Plutus Partners are regularly asked to provide commentary for the press -we inevitably produce much more copy than is able to be published. For ‘The Times’ on Saturday we commented on emerging investment trends – here are two of our additional ideas that unfortunately went over the word count.
The ageing population:
This is the feature that will dominate economic and political thinking for the 21st century.
As populations age an enormous drain is placed upon the capacity of the state to provide health, medical, social care for the population. Private companies will inevitably be required to fill gap. This has been seen to an extent within the care home sector where private companies now provide the majority of care previously supported by local government.
When the baby-boom generation all retire the load on existing infrastructure will be unsustainable. Extrapolate the basic care scenario out to medical care, mobility, transport, food, housing, mental health and it becomes clear the NHS and existing provision will be unable to cope. The insurance industry, venture capital, pension funds will all see the gap in the market and be able to provide the funds to create the infrastructure to address the problems.
Africa:
We’ve had BRIC, then the TIMP (Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines) there remains a huge level of opportunity across Africa, despite pockets of political instability the potential for growth across the continent is huge. 70% of the population is under 35, it has huge levels of natural resources, a rising consumer culture and a relatively untapped consumer/client base.
The number of direct funds investing in Africa remains small but we believe will grow heavily over the coming years. Just as ETF’s have given access to many of the Asian index’s it is reasonable to assume African countries will follow suit.
There is a reason large numbers of Chinese firms have moved into and are working in partnership with governments in the region – opportunity.
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