It’s easy to do well in a boom, when the money runs almost as freely as champagne, and when investors feather their nests with the profits of successful speculation. This was never more so the case than in the GCC, where oil money transformed the local capital markets into the biggest bull on the Arabian block. After the booming bull has come the bear of bust. It is a bitter pill to swallow, especially when it has not been our fault. The inescapable truth is that business cards from the world’s blue chip banks and finance houses have lost their luster — rogue hedge fund investor Bernard Madoff saw to that when his $50 billion scam wiped out the asset portfolios of some of America’s most powerful investors. A well-cut suit, a Harvard MBA and a Manhattan employer are no longer enough to get people to part with their money.
