English bankers: a sure sign of Mongolia’s mineral boom

23-Sep-2010

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An eternal optimist, Liu-Yue built two social enterprises to help make the world a better place. Liu-Yue co-founded Oxstones Investment Club a searchable content platform and business tools for knowledge sharing and financial education. Oxstones.com also provides investors with direct access to U.S. commercial real estate opportunities and other alternative investments. In addition, Liu-Yue also co-founded Cute Brands a cause-oriented character brand management and brand licensing company that creates social awareness on global issues and societal challenges through character creations. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Liu-Yue worked as an Executive Associate at M&T Bank in the Structured Real Estate Finance Group where he worked with senior management on multiple bank-wide risk management projects. He also had a dual role as a commercial banker advising UHNWIs and family offices on investments, credit, and banking needs while focused on residential CRE, infrastructure development, and affordable housing projects. Prior to M&T, he held a number of positions in Latin American equities and bonds investment groups at SBC Warburg Dillon Read (Swiss Bank), OFFITBANK (the wealth management division of Wachovia Bank), and in small cap equities at Steinberg Priest Capital Management (family office). Liu-Yue has an MBA specializing in investment management and strategy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing from Stern School of Business at NYU. He also completed graduate studies in international management at the University of Oxford, Trinity College.

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September 17, 2010 7:33pm

China was 30 years ago. Dubai was 20 years ago, and Kazakhstan 10. If you want to go to the next boom country, go to mineral-rich Mongolia.

In fact, the boom has already started. A construction surge has reshaped much of the capital, Ulan Bator. A Louis Vuitton boutique has been open for almost a year. And here’s another milestone: the first Mongolia-focused investment bank has opened – and the head of UBS’s London mining team is on board.

Resources Investment Capital has opened an office in UB – as the city’s avant-garde expats call Ulan Bator. It’s a consortium of Origo, a Beijing-based private equity house, and Monnis, a Mongolian conglomerate.

The boutique investment bank’s nickname, Rescap, evokes Rencap (Renaissance Capital), a bank known as a perennial Russian bull. It appears that Rescap’s ambition is to be for Mongolia what Rencap was for Russia.

Rescap will be the first international bank for foreign investment professionals in Mongolia seeking to raise funds for Mongolian state-owned companies and buy Mongolian mineral assets.

It will also assist companies coming in to Mongolia. Many have been trying in the year since Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines signed the Oyu Tolgoi Investment Agreement. Companies ranging from Shenhua in China to BHP Billiton in Australia to Peabody Coal in the US are either invested there or are said to be interested.

Eric Zurrin, head of UBS’s mining team in London, will lead the bank as one of its equity partners. There are other Oxbridge types heading out to Ulan Bator, with wife, kids and Siberian-winter parkas in tow, according to a British mining investor who has lived there for several years. He added:

It’s incredible, these Old Etonians coming out to Mongolia. You can believe it’s going to happen, sure, the Mongolian mining boom. And sit in London and believe it.

But this is different. They come here and they see it. They’re actually moving here with their kids.

At the moment no Mongolian companies are listed on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. But within a month that should have changed: Mongolia Mining Corp is preparing for an IPO worth $700m-$1bn. Other former state-owned assets are expected to follow.

By the time the next IPO comes around a few more pin-striped professionals may have touched down at Genghis Khan International Airport – and stayed.

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