Attendance: 13 (including 2 guests and guest speaker) Guests: Myline Hanley-Farrell, a Rotarian from Nevis who has recently moved to Canada, and Marcia Rodney from the Pickering Rotary Club.

 

Chair: President Basil

Anthem: Gerd Wengler

Grace: Mandy Nwobu

 

President Basil had several announcements including:

- Past President Bob Butterill’s mother passed away last Friday. Funeral services will be held in Kingston on Sat. at 11:00 am at the James Reid Funeral Home.

- Our District Membership Committee is holding a Membership Seminar (Part 1) on Sat. Feb. 25^th from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Aw Shucks Seafood Bar & Bistro at 15230 Yonge Street in Aurora. Registration is limited to the first 50 registrants. There’s no charge to participants, but no-shows will be charged $20.00.

- Our District Foundation Grants Seminar will be held on Sat. Feb. 11^th at the Oshawa & District Shrine Club from 8:30 am until 12:30 pm. Any club that wants to apply for Global and/or District Grants must have at least two members in attendance at this seminar, and the current President and President-Elect must both sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the District.

- January is Rotary Awareness Month. All members are asked to wear Rotary pins and to be prepared with your 15 second Rotary speech as a way to interest potential members in Rotary.

- Presidential pardons are now available for sale.

- The Atlanta International Convention is fast approaching. Pres. Basil has information for interested members, but indicated that the cost goes up closer to the event and availability goes down. So, the earlier you register, the better.

- The wine that was served at the meeting was courtesy of our speaker, Brad Hughes.

Gerd announced that he will be hosting an International (Group 4) Meeting next Wed. immediately following the regular luncheon meeting.

 

The Marbelous Draw was conducted by Frank Allison and was won, and  lost, by the Syndicate, being Gerd Wengler and Mike Mushet.

 

Sgt-at-Arms Barry Smith levied fines and Happy Bucks:

Everyone who was not wearing their Rotary pins was fined, including SAA Barry.

The Syndicate donated their consolation prize to the Club coffers, but not until both Syndicate members took the floor. Gerd related his tumble on the trails, which was completely missed by Dorothy. So, no footage of the incident will be available on YouTube.

Mandy donated a happy buck for her trip to several cities in Nigeria.

Frank tossed in a happy buck for his middle grandson’s football scholarship from Waterloo... and we’re talking real Canadian football... not the UK variety.

Dave Seemungal, in tune with today’s presentation, got the money flowing from his pocket into the Club’s mutual fund.

Happy bucks were also donated by Dhanni and one of our guests, who threw in a Trump buck.

 

Brad Hughes from Excel Funds was introduced by David Seemungal who has placed investments for clients with Brad for the past ten years.

Brad’s topic was “Emerging Markets”.

David Seemungal, by way of further introduction, put up a slide that showed the average American’s view of the world. Their labels for several countries were as follows:

- Canada - Hockey & Bears

- U.S. - Freedom

- China - the Factory

- Russia - the Communists

- South America - Jungle Savages

- Australia - Kangaroos

- India - Tech Support

- North Africa - Empty Desert

Obviously, many people have a warped view of the world as well as its emerging markets.

Brad took the podium and pointed out the importance of the Emerging Markets for the future, as opposed to the Developed Markets.Excel Funds was started by an Indian actuary who moved to Canada, and concentrated its efforts on the broad growth of the Emerging markets.

Although the TSX is surprisingly the best performing market index presently, the future seems to be with the Emerging markets.

In the area of energy demand, China will soon become the largest economy in the world. India will be next, and the U.S. will be relegated to third place.

A lot of large global institutions have increased their allocations to the Emerging markets. Examples are the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board that has allocated about 11% to Emerging markets. Tamasek of Singapore has allocated 45% to the Emerging markets. The smart money is watching the Emerging markets with great interest for future growth potential.

While Canada’s economy is growing at a rate of about 2%, India is growing at 7% and China at 8%. This is fueled by several factors, such as higher GDP Growth and Employment compared to decreasing GDP and employment in the Developed markets.

Population growth is also important coupled with an increasing middle class in the Emerging Markets. The population of the Emerging markets is about 6 billion, compared to 1.4 billion in the Developed markets. This means a larger workforce as well as a larger consumer base. Therfore, there is a great potential for growth in these Emerging markets. In the Developed markets, consumers simply replace existing products, but in the Emerging markets, consumers are accumulating products which translates into more sales and more economic growth.

In addition, costs of getting product to market are lower in the Emerging markets. Where the Developed markets had to invest money in infrastructure such as telephone cables and bricks-and-mortar stores, the Emerging markets can take advantage of recent technological advances that allow a quicker and less expensive delivery of products to market. For example, the consumer goods and services penetration rate for several important sectors is as follows:

 

Global economic growth is definitely being driven by the Emerging Markets, and they are simply outgrowing the Developed Markets. These markets can result in a high investment return, not because there is a high risk, but because there is a high probability of increased growth in the future. In summary, Brad stated that there is a lot of opportunity as well as a lot of quality investments in the Emerging Markets. Even today’s wine, as donated by Brad, was from the Emerging market of Argentina.

 

Mike Mushet thanked Brad for a very interesting and informative presentation.

 

The meeting was terminated