An Olympics gives a host nation an opportunity to promote itself as an investment destination to foreign companies. Brazil’s task is more difficult than most, despite such prime assets as samba, Pelé and a market of 200m people. The performance of earlier investments resembles that of the girl from Ipanema’s attitude to admirers: indifferent.
Brokers, bankers and management consultants in the financial centres of the developed world like nothing better than a new land of opportunity they can promote to clients. It is a centuries-old sales wheeze that was given focus in the early noughties by Jim O’Neill’s categorisation of the most promising emerging economies as “Brics”: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The economist, then working for Goldman Sachs, never set out to trigger an investment craze. However chief executives of multinational companies were keen to buy into Brazil or expand operations there. The problems they met offer a cautionary tale for bosses contemplating any new “Next Big Thing” presented by advisers or colleagues.