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Capital MarketsMarch 4 2008

Exotix boldly tackles the Yemeni frontiers

So-called ‘frontier markets’ hold no fears for some investors. Edward Russell-Walling reports on how broker-cum-investment bank Exotix went digging for profits in the zinc mines of Yemen.
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The word ‘emerging’ used to define the evolutionary state of certain faraway markets with comforting precision. No longer is this the case. It now embraces everything from ‘really quite sophisticated’ to ‘here be dragons’, and Yemen is definitely at the reptilian end of the spectrum. Yet capital can be attracted even to Yemen if you have local knowledge, inventiveness and persistence. Broker-cum-investment banker Exotix clearly has all three.

Exotix specialises in what are known these days as ‘frontier’ markets, particularly in Africa, in generally off-limits jurisdictions such as Cuba and North Korea, in the wilder corners of Latin America (which these days includes Argentina) and the Balkans. It began in 1999 as a distressed debt specialist and has been putting the knowledge gleaned from that exacting trade to wider use.

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