20/F, Central Tower
28 Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong
Mailing Address: G.P.O. Box 1342, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2541 4088 Fax: (852) 2815 5032
PERC Organization | Experience
| Publications | Senior Management |
Established in 1976, Political & Economic Risk
Consultancy is headquartered in Hong Kong. From this office, PERC
coordinates a team of researchers and analysts in the ASEAN countries, Greater
China and South Korea. Some of the world's leading corporations and financial
institutions regularly use PERC's services to assess key trends and critical issues
shaping the region, to identify growth opportunities, and to develop effective
strategies for capitalizing on these opportunities.
Although a wide range of companies
use our services, the focus of our research is very much a niche: We help
companies understand how politics and other subjective variables are shaping
the business environment in individual Asian countries, as well as the
interlinkages between countries and the people of the region. Such variables
may be difficult to quantify, but nevertheless can have a critical impact on
investment performance and therefore have to be factored into the
decision-making process, which is the function of our services. Our value lies
in our experience, our Asian network of seasoned analysts, our emphasis on
primary research, our complete independence from any vested interest groups,
our technical capabilities, our discretion, and our integrated, regional
approach to analysis. We have included here a short list of some of our
projects in order to give you an idea of the focus and range of our work:
·
One
of the world's leading mining companies recently retained PERC to facilitate a
scenario plan on the sustainability of China's economic development and how it
could fundamentally change the global supply and demand balance for resources
over the next 20 years.
·
We
have conducted risk assessments of different Indonesian islands like Batam,
Kalimantan, Bali and Java to see how conditions vary between islands and how
specific island risks compare with a consensus view of overall "Indonesian
risks". Some islands are safer than others for foreign investors in
terms of having different social conditions, vulnerabilities to corruption,
labor conditions, physical infrastructure quality, and local governments'
receptiveness toward foreign investors. We surveyed foreign investors on all
these islands to assess their perceptions of these and other critical issues.
·
One
leading foreign business chamber in Hong Kong recently retained PERC to conduct
a business confidence survey of its membership and to identify which concerns
were biggest in terms of the membership's priorities and which ones were less
important. In this way the business chamber was in a better position to
communicate its membership's main concerns to the Hong Kong government and to
develop programs that concentrated on the issues in which the membership is
most interested.
·
A
leading multinational with operations in both China and Taiwan retained PERC to
develop different cross-Strait's scenarios, assessing how different
developments could affect the growth and interaction of the company's Greater
China business.
·
We
have just finished a country risk assessment of Cambodia for a company that is
preparing to list on a foreign stock exchange and required an independent
assessment on the risks and opportunities to which its Cambodian investment is
exposed. Like much of PERC's other work, this was an example of how risk
assessments really need to be customized to specific industries and projects.
Generic approaches to country risk assessment are too broad to capture the real
situation and relevance of specific variables.
Besides customized consulting, PERC also offers several published products.
Robert Broadfoot is the founder and Managing
Director of Political & Economic Risk Consultancy, Ltd. A US citizen, Mr.
Broadfoot graduated with honors in economics from Oberlin College in the United
States in 1972. He has lived in Hong Kong since 1975. Beside coordinating PERC
s overall operations, Mr. Broadfoot is directly responsible for managing PERC's
research and consulting involving mainland China and the Greater China region.
In addition to overseeing PERC's primary research, Mr. Broadfoot facilitates
customized scenario-planning
programs for companies to help them understand the parameters of uncertainty
they face, the interlinkages of risks within and between countries, and
signposts they should be aware of to gain a competitive advantage by
recognizing changes in the environment. His analysis of Asian developments
is regularly quoted by such publications as the Asian Wall Street Journal and The
New York Times, as well as by such TV stations as CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg.
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