Today, the world’s biggest bank delivers dreadful results. Citigroup recorded a net loss of $9.8 billion, driven by a whopping $18.1 billion in pre-tax write-downs and credit costs on exposure to subprime mortgages.
Worse, it is no longer just collateralised-debt obligations and other complex securitised products that are hurting the world’s largest bank (by assets if no longer by market value). Credit cards and other consumer-finance businesses are deteriorating fast as America’s economy flirts with recession.
Capital markets around the world ended the day all in red digits. What more can we expect the upcoming weeks when other leading financials record their 4Q and FY2007 results? How much more write downs can capital markets digest? How can we fix it?
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Micro-loans made to third-world entrepreneurs are changing lives and fortunes around the world. CNBC published an article on success stories on Kiva’s microfinance loans here.
The Kiva wesite was founded by Jessica and Matt Flannery. They were newly weds - he a software engineer, she an MBA student at Stanford - who were convinced they could use the Internet to put people in need together with people willing to help. Anyway, this is how Kiva works.
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What’s currently on the radar screen of Venture Capitalists (VCs)? In short, finally, they are starting to look beyond China and India respectively: Central and Eastern Europe.
At the very moment, first, there is Central and Eastern Europe. At least $500 million is sitting in fund targeting the Central and Eastern European region and much more is foreseen. This growth is enabled by a few success stories such as Skype and Last.fm, and in turn, this has triggered a new wave of fresh and new European entrepreneurial spirit. Furthermore, the accession of ten new European Union members from Central and Easter European countries has spurred investments across the region. The previous locked up energetic talent in this region has now gained equal access - as their Western European counterparts - to European capital markets and legislative protection.
In addition, as BusinessWeek pointed out earlier VCs are even having their eyesight beyond the traditional BRIC and Next Eleven (N-11) countries for example out of all places, Colombia, Latin-America. A multitude of young, bright and entrepreneurial minded people is ready to take the country up on the economic ladder. BusinessWeek typified Colombia as an extreme emerging market. It take guts and political sensitivity to start investing there but it can reap endless possibilities.
Here you can find a list of the top 500 European hot growth companies. Another listing can be found here. The latest and greatest news on European Private Equity & venture capital can be found here.
Some more great webpages to keep you updated on any activity at the European VC front can be found here. European Venture Capital & Private Equity Journal; FT European Venture Capital Report; Venture Capital in Europe (Book); and Profitability of venture capital investment in Europe and the US (Research Paper).
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Red Herring - a leading innovation, technology, and business magazine - is featuring a special report on 25 young entrepreneurs between the age of 17 and 35 who will rock the world in 2007 and beyond.
You can read about Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University at age 19 and launched a start-up that developed a monitoring system for tracking a person’s blood status remotely. And then there is Weina Scott, a 17-year-old CEO who already has three successful start-ups under her belt. Furthermore, in terms of companies, seven occupied the Internet space; four companies in software, two each in biotech, venture capital, and wireless and there were one each in the solar, medical device, nanotech, and telecom segments.
In short, a must read during Christmas when you’re interested in entrepreneurship and innovative technologies that will shape various industries the forthcoming years.
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If you’ve always wanted to be a Venture Capitalist, here’s your opportunity. Kiva according to their pressrelease is:
the first microlending Web site designed to provide individuals with the ability to connect with and make personal loans to small businesses in developing countries. Founded in 2004 by Matthew and Jessica Flannery, Kiva’s goal is to reduce poverty in developing countries by giving entrepreneurs the ability to build their businesses through flexible loans with six-to 12-month terms. Kiva allows individuals to act as a “micro VC” by loaning directly to entrepreneurs with feasible business plans. Kiva is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. For more information about Kiva, please visit www.kiva.org
(see also a Businessweek article on Kiva for more information. I think this is a brilliant idea!).
[edit, on BBC I found an article, which mentions another peer-to-peer VC site called Global Giving.]
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