My Global Hustle

On Saturday, March 10 only, apply for your U.S. passport at a Regional Passport Agency without an appointment. You will be able to apply for standard processing (4-6 weeks) or pay an additional $60 for expedited processing (2-3 weeks, door-to-door). Passport Day in the USA events are being held at Regional Passport Agencies and many Passport Acceptance Facilities across the country in communities like yours. If you’ve been waiting to get your passport, this is the time!

Ten years ago, a New York real estate developer named Bruce Ratner fell in love with a building site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. It was 22 acres, big by New York standards, and within walking distance of four of the most charming, recently gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn — Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, and Fort Greene. A third of the site was above a railway yard, where the commuter trains from Long Island empty into Brooklyn, and that corner also happened to be where the 2, 3, 4, 5, D, N, R, B, Q, A, and C subway lines all magically converge. From Atlantic Yards — as it came to be known — almost all of midtown and downtown Manhattan, not to mention a huge swath of Long Island, was no more than a 20-minute train ride away. Ratner had found one of the choicest pieces of undeveloped real estate in the Northeast.

Few companies from emerging markets have grown into successful multinational enterprises. One business that has is the packaged-goods company Grupo Bimbo. Founded in Mexico in 1945 by Lorenzo Servitje, the publicly traded company now holds the title of the world’s largest baker, with sales exceeding $10 billion in 2010. Just over half of those sales came from outside its home market—namely China; many Latin American countries, including Argentina and Brazil; and the United States. The company trades under several well-known brands, including Entenmann’s and Thomas’ in the United States, and the ubiquitous Bimbo brand in Latin America.