Increasing access to Jamaican equities

Major media like Bloomberg have noticed the out-performance of the Jamaica Stock Exchange over the last 5 years ending in 2018 and Jamaicans living overseas have also taken note, anxious to invest and benefit from owning a "piece of the Rock" as we affectionately call Jamaica.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2019 that investors are turning to emerging markets in part because of the potential for greater economic growth than they expect in developed markets.

"There are zero Jamaican stocks in U.S. Exchange-traded funds, even those tracking "frontier" countries such as Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the most emerging of emerging markets."

Bloomberg, January 18, 2019

It is notoriously tedious to open a bank account or a brokerage account in Jamaica due to KYC rules and antiquated requirements for letters of reference. It is even harder for a Jamaican living abroad. When I was invited to present at the Jamaica Stock Exchange annual conference in 2014 on how to get the Jamaican Diaspora to invest back into Jamaica instead of just sending remittances, I laid out five basic requirements to make it as simple and transparent as possible:

• Private sector-led and not a Government Diaspora Bond
• Run by an Overseas Jamaican with experience in the local financial sector and traveled regularly to Jamaica
• Partnered with a recognized Jamaican financial institution that was trusted by the diaspora
• Created under US securities law for transparency, governance and reporting
• Accessible to retail investors and not just Accredited Investors

My intention was to explain to Jamaican financial firms what they needed to create in order to get us in the diaspora to invest, not to create it myself. However, 2 years ago, while I worked with a long-biased hedge fund, the CEO of a publicly-traded Jamaican investment firm asked me why I never launched it and that changed my plans.

Last week, I was invited to speak at the USA event held by the Global Jamaican Diaspora Youth Council on the topic of investing in Jamaica. Jamaica's Consul General Oliver Mair, covering 13 Southeast US states, The Bahamas and Cayman Islands sat beside me and set the table nicely for my presentation by outlining the positive economic growth and trajectory.

When I pointed out that no ETF existed to give the people in the room access to the best performing stock exchange in the world, they were surprised. Once I announced that we are working on launching one and that they won't need tens of thousands of dollars to be able to participate, that it would have audited statements, quarterly reports and our trades are done by JN Fund Managers, the room erupted and people were asking for my contact details.

The Overseas Jamaican population is north of 3 million people and they want to invest in that country. Expand that to the Caribbean Diaspora and the opportunity is easily north of 10 million people.

"Investors wisely recognize that if they don't have exposure to emerging markets, then they are missing out on many potential opportunities"

- Kristina Hooper, Chief Global Market Strategist, Invesco

Traditional investors are looking for growth and Emerging Markets are where they are going to find it. I launched Blue Mahoe Capital Partners to provide that access to the retail investor and allow them, especially the diaspora, to easily invest back into countries that they know well. We chose Jamaica as the first because it had the most improvement over the last decade and has the largest stock market in the region.

Now we get on with our work.