Chapter 340 This time, Latin America is the unlucky one

Blackburn Earth Farming Group is formed.

It undoubtedly caused a huge stir in global bulk grain and oil commodities and international peers.

Once the news was announced, the global agricultural market was shaken and all major seed companies were scared to death.

The idea of ​​merger has come to the mind of almost every seed company boss.

Because with their current strength, they cannot compete head-on with the Earth Agriculture Group.

It can be foreseen that the global seed industry will undergo tremendous changes in the next few years.

But no matter what, Milo has taken the lead. Even if these seed companies merge with each other, it is unlikely that they will merge into a giant of the same size. It is very likely that a pattern of one super and many strong companies will be formed.

However, his smart subordinates will handle the rest, and he is only responsible for the top-level strategy...

However, in many American media, there are many reports about Milo again:

The Wall Street Journal - "After media, Internet, finance, energy, fashion boutiques, retail, military industry, etc., Blackburn has entered a new field - our rice bowl!"

Los Angeles Times - "He spends more than half of the year in California. So if there has to be a king of California, we think Milo Blackburn is the one!"

The Washington Post - "Compared to traditional agricultural companies, Earth Farm Group is younger, and its rebirth in Bunge will inevitably have a huge impact on the global food situation. But there is no doubt that this is a good thing for the White House."

New York Post - "What can't he do? He wants to do everything and he's done everything. Now he's got his hands on our bread and our candy. That's Milo Blackburn, whether you like him or not."

《……》

In comparison, Milo's own media was more restrained.

After all, everyone else has been bragging about it in various ways, so it doesn't seem appropriate for our own family to brag about it as well.

However, amid the outside world's clamor.

In mid-May.

Milo quietly came to his Paladin Investment.

The morning mist in Manhattan has not yet dissipated, and the glass curtain wall building where Paladin Investment is located is emitting a cold metallic luster in the morning light.

The elevator door slid open silently on the 42nd floor, and the echo of Milo's Oxford leather shoes stepping on the marble floor startled the white doves by the window.

The LCD screens on both sides of the corridor flashed the Latin American debt index curve, and the red and green intertwined lines were like a noose tied around the K-line of the Brazilian real.

"boss!"

"boss!"

Amid the greetings that came one after another, the traders' fingers paused on the keyboard for a half beat.

Milo nodded and caught a glimpse of the figure reflected in the mirror in the tea room - the dark gray three-piece suit was tightly fitted, and the silver cufflinks flickered with his steps, like a shark fin lurking under the undercurrent of the capital sea.

Since the last time he led Paladin Investment to fight a big battle in the international bulk grain and oil market and made a lot of money from the Japanese, Paladin Investment has not engaged in a large-scale war for a long time.

Although Paladin Investment's subsequent actions were more dangerous and more profitable than those of companies such as Boston Consortium and Paladin Capital.

But Nelson and others could not muster up the passion, and even for investments of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars they could remain calm and absolutely calm.

It’s like after seeing Mount Everest, it’s hard to be attracted by other mountains anymore.

"boss!"

"boss!"

Amidst the greetings along the way, Milo came to his own office and summoned a group of senior executives from Paladin Investments.

When the office door closed behind me, the aroma of the century-old mahogany and the lingering scent of the cigar wafted in my face.

Nelson was stroking the cut surface of a crystal whiskey glass with his thumb, the amber liquor casting a swaying spot of light on the back of his hand; Andre was playing with a Swiss Army knife, the cold light flashed across the scar at the corner of his eye as the blade opened and closed; half of a tattoo was revealed on the cuff of Ichiro Watanabe's suit, and the ink-colored wave pattern surged as his fingers sorted through documents.

As Milo's hands clattered down on the conference table, there was a simultaneous sound of fabric rubbing from the twelve Eames chairs.

Milo rapped his knuckles on the oak tabletop, causing the crystal pendants of the crystal chandelier to tremble slightly.

Nelson relaxed his tightly pursed lips upon hearing this, and the anxiety accumulated in his nasolabial folds turned into fine lines at the corners of his eyes - those were the muscle memories left over from fighting on the battlefield in Canada last year.

Milo's eyes swept across everyone's faces one by one, and he couldn't help but be a little absent-minded.

I still remember when Paladin Investment was established in a low-key manner, he thought these people still had a lot of room for improvement in their abilities. Many of them seemed a little immature and had many shortcomings.

But now? Everyone is in a very good mental state, full of energy, with deep and resolute eyes, and that kind of steady and shrewd temperament is completely radiated from the inside out.

This means that everyone is very confident, which is a clear manifestation of the lack of ability panic.

"Seeing everyone's state, I feel more confident about the next steps."

"A new mission has arrived. This time I will lead everyone to take action again and create new glory!"

"As for the target of the operation, you should have read the documents Nelson sent you some time ago. You must have guessed the general idea."

"So I won't say any more unnecessary nonsense. Let's just look at the new information and discuss it together."

"Peter Peterson! Send out all the collated materials."

"OK!"

After Peter Peterson finished his response, he stood up and distributed Milo's two thick stacks of information to everyone one by one.

As he passed out the papers, the wind from the pages blew away Gina Raimondo's blond hair.

Four hundred and seventy-three pages of information were spread out like snow waves on the long table, and the smell of ink mixed with the ebony perfume on the wrist of a certain executive fermented in the air.

Milo unbuttoned his cuffs and opened the title page. Under the gold-embossed words "The 1996-1997 Asian Economic Crisis Serial Impact", a surveillance photo of the Brazilian Central Bank's vault was clearly visible - bundles of US dollar bills were being evacuated under armed escort.

Except for Milo who had read the information once, they had not read all of it and only understood part of the situation. This time, they would understand it from all aspects.

After getting the information, Milo didn't say anything, but took the lead in opening the information and reading it.

For a moment, the only sounds in the entire office were breathing and the sound of papers being flipped.

These data were collected and compiled by Milo at the cost of huge manpower and material resources. They are detailed information about the debt markets in developing countries around the world.

The amount of outstanding external debt of developing countries soared from $125 billion in 1972 to $1,626 billion in 1997.

Among them, the outstanding debts of 19 Latin American countries including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela totaled as much as US$528.7 billion.

It accounts for 32.5 percent of the outstanding external debt of developing countries.

More than one third!

By the end of 1997, American banks alone accounted for 41 percent of bank loans to Latin American countries.

Moreover, these loans are highly concentrated in the hands of a few large banks, with twenty-four banks holding more than four-fifths of the loans.

The proportion of loans from banks in Europe and other countries to Latin American countries is even higher, reaching 48%, or US$757.7 billion.

In the bank loan market of European countries to Latin America, the United Kingdom has the largest share, accounting for 24.8 percent of the European share, nearly a quarter. Even in the outstanding debt of Latin American countries as a whole, it accounts for more than ten percentage points, reaching 11.9 percent, or US$99.2 billion.

And these loans are concentrated in the hands of Barclays Bank and Westminster National Bank. Barclays Bank alone accounts for 34.9% of the UK share and holds a total debt of 33.68 billion US dollars.

The debt amounts of Latin American countries are also divided into different levels.

The first tier includes Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile.

Among them, Mexico's foreign debt balance is US$191.3 billion, Brazil ranks second with US$157.6 billion, Argentina ranks third with US$73.6 billion, Venezuela ranks fourth with US$55.6 billion, and Chile ranks last with US$37.16 billion.

The total foreign debt balance of the five countries has reached US$474.7 billion, accounting for 78.58% of Latin America's total foreign debt.

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By the beginning of 1998, the principal and interest due will be US$63.1 billion for Brazil, US$50.8 billion for Mexico, US$38.4 billion for Argentina, US$29.9 billion for Venezuela, and US$18.6 billion for Chile.

Brazil does not owe the most money, but it repays the most because the money they borrowed is almost due.

The debt repayment ratio (i.e. the amount of principal and interest repaid on foreign debt) of the five countries accounted for 116%, 157%, 153%, 101% and 109% of their export revenue respectively.

Both are far above the internationally recognized warning line of 20 percent debt service ratio.

Half an hour later.

Milo found that everyone had finished reading it and was almost all frowning in thought.

He smiled, breaking the quiet atmosphere.

"Okay, everyone has finished watching."

"What do you think?"

Milo finished speaking, his eyes darting back and forth across everyone's faces.

Seeing that no one said anything, Milo called out the name.

This time, he did not choose the most outstanding Nelson, but gave the opportunity to George Berkeley.

This relatively young man is the European head of Paladin Investments.

"George, you speak first."

George Berkeley was stunned for a moment, then nodded. After a moment's silence, he said, "Boss, after reading these materials, two words came to my mind."

"Big pit, opportunity!"

"For five countries including Brazil and Mexico, the debt repayment ratio at the end of the year was more than five times the international warning line."

"These countries are basically running out of foreign exchange. The foreign exchange they earn from commercial exports in the next five or six years will only be enough to repay the total debt they need to repay next year."

"Especially in August, Brazil has a debt of more than 10 billion US dollars due for repayment."

"Except for European and American banks to continue lending large amounts of money and allow Brazil to convert debt, I really can't think of where Brazil can get the money to repay its debts."

"A glimpse of the leopard shows that the sovereign debt of Latin American countries and other countries has huge potential crisis risks."

"These countries have outstanding debts of more than 700 billion US dollars, which is equivalent to the annual GDP of Canada, the seventh largest country in the world. If a crisis occurs, it will affect all major banks in Europe and the United States, and the global financial and capital markets will be impacted."

"If we mobilize funds and lurk in the stock market, foreign exchange market and other markets, we will definitely be able to make a lot of money!"

Milo smiled and nodded, but did not comment. Instead, he looked at the others and asked, "What about you? What do you think?"

Everyone looked at each other.

Compass, the chief economist of Paladin Investments UK, pushed up his glasses and said, "Boss, let me tell you my personal opinion."

"I have been studying the economic situation in Europe and the policy direction of the Federal Reserve for the past six months."

"The economic situation in Europe obviously went through a very beautiful upward trend from 1991 to 1995. As for the reason, I think everyone present knows it very well! But according to the data chart, the economic situation of major European countries has become increasingly pessimistic since 1995. It is obvious that there is not enough fertilizer and the carcass has no meat. If they can't find new growth points, they will enter a recession."

"So since mid-1995, European bankers have imitated us Americans. They began to lend heavily to emerging countries in Latin America, Asia, and the South! They have completely forgotten the Latin American debt crisis of 1983!"

"Perhaps it's not that they have forgotten the debt crisis of 1983. Rather, in the face of the possibility of economic recession across Europe, bankers have turned their attention to Latin America again in order to find profit growth points. However, this time, there is also the option of Asian countries."

"But we all know that the situation in Asia was not very optimistic the year before last and last year. Fortunately, Europeans have recovered their bank loans and the corresponding interest."

"But this time these Latin American countries are different. Their economic development is obviously not as strong as that of Asia. They, I think this time it will be difficult for them to repay the old European loans."

"Let's talk about the Federal Reserve. Since the beginning of this year, the U.S. federal funds rate has remained near a low level."

"This is an easy monetary policy, which should have allowed the US dollar to flow to the world. But this time it was an exception because of you and the emergence of Silicon Valley. The terrifying Nasdaq turned into a black hole, sucking in all the excess US dollars in the world. This caused a large amount of capital to flow out of Latin America and Asia."

"The financial crisis in Asia last year and the year before was partly caused by Silicon Valley's ability to attract money."

"Then there are the problems of Latin American countries and others themselves."

"On the one hand, the borrowing interest rates of Latin American countries are floating. The surge in the U.S. federal funds rate has made the economies of Latin American countries vulnerable, and their debts have risen sharply. Take Brazil, for example. The annual interest repayment alone accounts for 30% of its annual export value."

"After the Asian financial crisis broke out, the global real economy was greatly affected. The demand for industrial raw materials dropped sharply, which in turn caused the international prices of industrial raw materials to continue to fall. This was the most fatal thing for Latin American countries that basically relied on selling domestic natural resources to earn foreign exchange."

"But I think there are still great uncertainties in the debt crisis in Latin American countries. The Federal Reserve's monetary policy has been at a historically low level for a year, and Latin American countries have adapted to it. As long as they are willing to sell fixed assets or continue to mortgage these mines and oil fields, they can still use convertible bonds to get through the difficulties."

"Unless the Federal Reserve changes its policy and raises interest rates, global capital will flow back to the United States. Or Nasdaq becomes more attractive and pulls U.S. Cloud back more forcefully."

Compared with George Berkeley's analysis, Compass's vision is relatively broad and relatively conservative.

However, Milo did not comment. He also smiled and nodded, then looked at the others.

"What about you?"

"Don't be shy, speak freely!"

"boss……"

(End of this chapter)