The Best Way to Learn Russian?

Hey guys! This week’s guest is Steve Gorelik, he is a portfolio manager at Firebird Asset Management. I first met Steve at VALUEx Vail 2019 and today he is going to give us a crash course on Investing Eastern Europe. He shares how his investing journey started, the cultural differences that he notices between the west and Eastern Europe, why you can find world class businesses in Eastern Europe, the future of the Russian Stock Market, the geopolitical differences between Russia vs China and last but not least he introduces us to 5 different companies located in different countries inside Eastern Europe such as Banca Transilvania located in Romania, Kaspi located in Kazakhstan, Georgia Capital based in Georgia, Yandex and Moscow Exchange located in Russia.

• [0:00] Who is Steve Gorelik?
• [5:00] Unknown things about investing in Eastern Europe 
• [14:00] Russia’s Rule of Law 
• [26:00] The future of the Russian Stock Market
• [37:00] Moscow Exchange ($MOEX)
• [48:00] Why you can Find High Quality Businesses in Russia?
• [54:00] Profitability or Growth?
• [57:00] Yandex ($YNDX)
• [1:04:00] The Tech Ecosystem in Russia 
• [1:09:00] Romania: Banca Transilvania
• [1:15:00] Kazakhstan: Kaspi
• [1:20:00] Georgia: Georgia Capital (LSE: CGEO) 
• [1:26:00] Eastern Europe: Invest in Banks: 
• [1:28:30] Russia vs China 
• [1:35:00] More from Steve Gorelik and Closing Questions

If you like what you heard please follow Steve on Twitter @stevegorelik and check out his firm Firebird Asset Management

Also big thanks to the following sponsors for making the podcast a reality!

Quartr

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Mitimco

This episode is brought to you by MIT Investment Management Company -- also known as MITIMCo, the investment office of MIT. Each year, MITIMCo invests with a handful of new emerging managers who it believes can earn exceptional long-term returns in support of MIT's mission. In order to help the emerging manager community more broadly, they created emergingmanagers.org, a website for emerging manager stockpickers.

For those looking to start a stock-picking fund, or those just looking to learn about how others have done it, I highly recommend the site. You'll find essays and interviews by successful emerging managers, service providers used by MIT's own managers, essays MITIMCo has written for emerging managers and more.