Ian Bezek - Emerging Value

Ian Bezek stops by The Business Brew to discuss his thesis on why emerging markets, specifically Colombia and Mexico, might be

extraordinary value today.  Ian is best known for his investment writing, which supports his day to day life. 

His primary focus is Latin America. So much so that he moved from New York to Guatemala. He now resides in Colombia, which gives him unique perspective on the political landscape in that country.

Mentioned in the episode:

John Hempton on “averaging down” - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-do-you-average-down.html

Ian’s Twitter account - @irbezek

Ian’s Seeking Alpha Page - https://seekingalpha.com/author/ian-bezek

Sponsor Info:

⁠Daloopa ⁠is founded by a former hedge fund analyst to bring simplicity into the investment process. ⁠Daloopa ⁠offers an AI driven single source for all company reported data, and allows for investment teams to make the most informed decisions in the shortest amount of time. ⁠Daloopa ⁠scales the velocity of an investment team’s idea gen. Analysts spend less time locating and manually inputting meaningful disclosures into Excel and more time synthesizing in the minutes after the print. ⁠Daloopa ⁠captures data from all company reported sources, including from footnotes, MD&As;, and investor presentations. Our data sheets include GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments, guidance, and all company specific KPIs. Each datapoint is auditable to the source for easy verification and accuracy. ⁠Daloopa’s ⁠Excel plugin can also update your existing models for the latest quarter in just a single click. Bulge-bracket banks and major multi-managers are trusting Daloopa for use in initiating coverage, building and maintaining industry dashboards, and keeping their models up to date.

Visit ⁠⁠Daloopa.com/BusinessBrew⁠⁠ to create a free account and learn more about how ⁠Daloopa ⁠can help increase your team’s speed to differentiated insight.

Detailed Show Notes

4:40 – Ian’s background

5:23 – Why Ian moved to South America (specifically Guatemala)

11:30 – Are emerging markets inherently lower quality than the US?

13:40 – Why Colombia, why now?

25:40 – How Ian is thinking about specific companies in Colombia

30:30 – What is the Colombian banking market structure?

36:50 – Memories of March 2020

40:20 – Why Ian prefers the airports to the rest of aerospace

46:50 – Thoughts about Mexico as a market

51:50 – Home country bias

58:05 – What Ian’s writing enables for his investments

1:05:50 – In many ways Latin America might be what the US was after WW2

1:10:35 – More discussion on Zoom vs. Qurate

1:16:20 – How Ian and Bill have evolved as investors and then chit chat