Private Equity Investments in Emerging Markets

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,0, University of Münster (International Management), course: Seminar International Finance, language: English, abstract: The paper deals with Private Equity Investments in Emerging Markets. This asset class is associated with attractive opportunities and appropriate risk-adjusted returns. The Private Equity industry in Emerging Markets showed strong growth over the last few years - after a period of disappointment and unmet expectations.Private Equity is a primary source of equity for small and medium sized companies. It is associated with higher default risk but offers the opportunity to receive higher returns. One special characteristic is the provision of 'smart money', the integration of investment banking and management consultancy.The environment of Emerging Markets is challenging. The term refers to capital markets in developing countries with outstanding growth opportunities. 35 countries from Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa belong to the group of Emerging Markets. These markets are characterised by weak legal institutions, political and economic risk, dysfunctional capital markets and a low standard of corpo-rate governance. The combination of the high risk asset class Private Equity with the high risk environment of Emerging Markets results in high risk investments. But the superior return op-portuni...