Magda Pereira

The book Opportunities During Depressions provides managers with examples and a methodology to find resilient businesses during economic crisis. Whatever their cause. During both the subprime and Covid crisis there were some highly resilient businesses: while some kept on growing, others even accelerated their growth. Thus within any industry there are some activities which constitute safe heavens companies should move into. And that happened across the economy: for instance, games and toys went from ± zero growth (in pre-crisis) to a +6% growth rate during crisis; the sports goods growth rate improved by +5%; and the production of protein crops including seeds accelerated by 11%.
Furthermore, the empirical data confirms that the resilient industries and segments (among 615 in the economy) are similar between the Covid crisis (2020) and the subprime years (2008-2014). Thus, during recessions it is possible for any firm, in any industry to find safe heavens: resilient businesses to move into benefiting from marketing or/and technical synergies.