BRIC Countries Very Different

Differences with BRIC countries

while it's true that BRIC countries hold a lot of potential, the idea of considering them the same is not good, as even though they have so much potential, each one is vastly different from the others, and that needs to be taken into consideration when considering investing in or building a business there.

So don't be fooled by the moniker BRIC, which lumps them together because of their potential, not because they're necessarily similar in any way.

They've never been all that similar, really. In fact, Standard & Poor's recently questioned "whether the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries ever shared much in common, other than scale and high portfolio inflows.

And when it comes to international investing, it's convention to lump countries into one of two categories: developed markets and emerging markets.

The exact distinction is hazy. Former Secretary-General of the U.N. Kofi Annan defines a developed market as "one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment." Political scientist Ian Bremmer defines an emerging market as "a country where politics matters at least as much as economics to the markets."

Basically, to be considered developed, a country needs a high standard of living that isn't continually threatened by political crisis. Besides the United States, think of countries such as Japan, France, and Australia.

The emerging markets are then split into the BRIC countries -- a term coined less than a decade ago by Goldman Sachs, because it was sexy to bundle together the four emerging-market countries that combined size with tremendous growth prospects -- and everyone else.

All of that splitting and grouping gives investors the false sense that the BRIC countries are essentially interchangeable: emerging, large, poised for growth.

Gross domestic product per person is one way to gauge the standard of living and productivity of a country -- and this demonstrates just how different these countries really are.

The emerging markets are quite different from the developed market -- the U.S.'s GDP per person is almost 17 times greater than India's -- but the chart also shows the great disparity among the BRIC countries. Russia is more than five times as prosperous as India, and even China is roughly two times so.

You also have to factor in the country's political situation, overall economic stability, market conditions, cultural differences, and still more economic data such as national debt, balance of trade, inflation, savings rates, etc.

In other words, in international investing, country differences are at least as important as company differences -- because any potential a company has depends on the context of its location.

It could be argued that Suntech Power's fortunes are more closely linked to its fellow Chinese company China Mobile than to its American industry mate, First Solar.

Because country-specific considerations frequently outweigh industry-specific considerations. Ask any company that has been subject to onerous regulation, excessive taxation, a devalued currency, or nationalization by its home country.

Or ask any company that has opened up shop outside its home country. Imagine McDonald’s dilemma when it opened its first restaurant in India -- a country where cows are sacred. The answer, of course, was to modify its menu significantly. Wal-Mart recently opened its first store in India as well, incorporating Bollywood music and local cuisine as well as making concessions to mom-and-pop shops that wouldn’t even be considered in the U.S.
The substantial differences between countries -- not to mention between developed and emerging economies -- lead to several takeaways:

Because of the addition of tricky country-specific dynamics, diversification may be even more important in international investing than it is in domestic investing.
Emerging markets demand a greater risk premium than their developed counterparts. In other words, you should demand a larger margin of safety for companies in emerging markets.

It isn't enough just to search out the financial statements of a company and its competitors. Knowledge of a company's country is just as important as knowledge of the company itself.

No matter, Brazil, Russia, India and China have a lot of potential, if we take into account that we can't consider them similar in any way as far as the way the countries operate and the culture is, we should do ok in whatever business or investing we do with BRIC countries.

Differences with BRIC countries