S&P calls for Brics break-up

Brazil, Russia, India and China – the world’s biggest emerging market economies – should not be grouped together as an asset class, Standard & Poor’s said on Wednesday.

The so-called Brics, created as an acronym by Goldman Sachs in 2001, should be not classed together because their outlooks have diverged since the financial crisis blew up in August 2007, the ratings agency said.

The outlooks of the four countries appear so disparate that it raises questions over “whether the Bric countries ever shared much in common other than scale and high portfolio inflows.”