RSSMarch 2008 Archives
March 28, 2008
Behind the scenes credit
Plugs are being pulled. I am currently working on the wind up of a deal - big one, my baby. No going. We're restructuring, but that's just polite language for letting it die. But I understand the Chinese will come in. Fucking brilliant, the Americans are subsidizing their own loss of influence. Bloody morons, almost as full of themselves as the Edwardian cretins.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:20 PM
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Business
March 26, 2008
Bloody languages
I don't know what is more depressing. Working on a bilingual fucking financial model (sadly I have to take responsibility for the fucked up format and the crazed idea of having mere button pushing for flipping Currency and Language), or watching American politics. At least, I can say, that my hard working collaboratrices where appropriately tight clothes to ease my eyes while we try to make this rubbish work. I thought this would be easier than tracking two models given the client CEO's ... limited language skills. I was wrong. It was a dumb fucking idea.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:36 PM
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Blog Notes - Admin
March 23, 2008
Arab El Dorado & Hollywood
A mildly amusing article on Hollywood efforts to raise funds for the usual rubbish. From the Gulf. They might think about raising money for Bollywood films first. Now, building an idiotic real estate project based on an already successful film, that's Gulf style speculation. Building something based on another model.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:52 PM
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Biz - Private in MENA
March 22, 2008
US, Iraq & Bullying...
There is not much to say on this, other than the account seems about right and rather unsurprising in many ways given the demonstrated incompetence and public behaviour.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:29 PM
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Iraq
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Politics - US FP
Echoing Obama to MENA
An interesting comment in The Wasington Post, whose main thesis is an approach like Obama's to race, to MENA would help. Of course I also think of race within MENA at the same time. But worthy of a think.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:13 PM
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MENA Region General
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Politics - US FP
March 21, 2008
Lunatic Real Estate
Now and again one can question even the basic sanity of some decisions. Or the pure idiot cupidity. Real Estate and UK investors come to mind. In particular, from The Times (London) and this particularly inane note Fly-to-let: the best places to buy an investment property overseas:
Continue reading "Lunatic Real Estate"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:15 PM
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Biz - Private in MENA
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MENA Region General
Blockages
One of the more unfortunate developments in my new positioning is my inability to rant without too much worry. While Paranoia was the name of the game in commenting on Iraq, at least the massive number of people working on same or similar things, with same or similar backgrounds gave a level of cover. Now, not the case. Frustrating really. Ran into some issues I would love to talk about over this past week. Can't. That leaves blogging for thoughtfulness, of which I have not had much.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:05 PM
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Blog Notes - Admin
March 14, 2008
Bear Stearns
If I needed an even to say financial crisis is now the ordre du jour, this was it. The US is kicking off a global financial crisis of truly epic proportions.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:14 PM
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Business
March 09, 2008
Financial Issues: American Subprime, Crime & Emerging Mkts
Not particularly MENA, but of global importance as the Americans seem to have managed to have concocted all by their own little selves what may be the most intractable financial crisis we have seen in 30-50 years (with the vaguely amusing spectacle a major American money centre bank 'reassuring' its shareholders over getting enough cash from Arabs, etc), it is a moderately positive step to see the American federal investigators going after one of the leading sources of toxicity.
I am not much of a believer in criminalizing business stupidities, however the sheer enormity of the "problems" in sub-prime and the securitization of said mortgages give one the sense that more than mere stupidity and cupidity was involved at source.
Continue reading "Financial Issues: American Subprime, Crime & Emerging Mkts"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:31 PM
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Business
March 08, 2008
Sympathy
Although I believe this lady is going to fail across the board, one has to be sympathetic. Having run across the blog, it appears to be a rather too typical story of Western woman falling for Maghrebine who convinces her to move to his home city without fundamental realistic thought.
Of course, the blog may not entirely reflect coping skills, etc., but certainly in my years in MENA I have seen a lot of these stories, with the woman not having the language or cultural skills and being thrown in on a sink or swim basis. Much the worse when said couple is trying to be entrepreneurial. Well, random blogs run across, and I am certain the owner would not be happy w such comments, but it gave me pause. Bloody glad I am not thrown into business in places I haven't the language basics, I know from experience it makes me quite cranky.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:59 PM
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Biz - Private in MENA
Gaza
Somewhere on Aqoul comments a commentator asked us to comment on Israel & Gaza. Here is my one and sole comment. Same same and now the Arab Sats are even more tediously over-focused on a few square kilometres of idiocy than usual. Boring. Until someone is ready to knock Israeli heads together to get reasonable engagement, nothing to see but more mayhem. I gave up on this ages ago.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:25 AM
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MENA Region General
March 05, 2008
Understatement - Dubai, unproven rental market potential
An amusing read in FT Money which besides making a questionable assertion regarding the Moroccan property market (at least as far as I can tell) amusingly states:
Another area to be wary of is Dubai. There has been a huge amount of development in Dubai, but rental demand is unproven. "Projects have been unbelievably ambitious and rental returns very seductive," says John.Hundreds of thousands of luxury apartments are due to come on to the market in Dubai next year and developers are promising yields of 9-10 per cent. Sales agencies have also launched some very eye-catching deals to entice investors.
One agent, Damac Properties, is offering a free Bentley or BMW with each Dubai apartment purchase, as well as the chance to win a private jet or island, although the company was unable to provide details of the offer.
John says the question is what happens when the building stops: "They have built so many luxury places, but how many people will choose to holiday there?"
Continue reading "Understatement - Dubai, unproven rental market potential"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:26 PM
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Biz - Private in MENA
March 04, 2008
New Month, Open Commentary - March 08
Sadly, I almost did not realize it is indeed a new month.
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:13 PM
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Blog Notes - Admin
March 03, 2008
Decimals, Finance & Maghrebine Staff.
Of little general interest, but instead of playing with my damned outlays model (I almost wrote 'spend model' as I find it harder and harder to resist that horrible barbarism that some semi-literate American biz school undergrad created - due to sheer weight of usage), I shall complain about Maghrebine "financial engineers." Sadly by the way, ordinary financial staff, often are "engineers" - stemming from I think the French obsession with slapping engineer on any damned thing in applied maths.
Decimals. It's a petty obsession of mine. I like my numbers to be presented in a certain fashion. Round, and preferably with some clear signaling of roughness - if a model, some up-down scenarios, else 'roughly.' My philosophical point is to hammer home again and again that unless we're talking actual cost accounting, financial projections, and above all any kind of sector data is fuzzy. It's a human trait to be fooled into thinking there is precision in forecasting, etc.
My complaint then is that my Maghrebine staff, well trained as they are in Maths - far smarter than I on purely theory-technical I readily confess - are obsessed with giving me numbers to three or more decimals.
Which, in valuation terms, is fucking stupid. (Well for what we do, let me acknowledge that in many contexts those decimals can be on volume major profit or less) Well, not stupid, but I think - perhaps too philosophically - self deceiving. But they can't shake the bloody habit of (false) precision. Drives me bloody mad. Rigidity and blind adherence to theory, and false precision.
I would also like to add that this quarter was/will be a fucking disaster. Everything is frozen, nobody wants to move. Markets are all holding breath(or letting it out and ducking).
Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:52 PM
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Perso Biz Notes
March 02, 2008
Lounsbury Trivia
A side note
Continue reading "Lounsbury Trivia"
Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:40 PM
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Perso
