Opportunity in Macro Disarray

“When communism crumbled in eastern Europe, the fear was palpable. Entire economies were coming apart, familiar structures were vanishing overnight. But beneath that surface, something new was taking shape. I didn’t run from that chaos – I ran towards it. In Russia, I found opportunities where others saw only risk, and I managed to create a start-up business in the rubble of the old system there. The same was true during the eastern European privatisations. Governments were offloading valuable assets, often at fire-sale prices, like in Bulgaria in the pharma and telecoms assets, simply to survive the transition. These were moments not of destruction, but of reinvention. And they rewarded those who dared to act.”

“Will the sort of storm-riding I did in the past still be possible? I believe that it will be, but in different ways. There will be more special situations but in a much wider array of sectors and geographies. And there may even be more opportunities, although it will be more difficult to crack them. It’s just going to be different. Evolution is at work, and Darwin famously said that it’s not the strongest or the smartest that survive but rather those that are more adaptable to change. So if I can adapt to new ways of doing things, I think there could be more, rather than less, action for me.”