Global Themes

Is the sky really going to fall tomorrow?

On the Op-Ed pages of WSJ this morning (Nov 2), I came across a sobering thought against the backdrop of the Stern Review.

The editorial mentioned how the Stern Report had “garnered most of the press…thanks to its claim that global warming might eliminate anywhere from 5% to 20% of world economic output ‘forever’…”

But more importantly, it referred to the “other report” from the Copenhagen Consensus Center which detailed the outcome of the Copenhagen Consensus Conference in New York on 27th and 28th of October, 2006 and which hardly received any media attention.

And what was the outcome…? Unfortunately it appeared routine and humdrum…although it was anything but.

“If 24 United Nations ambassadors and other senior diplomats from countries representing 54 percent of the world’s population had their way, top priority for addressing major world challenges would be given to communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition, and education.“ As WSJ said, “the point is that, in a world with scarce resources, we can’t fix everything at once and thus need priorities”

Not only are the concerns and issues outlined above more pressing and urgent than worries about climate change, they are real and “here-and-now” as opposed to a guesstimated risk of some future catastrophe happening.

It is a pity (but a fact) that the real problems of the developing world often get eclipsed – either because no one cares (Sudan, anyone?) or they do not make for good copy (providing clean water is not sexy, warning about climate change is).

I would urge all of you to read the Copenhagen Center report and at least become aware of what present ills we face…before worrying about the sky falling on our heads tomorrow.

November 2nd, 2006 Posted by Shantanu | Development Issues, Miscellaneous | 2 comments

What ails European Venture?

At the TechVenture Asia conference, I picked up these depressing statistics:

The data comes from Cambridge Associates who have also included their data from 2004 to get a sense of perspective:

From Cambridge Associates’ 2004 report: “In aggregate, the historical performance of private equity partnerships in Asia has been disappointing…Asia remains a region of greater potential than of actual opportunities for private equity investors, but that potential is gradually becoming more tangible, less will-o’-the-wisp and merits close attention in light of the regions dynamic growth prospects…”

Mean End-to-End Performance as of 31 March 2004*

	One Year	Three Years	Five Years	Ten Years
U S Venture Capital	3.03%	-19.62%	46.36%	38.57%
U S Private Equity	27.91%	3.86%	5.04%	11.06%
European Venture Capital	-4.44%	-19.59%	-3.51%	6.00%
European Private Equity	27.98%	16.68%	14.62%	16.25%
Asian Venture Capital & Private Equity combined	22.96%	-0.14%	1.38%	0.49%

Things have obviously come a long way since then for Asia…here are the updated performance figures for 2006:

Mean End-to-End Performance as of 31 March 2006*

	One Year	Three Years	Five Yrs	Ten Years
U S Venture Capital	13.8%	9.9%	-6.5%	39.5%
U S Private Equity	31.8%	27.3%	12.2%	13.4%
European Venture Capital	1.9%	-1.0%	-9.0%	0.8%
European Private Equity	31.5	30.2%	22.3%	20.9%
Asian Venture Capital & Private Equity combined	24.4	20.8	7.0%	4.7%