Breakfast with Benjamin Yeo, Strategist with UBS Singapore
The Singapore Venture Capital Association launched the 2008 year with a robust, statistic approach to macro-trends to take note of for the upcoming twelve months.

Mr Yeo’s five key themes were
1)   Avoid the USA at the moment as continued clearing of the subprime markets will have suppress positive price action in the USA
2)   GO BIG or go home, quality vrs small cap and Yeo sees a continued flight to quality in investments
3)   Look for structural plays in Asia Pacific, continued infrastructure spending and investment will keep the markets well supported
4)   Continued trend to global outsourcing and opportunities to continue to benefit from outsourcing plays
5)   Excess liquidity in China will continue and China will continue to invest globally – expect commodities such as wheat to be weak, corn to be strong, and oil stable.
Yeo mentioned that monetary policy in the US will likely remain loose and that a 50% bp cut in Fed Rates is expected in very soon.
What does this mean to me?
It was my first SVCA meeting in five years and first economic briefly since my bond trading days around the same time. As I move back into the markets a greater sensitivity about interest rates, macro economics and global trends is important as one of the factors that I MUST consider as my interest and activity in deal making, fund raising, and real estate investment GROWS in 2008.
I did find Mr Yeo’s market laggard positioning for Malaysia, as an interesting note, as it is Malaysia that I most recently found some very attractive real estate investment opportunities and committed both personal and professional funds into this market. I will remain and look to add to this contrarian position as I find Malaysia’s offering of cash flow positive real estate investments, opportunities to enter at wholesale pricing and exit at retail, improving regulations toward foreign investors, natural resources, net exporter position, and attractiveness of Malaysia as second home destination all favor increased interest in Malaysia as a target for medium to longer term investments with a stable and attractive outlook for the currency exposure.  For investments in Asia Pacific, feel free to drop me a note at dave@daverogers.net