading private investors in China. (Because my meetings with these private investors took place as part of a study trip, there was no expectation that I would blog about the content of our conversations — thus, I have decided to exclude the names of the specific investors so as not to violate any confidences they may have reasonable expected.) These investors gave a surprisingly candid view of venture capital throughout the country — the good, the bad and the ugly.

We have a person, who by all my accounts is a fairly good venture guy – but the lack of sourcing and full disclosure, if credible sources, raises issues. I clearly believe all intentions are well, but I remember international grad school trips and most involve mid-level leaders and govt officials – while interesting folk – not necessarily credible sources or leaders. So the opportunity to maintain integrity is fairly straight forward – fictionalize and abstract the message in total. So I’ll have to just accept the post as a cat’s opinion. So I will provide a fully unqualified set of random thoughts on investing in China.

China Investments

A great deal of energy and investment dollars are migrating to the emerging BRIC economies, with a focus on China. It’s just math – a bunch of people, modernization and free trade, not a very complex formula. There will clearly be great opportunity over time for the majority investors. Over time, these, I suspect, are longer term investments than forecasted.

Markets v. Malls

I have often thought about the delta in why certain landscapes favor commerce over others. I think it may be a simple concept – infrastructure (highways, trains…). Conceptually transactional economies require transit. Port based development and key population centers are spiky examples of the investment. While there may be brand consuming elites living in urban evirons, a less developed reality drapes the majority of the landscape. Uneven development however delivers explosive growth and opportunity. There’s definitely a downside risk on many levels.

Small markets with Explosive growth remain small markets for a while. As an evolving and straining culture attempts to find a path forward in China – it could be volatile for investors with a sprinkle of xenophobic legal systems thrown in.

Happy Foreign Investing!