Investments – Primal Group

Embrapa Develops Biodegradable Film That Extends Shelf Life of Coconuts

Coconuts have become a very valuable commodity in recent years, with products such as coconut water, oil and milk having gained major popularity in the global food and beverage, healthcare, and beauty industry. In response to this demanding consumer market, the Brazilian Corporation Embrapa Food Agroindustry recently developed an edible, biodegradable film that can be applied to coconuts in order to extend the shelf life of the product up to four times. Further feeling the demand for coconuts, this new technology will open many doors for the Brazilian coconut industry and allow Brazilian producers like Primal to break into the worldwide market.…

Secrets of the Exponential

Evolve or die. Certainly a harsh way to perceive the world around us but make no mistake this maxim is more appropriate today than ever before. With the relentless rise of populations, the rapid degradation of our environment and an unprecedented depletion of our most vital resources, such driving pressures are testing the frontiers of mankind and catalyzing innovation in the very way we live and do business.

A new commercial reality is emerging. In order to succeed, create true value and build the new world order in this new economic age we must achieve exponential progress in four key domains – sustainability, efficiency, integrated information systems as well as circular production and consumption.…

Brazil – Responding to Emerging Markets Uncertainty

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”

– Winston Churchill

It’s not a view widely held and even less in evidence, but we believe that Dilma Rousseff deserves a lot of sympathy from the Brazilian electorate. Seven months into her second term, during which time the global environment for emerging markets has softened quite rapidly, the irony is that this technocrat ‘gets it’, and is making many of the tough financial decisions that investors demanded during much of her first term in office and which will accelerate a return to growth for the country.…

Divergent Paths Open Up in the Commodity Sector

A report just released by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology states 2015 sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific will be the highest in 19 years, are continuing to rise and may surpass the record temperatures set in 1997. El Niño influenced sea surface temperatures are currently 2.9F above normal and are forecast to climb by an additional 4.9F in total by the end of December 2015 and start of 2016.

In response, investors have been fast increasing their exposure to agricultural investments, through indices or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These saw net inflows of $800m during April and May 2015, in marked contrast to the net outflows of $2.4 billion during Q4 2014.…

Gold – Gone in 60 Seconds

First the good news; the gold price bounced on Thursday morning as the US$ weakened slightly. Now the bad – it still leaves the metal just off five-year lows and still smarting from its largest percentage sell off of 4% in the space of a minute early on Monday, July 20^thwhen bullion to the value of $500 million was sold in a flash during Asian trading hours. Large sections of the market are piling on the pressure and forecasting/guessing/hoping that the price this year will fall below $1,000 an ounce at some point during 2015. (On Thursday evening in London, gold was trading at $1,093.5 an ounce).…

Brazil and the Benefits of Club Membership

The possible death throes of Greece’s membership of the Euro should not detract from the union’s core attractions. The forerunner of today’s European Community (EC), the European Economic Union (EEC) was set up as a trade body in 1958 to strengthen the economic and social ties across a violent and dysfunctional continent. Its two key members, France and Germany, had fought each other three times over the previous seventy-five years: it was reasoned that drawing both countries and their outliers together in a web of trade would allow for a more prosperous and peaceful continent. It’s worked and yet hand in hand with its enlargement, its ambitions have also expanded.…

Indispensable Partners in the Americas

“Brazil is not only one of the most important countries in the Western Hemisphere but is a global leader on a whole range of issues… including climate change, energy, educational exchanges, science and technology.” (Barack Obama, 2015)

“We have celebrated an upward trajectory in our relations.” (Dilma Rousseff, 2015)

Both sides can (rightly) claim that the first state visit by a Brazilian Head of State to the White House in a decade was a great success. The Summit reflected the strengthening and increasingly multi-faceted partnership between the top two economic powers in the Western Hemisphere, and highlighted significant trade opportunities and geo-strategic considerations for the rest of the world.…

Brazil is the Key to Freeing Trade in the Americas

Released at the end of May 2015, the latest Forbes list of the world’s most powerful women on earth ranked Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at number seven, in-between Christine Lagarde, in charge at the IMF, and Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook. Compiled annually, the list assesses four criteria – the financial resources controlled by the candidate, her media presence, spheres of influence she is active in and how successfully she wields power. The latest Forbes ‘Powerful People’ list for 2014 positioned President Rousseff as 31^st on the list.

Considering the size, population, economic power and investment potential in Brazil, investors shouldn’t be surprised how prominently the country’s president features.…

The Consumer is Always King

The decision taken this year by some of the largest food processing, restaurant and retail companies in the US to phase out meat, eggs and other foods sourced from produce adulterated with antibiotics has been described as a ‘game-changer’ by industry watchers. The reason; shoppers are increasingly interested in the food they are eating and the conditions in which it is produced. They will be quick to show their dissatisfaction or doubts about what they are consuming by withholding their dollars, something that the notoriously low profit margin consumer and retail sector is aware of. In any case these companies will pass off any additional costs involved in supplying unadulterated produce to their suppliers, making it a cost free option.…

China’s Slowdown Matters So Much More Than You Think

The slowdown in the Chinese economy may be inevitable, but it is also unwelcome at a time of lingering economic uncertainty across much of the globe. After 30 years of growth averaging 10%, the 7.4% reported for 2014 was the slowest since 1990. Yet it is almost certain that the world, and even perhaps sections of the Chinese government, have been operating under false pretenses. This mattered less when the world’s most populous country was expanding, shifting from a rural agrarian based economy to an urban based manufacturing one. Yet as the current credit supplied and manufacturing model slows, a creaking property bubble, opaque banking sector and drop in demand for goods from the rest of the world are coalescing.…