News

A Look Ahead in 2016

2016 is set to be an eventful year for the global economy. There will be presidential elections in the United States and Taiwan, Brazil will host the Summer Olympics, the United Kingdom will reconsider its place within the European Union (EU) and China will finalize a new five-year plan for local economy, demographics and innovation.

With the European debt crisis and China’s staggering economic slowdown compounding fears of a global financial system teetering on the edge of recession, the modest but steady growth in global gross domestic product (GDP) over the past five years speaks otherwise. Although we did not witness the major acceleration in global GDP growth expected from the trend of low oil prices, wage gains and resurgent consumers around the world, the global economy has still maintained a steady course of growth.…

Focusing on Brazil

Brazil is a country steeped in superlatives. The large and diverse geography, commodity resource-base and economic dynamism over the past quarter century have transformed the country into one of the world’s largest economies and the recipient of some of the highest levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). Although akin to other emerging markets, the pace of transition in the country over the past decade has been volatile due to a blend of domestic and external factors.

A Profound and Positive Change in Brazil Over the Last Quarter Century

 Source: McKinsey and Primal Group (2015)

In spite of the headwinds Brazil faces in the short-term, the country’s future prospects remain promising.…

Mobilizing Global Business Towards Sustainability

As an organization that focuses on ethical and sustainable projects, Primal Group gladly supports the United Nations (UN) chartered principles on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. We are therefore excited to formally announce our acceptance to the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative – the UN Global Compact.

With this commitment, we have joined a fast growing network of businesses and other stakeholders seeking to contribute to a more inclusive and stable global market and help build prosperous and thriving societies around the world. With more than 8,343 participating companies from 135 countries, as well as over 3,000 non-business participants (as of January 2016), the Global Compact has emerged as a truly global initiative with a strong presence in both developing and developed nations.…

Focusing on Agriculture

The case for increasing exposure to alternatives rests on wonderful simplicity – investors are lacking these assets in their portfolios, just at the time when returns generated from traditional investment vehicles are falling. Since the global financial crisis, diversifying away from long-only equity funds and fixed income investments is critical as traditional tools of risk management are becoming less and less effective. For investors who want attractive yields and risk-adjusted returns with a higher degree of diversification, alternatives are a natural choice.

Alternative investments provide the foundation for the delivery of goods and services necessary to support the global economy, and therefore the drivers of end-user demand for these assets are predictable, sustainable and persevering.…

The 12 (+1) Days That Decided Earth’s Future

Heads of State, Climate Specialists and Government Negotiators from 195 countries have been in Paris for the last two weeks outlining each nation’s commitments to reducing carbon emissions and limiting global warming. The global initiative is to avoid a future climate that risks submerged countries, abandoned cities and fields that can no longer sustain growth – all of which will cause political disruptions that trigger new conflict and even more desperate people seeking the safety of foreign nations.

In the initial days of the COP21 United Nations Climate Summit, the world’s leaders such as Barack Obama, David Cameron, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have addressed delegations and expressed their unanimous support in mitigating the impact of global climate change.…

A New Age for Global Financial Markets

“Seven years after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 2015 closes a chapter on an innovative financial experiment that is unprecedented in both its scale and longevity  – quantitative easing (QE). By making liquidity freely available when markets were on the edge of depression, and at a time of record low interest rates, private consumption would theoretically be stimulated and corporations would take the opportunity to invest. In practice, the blend of low interest rates and excess capital fuelled the hunt for higher investment returns. Companies began registering record profit margins and stock markets have been pushed to all time highs, boosted by high levels of share repurchases.…

The Need for a New Green Revolution

“Man can and must prevent the tragedy of famine in the future instead of merely trying with pious regret to salvage the human wreckage of the famine, as he has so often done in the past.”

Norman Borlaug – Biologist, Humanitarian and Nobel Laureate

Ensuring a sustainable food supply has been mankind’s most significant challenge throughout history, one that has been compounded by the unprecedented increase in population over the last century.

With so few scientific breakthroughs to increase agricultural yields, the food needs of growing populations were originally met by simply utilizing more land for agriculture. By the 19th century, soon after human civilization reached its first billion people, pessimism regarding the possibility of feeding the ever-increasing populations began to surface.…

On the Verge of a Post-Antibiotic Era

“A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it.”

Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization.

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One of the greatest threats to global health today, antibiotic resistance causes 700,000 deaths per year by comprising the effective prevention and treatment of an ever increasing range of infections. Allowed to continue unabated, this dangerous phenomenon is expected to cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050 and cost the world $100 trillion in lost economic output.

The risks are clear – a return to the dark ages of medicine where even the most common treatments and infections could potentially become deadly.…

The Ecological Impact of Climate Change

“No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address (2015).

Each year the shift in our climate, caused partly by the plundering of the world’s natural resources, leads to the loss of 46,000 square miles of forests, 12 million hectares of arable land and 10,000 species.

There is a clear-cut consensus, reaffirmed by extensive research conducted globally, that the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is one of the main factors behind the earth’s warming temperatures, more commonly described as climate change.

More than half a trillion tons of carbon, from coal, oil and gas, have been burned since the Industrial Revolution, and the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere has risen by 40% in the past 250 years.…