Ten years ago, a New York real estate developer named Bruce Ratner fell in love with a building site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. It was 22 acres, big by New York standards, and within walking distance of four of the most charming, recently gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn — Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, and Fort Greene. A third of the site was above a railway yard, where the commuter trains from Long Island empty into Brooklyn, and that corner also happened to be where the 2, 3, 4, 5, D, N, R, B, Q, A, and C subway lines all magically converge. From Atlantic Yards — as it came to be known — almost all of midtown and downtown Manhattan, not to mention a huge swath of Long Island, was no more than a 20-minute train ride away. Ratner had found one of the choicest pieces of undeveloped real estate in the Northeast.
Few companies from emerging markets have grown into successful multinational enterprises. One business that has is the packaged-goods company Grupo Bimbo. Founded in Mexico in 1945 by Lorenzo Servitje, the publicly traded company now holds the title of the world’s largest baker, with sales exceeding $10 billion in 2010. Just over half of those sales came from outside its home market—namely China; many Latin American countries, including Argentina and Brazil; and the United States. The company trades under several well-known brands, including Entenmann’s and Thomas’ in the United States, and the ubiquitous Bimbo brand in Latin America.
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Really good article in the new issue of the Economist about the evolution of the Chinese art market. Check it out. -YG (@youngglobal)
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Early this month, Cisco announced that it was investing $10 million in Egypt. What made it different from other investments by multinational companies in Africa was that the network equipment maker structured it as a venture capital investment, not a donation. The beneficiaries will be small businesses that provide innovative products, services and solutions.
