Lessons for Corporate Treasurers on the Swiss Franc’s 200-Year Rise

Austin McKinley: Welcome to currencycast. How can we account for the rise and rise of the Swiss franc? What are the factors that explain the strength of the Swiss currency? And more importantly, what can corporate treasurers do about it? Welcome to Currencycast. My name is Austin McKinley. I'm the senior financial writer at Cantalks and your host in this episode. We have the pleasure to welcome Costa Valladas, Chief investment officer at uh, Genesis Investment Partners and uh, author of the Swiss Franc from 1798 to 2055. A very good book. Costa Valllenas, thank you for joining us today, um, on currencycast and uh, a warm welcome to you.

Costa Valladas: Thank you very much, Agustin, and thank you for inviting me.

Austin McKinley: Costa, can you start by introducing yourself to our audience please?

Costa Valladas: Yes, um, I'm chief investment officer at Genesis Investment Partners. Um, we're based in Zurich. Uh, we serve first generation tech entrepreneurs and curated families in that space.

Austin McKinley: Right. Now let's devote the first part of this conversation to the Swiss Franc from 1798 to 2055. There we have it. It's a very good book. I reviewed it, um, on LinkedIn. The author is at home with both the uh, uncovered Interest rate Parity theorem and classical philosophy. So that's uh, to the fourth right now. One thing that strikes us as readers is um, when you think of nonfiction books you usually think of say of biography or a book on history, on politics and so many other subjects. But it's not that often that we see a book on currencies. Perhaps the US dollar is in exception. We have this year two, uh, at least two good books on the US Dollar are Dollar Year Problem by Ken Rogoff and King Dollar by Paul Blustein. But it's even less often that we have books on the Swiss Franc. And uh, so my first question regards motivation. What are the main driving forces that led you to write the Swiss franc from 1798 to, to 2055?

Costa Valladas: Yeah. Thank you, Augustine. So, uh, my background is as an analyst and I'm always interested in data, uh, and charts and um, kind of recreating data series. And um, I noticed about a year and a half ago that I um, was the only one on the Internet who had recreated the Swiss franc to around 1850. And so I thought, you know, why is that? And then I wanted to, you know, find you know, what happened before 1850. And I discovered that was very hard to find that information. And I approached the Swiss national bank which uh, prints the Swiss Franc. And uh, they were very kind and said they'd help me and look for data in their archive. And, uh, they said I should send them a list of questions. And so my first question was, you know, what was the value of the Swiss franc in US dollars in March 1799? And then, uh, there was silence, uh, for a while. And then they got back to me and they said, well, you know, we don't have data in our archive on the questions that you're asking. And then I said, well, I know there was trading happening. We have history, uh, and information. So I'm going to find this information. And that was the trigger to kind of look, uh, for this data. Um, so first to create the database and then to tell a story.

Austin McKinley: Right now, the book is not very long. It's about 176 pages, but it's richly illustrated. There are 62 illustrations. I counted 50 charts. And as you said, some of those charts go back, uh, decades in time, some of them even centuries. And there's one that take us to all the way to Babylonian times. So tell us a little bit more about that research process.

Costa Valladas: Yeah, so for more than 10 years, I've been building up a, uh, database on historical interest rates and exchange rates. Um, and the Babylonian one looks at the lower bound of interest rates across 5,000 years. So we have history, uh, we have data on, uh, interest rates by collateral. The best collateral was gold, then second was silver, and the third was, uh, an agricultural commodity such as barley. So we have the data that shows us what was the interest rates in these different, different empires and countries. And I, um, recreated the minimum rate, uh, over 5,000 years, uh, on a chart. And that appeared in the Financial Times. Um, so I was always interested in doing this kind of research. And the same happened with the Swiss franc. When the central bank told me they don't have the data, I started to look for it. And it is amazing what data is not on the Internet. There is so much in libraries, great books, and in archives. Um, and I found a book four floors underground in the central library of Zurich. A Handbook of Foreign Exchange rates from the 1500s. Yes. So you see all these nice things hidden underground, and that set me on a path. And then I found more. So the next thing was to digitize is to find, to make this, uh, easier to work with.

Austin McKinley: All right, now let's go back to present times and, um, why don't you take us, uh, through the series of factors that up to the present, uh, in. Well, help to explain the. The strength of the Swiss franc. I'm thinking Here of maybe neutrality. Geopolitics. Tell us a little bit more about all of this.

Costa Valladas: Sure. So let me, let me just say, I mean at the most basic level for any currency in the world, you have supply and demand, right. If there's more demand than a supply, then the currency will go up. And um, this is what we have with regard to the Swiss franc. And the question therefore is, you know, so why, why is there more demand than there is supply? And when you look at supply factors, so I'm not before neutrality and all these things, when you come to supply factors, you can see, first of all there is, there is a balanced budget over the cycle. It's in the constitution. So there is relatively low government debt. If the balance cycle continues, the debt will eventually hit zero.

Austin McKinley: Right.

Costa Valladas: So there's, there's less demand, uh, less supply just from uh, say the fiscal story. And then in terms of inflation, when you look at most central banks, and most central banks have an inflation target of 2%, ECB Fed and the Swiss central bank has a price stability target of 0 to 2. So let's assume that the Swiss central bank hits the midpoint of its target of 0 to 2, which is 1, 2 minus 1 means you have a gap of 100bps per year. So just in terms of how different central banks are positioned, um, mechanically, mathematically, there's going to be more of the one and less of the other. So that's one important factor.

Austin McKinley: Right. And you say in the book that over time this is when such differences count, right?

Costa Valladas: Yeah, they add up, they add up, you know, 1% or 1% or 1%. Uh, over time they can add up. And of course the market anticipates. Now on your question of, um, neutrality. So I look at all these different factors in this book when we go back to 1798. I, um, think what helped Switzerland at that time was, um, it was spared the wars, uh, that affected the neighboring countries. The neighboring countries were monarchies, absolute monarchies in many cases from, for a long time. And those monarchies had huge expenditure, nice palaces. They, uh, subsidized great composers and writers. So they were very cultured. And the Swiss didn't have that, that big expenditure. And the other thing is these, these monarchies often were involved in wars defending their territories. And war is very expensive. And so Switzerland was kind of left out of that. And so that obviously is an important factor. You know, if you can, if you can work without being disturbed, uh, if you can make your watches and nobody's invading, um, then you can make more watches than if you have to stop and fight. So that helped, um, certainly helped the context of, okay, so here is a country, uh, it's not participating in wars, not participating because the neighbors didn't want it to help the other side. Right. So the neighbors would sign contracts saying, you don't fight with anyone else. You stay with us or you stay out. And so it was a neutrality that was actually kind of enforced. Um, it wasn't that the Swiss were born with a neutral gene. It was that the outside world said, you know, we don't want you to allow people to travel through your passes, etc. So that obviously had a factor, uh, specifically with regard to currencies. When the Swiss franc was originally created, it was a metal coin, silver. There was no banknotes. This was very different to some of the neighboring countries. Some of the neighboring countries used paper as well. And so from time to time you would have the suspension of convertibility from paper to gold. For example, even the bank of England suspended convertibility in the Napoleon Wars. Yes, with Napoleon wars, exactly. Um, and the Green bank, there was suspension of convertibility during the US Civil War. So here you have a dollar, but you can't convert it into gold. So it wasn't a real gold, uh, system. And in contrast, Switzerland had, didn't have paper, just had these coins, which was one factor. And crucially didn't have, um, a central authority. They had many cantons, and each canton wanted to have their own coins. And so that acted like little bit as a firewall between canton. So if one canton messes up with its currency, it is a firewall against the whole country. Right. Whereas in France after the Revolution, when they started printing paper money, um, they had hyperinflation across the whole of France. So the fact that Switzerland had these little pieces acted as a break. I mean, it had other inefficiencies, of course. But I'm answering your question about the origins and what kind of made it a place where people thought you can keep your treasure.

Austin McKinley: Right, that's, that's really interesting. I guess it takes us to one of the main points of the book, the issue of jurisdiction. There are a couple of very, um, important sentences. One is jurisdictions matter. And what you discuss here is the independence of the Swiss national bank and more broadly, the rule of law and trust, uh, that it creates in terms of the performance of contracts. So please explain a little bit more in detail why that, ah, matters so much.

Costa Valladas: So in contrast to the situation that we have in the United States, Switzerland has no prime minister and no head of state. And so there's no one single person who's able to make very big decisions on their own. Um, there are committees, there are groups, and specifically, when we look at the policy of the central bank, um, and again, I'd like to contrast it with this very strong executive in the United States, where the president, um, can say he can express his views, of course, on monetary policy. Policy, um, and that, you know, sometimes may create an expectation in the markets. If you look at the Swiss legislation, the, uh, instruction in Swiss law to the Swiss central bank is you are not allowed to ask anyone, and number two, you are not allowed to take advice from anyone by anyone that identified them as this government agency, this government, this cabinet, these government officials. Right? So now you say, oh, they have that in the law, and, you know, would they ever need that? They don't need that, do they? But now we see with the United States, you know, perhaps one day you might need it. And so at least here, you know, FX is relative, right? Relative supply and demand, a relative inflation differentials. It's all relative to something else. And so relative to the United States, it is just a little harder to put political pressure onto the central bank. I don't know if it is, you know, secretly maybe possible. Anything's possible, but it's just so much harder. There is no prime minister, there's no head of state. There's no one person who could pick up the phone and tell the central bank, this is what I think is good.

Austin McKinley: That's right.

Costa Valladas: That is a firewall. Um, and the market, when you look at the kind of forward rates, the market appreciates that or builds it in,

Austin McKinley: I guess I was about to take it there. I guess that helps to explain the, the high forward premium of the Swiss franc. We're talking about almost 4% to the US dollar in one year forwards. We'll come back to that a little bit, uh, later on. But let's stick to the issue of jurisdiction, because then in the book there's yet another mention of the, uh, jurisdiction issue. But now instead of being centered in the past and the present, you take it to the future. And it's a very bold step. You say jurisdictions will continue to matter even in the world of tokenized and private money on a blockchain. So tell us a little bit more about that. The matter of jurisdictions into the future and, um, of course, the future of the Swiss franc.

Costa Valladas: Yes. So why jurisdictions will continue to matter in, in the digital world, Digital currencies Digital assets is um, at some point, at some point the digital assets meet uh, with the fiat world, right? At some point that interaction happens. And the people who own digital assets live on this planet. They travel around, they meet to go to airports and, and the jurisdiction where they choose to reside in determines their tax right. And let's suppose they live in a completely tax free, uh, jurisdiction. Uh, there may be inheritance taxes linked to that. Anything's um, possible. The law keeps changing. So um, there is this interaction between um, digital world and the fiat world. And the question then is, okay, so you know, where do you think your digital assets will be better protected as well? You know, where are they likely to be taxed away, confiscated? Things change. And the point about jurisdictions therefore is just, you know, uh, let's think about, let's think about, you know, so we haven't escaped by owning, you know, something that's doing well in the digital world. We haven't escaped where we live, where we plan to live, where we're going to retire. Uh, how do we give this to our children perhaps? Right. So there are many factors that interact the real world which makes jurisdictions really important. And it also comes back to My chart of 5,000 years of interest rates, which is you could see which jurisdictions ended up having low, lower interest rates over time. And they tended to be places where capital was flowing to. So that was kind of the connection. Um, and it was, yeah, just to address, you know, to address the argument that we can escape, we can escape the real world by being fully digital somehow in our assets.

Austin McKinley: That's a great idea. I really enjoyed that one. When reading the book, Costalis discussed the resilience of the Swiss corporate world. Swiss companies in the face of the seemingly unstoppable appreciation of the Swiss franc. At Cantox, we are every day developing solutions for, well, you know, to tackle that issue that the forward, the high forward discount or premium of currencies and how to help corporate treasuries manage those, uh, interest rate differentials, be it in pricing, in hedging, in swaps. And what we mostly is by using API connectivity to um, create a corridor around the exchange rate and delay as much as possible execution of hedges as each day that passes by. Well, that shrinks the difference between the spot and the forward rate and diminishes in this case hedging costs without of course, um, not losing sight of the risk management. But you mention in the book, well, not exactly in that regard, but in terms of the resilience of companies, the fact that so Many Swiss companies are among the most innovative ones. I think the country ranks number one in the global innovation index. And also you discussed the strong export focus. So let's talk about this innovation, the export focus, and the resilience of companies in the face of the strength of the Swiss franchise.

Costa Valladas: Yes. So there's several factors here. So the first, I think, uh, the Swiss franc affects the mindset of Swiss companies. And what is that mindset? That mindset is. And if you look at the chart on the front page of the book, the currency is moving in one direction over a long time. Right. And so we cannot, yeah, it's, you know, this is the fewer and fewer Swiss francs to be buy $1. So the trend is clear. And, um, the question then is like, so how, how are we going to make money? How are we going to survive? How are we going to export? How we going to sell our stuff if that's the trend? Because what we know is the central bank is not going to help us. Central bank is not our friend in terms of helping the exporters. Right. Of course there will always be some lobby that tries to, you know, in other countries you can lobby the president, you can lobby one person and something might happen. Um, you can lobby the prime minister in Switzerland. Who will you lobby? It's hard to find them and bring them, put them in one room. So the central bank is unlikely to be the friend of exporters. And that's what history shows. So then you need a plan B. And the plan B is, okay, so let us produce stuff that we think we, uh, can sell and people be willing to pay. Right. And when you go back in history, like the first, the first product sold in China from Switzerland in the 1700s was watches, right? The, the imperial, uh, dynasty, the house there, they, they liked the watches, they bought them. So that's how the business started. And so you can see that, uh, you need to find products that you can carry over the mountains. Switzerland has no access to the sea. Um, and you need products that people, when it reaches there, will survive and stay, um, and they'll be willing to pay for it. So that mindset influences everything. Um, that when it comes to Swiss production, exports, what should we base here? What is the Swissness element and what can we, uh, base somewhere else? Right. So that mindset, I think in many countries, I don't see that mindset. Um, but here that mindset is really, really strong. Um, and you can see that in terms of efforts at automation are very strong as well. Right? So to, uh, give you one small example in many countries when you go

Austin McKinley: to like that, when you use the term automation.

Costa Valladas: Yeah. In many countries when you go to the supermarket, there's somebody who's going to pack your bag for you or help you. Um, here there's nobody. You have to do that. You have to scan, you have to do that. In many countries, uh, when you go and fill um, up your car with petrol, there's somebody who will help you or do that. Here you have to get out of the car, do it yourself. So that mentality of like uh, we can't afford, we can't afford expensive people. We have to find some automated way, we have to do something else, we have to cut costs. That is very strong in the mindset um, of everybody, farmers, um, and at all levels. And um. So yeah, so your products will be of certain people will be interested to hear how you can help them become even more efficient. Um because as you say, I mean uh, the trend is clear and there's this gap. Do you hedge it? At what price do you hedge to hedge at 4%? Um, yeah. That's a lot.

Austin McKinley: That is indeed a lot. And say at 12 or 13% against the Brazilian real, uh, and others. Now continuing with this uh, idea of the resilience of Swiss companies, you also discuss in the book one topic that is a favorite of mine, the cost of capital. And here maybe um, a short comparison with Argentina is so, so interesting if you think that jurisdictions do not matter. Well look at Argentinian bonds, right? They yield 3% more for comparable uh, securities in uh, local jurisdiction than in uh, bonds issued in New York. And uh, and if we continue the comparison, the Argentinian currency, believe it or not, has episodes of strength in markets. But here's the problem you have as an Argentinian company, uh, during those episodes of a strong currency, a high cost of labor. But it's coupled with a high cost of capital. And that is totally unsustainable. You cannot have both a high cost of labor, high cost of capital. It's going to create a perpetual fiscal crisis as ah. You never be able to um, say to collect enough taxes m. To offset that impact. So you say in the book that the idea of course the Swiss not national bank independence, the low inflation, low inflation expectations helps companies and um, in terms of the low cost of capital. Tell us more about this.

Costa Valladas: Yeah, sure. So you can see um, a strong currency also brings benefits. Right. So we've just discussed what are some of the problems you need to worry about? Being efficient and all that. But it Also brings benefits. If the market believes that the currency is likely to appreciate over time, then the market is willing to accept a lower interest rate, um, because the market thinks it's going to be compensated through a stronger currency over time. As you mentioned, the interest rate parity um, hypothesis, right? Which, that interest rate parity hypothesis comes back over centuries. It's not something new. You know, we have it from a century of data between Sterling and the French. Frank, for example, um, actually there's no free lunch over the long term, right? So there has to be some kind of compensation. And the compensation expectation here in Switzerland is that for this appreciating currency you're going to get low interest rates. Um, and current interest rates are zero. Central bank policy rate is zero. So that sets the base. Everything above zero must represent a premium to something. Um, but that's a good start. So capital costs are low from that perspective. It then feeds through the whole economy.

Austin McKinley: Right.

Costa Valladas: If, if the government can borrow at zero, if uh, I think the 30 year bond is 0.3, if they can, it means they less, they need less tax money to pay interest service. Right. So what does that do?

Austin McKinley: It did break.

Costa Valladas: Yes. So what does that mean? That means even if this, even if the government can borrow at zero, there's a lock preventing politicians from going crazy. Right. So, um, so the, the fiscal situation remains kind of pretty good. Uh, absolutely. And that keeps interest rates down, it keeps inflation down. Keeps interest rates down. And that is the compensating factor that's very helpful for corporates.

Austin McKinley: Now Acosta, you do mention another um, benefit of the strong currency. And it reminds me of the uh, of the saying by uh, I believe the Swedish economist Abba Lerner, if you want to export, you need to import. Right. And yes, of course I look at them, I looked at a uh, recent report by a chemical manufacturer there in Switzerland and they say, well, we have a bit of a currency headwind in terms of our sales, but remember we import, uh, the cost of inputs goes down. So that's another um, say a compensating effect, is it not?

Costa Valladas: Yes. So that's very powerful. So what it means is your imported importance. Inputs tend to become cheaper and cheaper in Swiss francs over time. Right. And that's very powerful because it means uh, it gives you advantages. So for example, uh, let's suppose you're producing chocolates. If you're able to buy cocoa at a lower price, um, or at a lower price than Swiss francs, you might, because of the mentality issue, you might be persuaded to Buy the best cocoa on the market. Right. So you're like, okay, we're going to produce chocolate, we're going to compete with Belgium and many other interesting places. Can we, what can we do? Okay, you go for the best cocoa on the planet. And um, so, so that's one advantage. Another advantage is if what you're paying, you're paying in dollars, for example, for American software. Um, and you're paying in dollars for advertising on Google or wherever you're advertising. Um, those dollar costs come down every year in Swiss francs. What does that mean? It means for the same amount of Swiss francs you can buy more advertising. Right.

Austin McKinley: So more technology, more software, more, all of that.

Costa Valladas: Right. So it has this reinforcing effect that makes you more competitive or makes you want to be more competitive or you have to be, otherwise you're going to go out of business. So these factors are very helpful.

Austin McKinley: Um, yeah, yeah, that's. Well, look at one of the most interesting parts of the book, all of those reinforcing effects. Costa, let's talk uh, a little bit about the Swiss franc and gold. Yeah. I take it that there was a recent article in the Neue Zurich Zeitung about, about uh, your book, is that right? And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that in passage of the book you say that if you take, uh, compound interest, so the Swiss franc currency does very well even against gold, which is of course, um, one of the star assets in recent years.

Costa Valladas: Yes. So, um, this was just to show, you know, there's this general view that says, you know, um, gold outperforms everything. Um, gold is so much stronger than currencies and of course there are long periods when that's the case. Um, but I just wanted to show from 1836, um, which is when I was able to get interest rates, um, until 2025 this year in which gold did so well, the Swiss franc, including interest rates on an ordinary cash deposit, outperformed, ah, gold over that long period. Why is that? Because you got compound interest. Of course, it was just an illustration because we don't make, uh, allowance for um, uh, tax. But just to show you that. No, no, you can over certain times get outperform gold over very long periods. And then there's very, an interesting phase, there's an almost 20 year phase in the early 90s where if you took Swiss francs and you put it under your mattress so no interest, it outperformed gold over that period as well. So obviously, you know, the long term trend in gold is up. I'M not arguing against that and gold is a great asset, an important asset to hold. But I just want to show that there are phases and they can last for a long time without performance underperformance. And of course now we're very clearly in a very strong gold phase.

Austin McKinley: Right.

Costa Valladas: But I just wanted to illustrate that what history showed.

Austin McKinley: Yes. Now when I finished the book, I couldn't help but notice that it was published in Rodsav whatever, uh, in Poland. And that's very interesting because it, it led me to a statement, I think on page 103, source what can be done more cheaply elsewhere. So tell us a little bit more about that story.

Costa Valladas: Yes. So, um, I mean, this is the beauty of the market. Right. Um, I discovered late that the book is actually published and printed. Printed in Poland.

Austin McKinley: Printed, sorry, Printed.

Costa Valladas: Printed in Poland. Which is a, ah, which was first of all a great surprise. But secondly also made me realize, well, it's kind of obvious that, you know, Swiss printing costs I'm sure are a lot higher. Uh, Swiss, uh, labourers is more than elsewhere and all these things. So I'm extremely happy that the book is printed in an efficient market for printing. And I didn't know that. I didn't choose that. But that shows you how the market can be super efficient in terms of like, fine, you're going to do a book. This is done by this provider. This is done by that provider. And here's your book and then you look and you see, oh, it was printed in Poland. Ah, that shows the efficiency of markets as well, right?

Austin McKinley: That's right.

Costa Valladas: There are clearly areas in which Switzerland is not efficient and it can be very irritating. And part of that is agriculture. Um, another example is printing costs. So, um, that means, yeah, you're forced, um, to just find the most efficient route.

Austin McKinley: That's right. Now I take it also that now taking a broader view that you traveled recently to Poland, speaking, uh, speaking of the book being printed there, but you were also quite pleasantly surprised by the way this country is evolving. We ourselves at Cantox have just opened an office in Warsaw. So discuss a little bit the Polish story for us from your perspective.

Costa Valladas: Sure. So I didn't mention that, um, before I worked at UBS for 25 years, I covered emerging markets and Poland was part of that space because it happened to be in the index, um, uh, for some of the assets. And so I always, um, visited Poland and kept an eye on Poland. And it is remarkable what has happened there, um, in terms of, um, the growth and the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial spirit. In Poland is extremely strong. Um, and you can see, um, a return of confidence by Polish businesses that they realize that they have discovered, um, how to make money in a very great way. Um, and they're expanding and growing and um, it's a wonderful story actually. Um, what is also of interest, what is also of been of interest is, you know, Poland has its own currency and has kept its own currency. Um, and um, one of the reasons that they liked that was that, you know, whenever you have a, um, financial crisis or a crisis which we saw earlier, the, the currency can, can act as a shock absorber and that helped the economy in previous times. I, um, was just wondering though, on my recent visit I was invited to a conference, as you mentioned, m that was in Warsaw. Um, it was obvious that um, inflationary pressures were higher than in the euro area and the inflation peak was higher than the euro area. Um, and so you can also see some of the downsides of not sharing the single currency. Um, the upsides are clear independence and shock absorber. But some of the downsides mean that you have higher interest rates, um, and perhaps higher inflation expectations. And so one of the themes in Poland, despite that very positive story, was uh, people talking about, um, the appreciating real effective exchange rate of the zloty is up quite a lot.

Austin McKinley: Right.

Costa Valladas: And they feel that, um, and so they hear the Swiss Frank story, but they don't see how that immediately could apply to them because the real effective stranger moved up so quickly and they're like, okay, so this is how we built our system and now we suddenly going to export at this higher level. Um, so it's, it's a challenge in Poland.

Austin McKinley: Yes, it is, yes, absolutely. Costa Valena's chief investment officer at Genesis Investment Partners and um, author of the Swiss Franc from 1798 to 2055. We've covered a lot of round. I would have liked to continue this conversation, but we don't have that much time anymore. We discussed your box. The story of the Swiss franc, the, the factors behind its rise and rise. We discussed, um, a comparison with gold and what Swiss companies could do in the face of the appreciating currency. So it was a broad discussion. Is there something that you would like to add, Costa?

Costa Valladas: Um, well, a general statement I would make is that the book found interesting data in the archives. And so there's lots of interesting books and things in the archives. Don't ignore the libraries, don't ignore the archives. Not everything is on the Internet. Um, and there's some great opportunities to, you know, uh, look for interesting aspects there. That would be one factor. And the second factor factor, I'd say is, you know, everybody can. All entrepreneurs can think about how to improve efficiency. And, um, because, as we see in the case of Poland, the real effective exchange rate could move very suddenly. Um, and so thinking about costs and what you can do, uh, to become more efficient is something that all of us can do.

Austin McKinley: Right. And on that note, we are going to leave it here, but I'm sure we'll have. Have another, another opportunity to, to talk to you. Kosa, thanks a lot and see you soon.

Costa Valladas: Thank you so much, Augustine, for finding me and for reading my book. Thank you.