Case Study
The New Silk Route – discovering investment hotspots
Thematic Research | Investment Opportunity assessment | Economic & Strategic assessment
Business need
- A global investment firm was witnessing increasing interest in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from its high-net-worth individual (HNI) clients and wanted to investigate China’s key motivations behind developing the New Silk Route as well as the political and economic risks associated with the project.
- It asked us to map out the evolution of the project in detail and identify potential investment and trade opportunities along with their catalysts.
To investigate China’s Belt and Road Initiative and assess its investment and trade potential.
The client outlined three key reasons for selecting RocSearch:
- Our proven investment research and advisory capabilities.
- Our ability to carry out strategic due diligence of global investment opportunities.
- Our investigative research approach.
Approach and Methodology
- We built a comprehensive understanding about the BRI initiative and tracked the related developments through an extensive study of academic papers, government publications and discussions with leading global think-tanks, to develop an insight-led thematic report.
RocSearch studied China’s macro-economic fundamentals and assessed the country’s motivations behind its planned USD 26 trillion BRI initiative to link 65 nations.
- We examined the financial and economic, domestic and international security, and political motivations behind the initiative.
- Further, we assessed the viability of various BRI projects by conducting country-wise debt analysis and looked into the state of the funding and contracts.
- We studied several independent case studies of projects involving countries such as Germany, Greece, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, sharing perspectives on their successes and setbacks.
- We captured the European point of view on BRI in depth, concluding with a schedule of policy recommendations drawn from the analysis.
Business Outcomes
- The study helped the client asses the geopolitical implications of BRI and China’s ascension to power once again.
- Based on the detailed evaluation, the client decided to invest in Chinese A-shares.
The client used the analysis to finalise investments in companies listed on the main Chinese bourses.
