Frontier markets Jurisdictional-contrarian value ▲

Polomny (Jun 19): buy out-of-favor jurisdictions before the capital arrives — Uzbekistan (UZNF) is the "fertile crescent" hub (Turkey→Iran→Central Asia), ~6–7% compounding growth (positive even through COVID), a young under-indebted population, and the "ice is breaking" as the London-listed national fund partial-privatizes state enterprises for transparency (the Romania / Franklin Templeton property-fund template, ~20 yrs ago). Keep catalyst-triggered watch-lists: UK/North Sea names for when Reform rolls back the 78% windfall tax (Miliband out), plus Colombia and Brazil (Oct election) on a center-right turn — "you can always stay ahead of the crowd; they'll never be the first ones in." 2026-AUG-02 — Mohnish Pabrai (New Money): his live frontier expression is KSPI (Kaspi.kz) — Nasdaq-listed, Kazakhstan-domiciled, $2B annual cash flow in a 10-million-person country, at 5–7× cash flow with a ~10% dividend yield, plus a Turkey build-out into a market 8× larger that is still "all analog, all paper." Tencent/WeChat and the 40–43%-owner CEO both added on the dividend-suspension crash — "heads I win, tails I win." 2026-AUG-08 — John Polomny (AIA Weekly): Latin American oil is "being repriced already" — Petrobras, plus Colombia's changing government reopening Ecopetrol/Parex/GeoPark, and Argentina's Vaca Muerta exploding with Howard Marks and Stanley Druckenmiller in YPF. The rule: "changes in government and changes in policy that are economically positive can lead to tremendous knock-on effects for individual companies"; Gulf-insulated oil assets "have a larger value." 2026-AUG-24 — John Polomny: the UK is "tremendously cheap but uninvestable right now" on policy, and sits on the watch list where Venezuela used to. Uzbekistan is the standing frontier bet ("the only country in the world that grew during COVID"; "I don't have to be a genius if Uzbekistan's going to grow at 7 to 8% ad infinitum"). Disaggregate rather than dismiss: "in Africa there's 54 countries. There's a difference between Rwanda and Equatorial Guinea." Slegers 2026-AUG-27: an India case built on accounting rather than macro. Fairfax runs ~$75bn with $4.3bn (5.7%) in India, expected to rise "significantly"; the vehicle is Fairfax India, 84% infrastructure and financials, whose crown jewel Bangalore airport (BIAL) is 55% of the portfolio — passenger traffic +8% to 43.8m, targeting 80m by 2029, revenue compounding 21%/yr for six years while the carrying value rose 1.8%/yr. Carried at 10x EBITDA against a 21x average for recent global airport transactions (Brussels 29x, Sydney 25x); listed peer GMR Airports trades at 10.1x EV/Sales. Macro framing is given and explicitly disclaimed: 1.5bn people, median age 29.2, "India is today where China was two decades ago… we are no macro-investors." (2026-SEP-03, John Polomny / AIA monthly, quoting AFC Uzbekistan CIO Scott Osheroff) Uzbekistan's chain stated end to end — inflation 15.2% (2018) to 6.4% (July 2026); the som from double-digit depreciation to ~7% appreciation in 2025; savings surfacing into term deposits as rates fell from 26% to the high teens; corporate bond raises up from ~$2M to $20M+ with coupons down from 30% to the high teens/low 20s; and a policy-rate cut from 14% toward 13% expected. The consequence traded is the crossover — "as the attractiveness of fixed income instruments… rather quickly decreases… an inverse relationship in the listed equity market which over the past eighteen months has been in a significant uptrend." Polomny then undercuts his own headline: the Tashkent UCI index was "up over 100% in August" but is "a flawed index" whose constituents no broker or the exchange will disclose, with "many illiquid companies that can move significantly with just a bit of buying pressure." The verdict is kept separate from the number: "an inflection point has been reached." 2026-SEP-08 (Rick Rule) — the framework, not a country call: “What you need to juxtapose is the nature of the risk relative to the size of the prize… every jurisdiction in the world is risky.” Poland's risk is the government taking 80% of your profits by way of tax; Sinaloa's is violence; and his own worst experience was “the People's Republic of California. Nobody shot me, but they delayed my permitting by 13 years.” The point he presses is that political risk arriving “in English through the legislature” can be more deleterious than the kind that makes headlines. Track record cited: South Sudan, Congo, Peru after the Shining Path, and Russia “for 24 years until one year where I did very, very poorly.” 2026-SEP-08 (Brien Lundin, Kitco): the government-take cycle as a jurisdiction rule. Royalties, not fuel or labour, were the biggest contributor to rising mining costs last quarter (World Gold Council) — 6% of an ounce's cost in 2021, 12% now, +85% y/y against gold's +70%. "In good markets, governments renegotiate those deals" is a 40-year pattern, so with this much available in tenured-mining-law jurisdictions (North America, Mexico, Latin America) "you don't need to go too far out there." Not a blanket ban: he likes Kazakhstan right now (low exploration and production cost, a portfolio winner exploring there), and treats Ghana's sliding scale (~12% above $4,500) and Burkina Faso as knowable and priceable because much of it has been enshrined in mining law for some time. 2026-SEP-09 (Josh Young, VRIC Media) — a counterweight on underwriting. Underwrite frontier assets on property rights, not barrels: prior expropriations are a base rate, not a one-off, and the question of whether you could defend the position to clients after a seizure comes before the return test. Removing a leader is not a regime change.