Feature

Secrets of the stones

by Executive Editors
written by Executive Editors

It is easier to walk into the Lebanese Parliament than gain access to the higher echelons of Lebanon’s jewelers, given the amount of security, how frequently top jewelers travel and their secretive nature.

To visit the offices of a jeweler is akin to entering Fort Knox: beyond the usual security to an office block there are multiple bulletproof doors to be buzzed through — including a holding room — until you’re sat in a padded leather arm chair of the ‘old world’ style.

When you keep merchandise worth up to $80 million on the premises, as some of the top jewelers do, such security measures are understandable. Yet while carrying out a heist on these jewelry fortresses would be difficult, just as challenging is getting interviews with members of what is arguably the country’s most secretive industry.

The sector, which by dollar value accounts for an estimated 30 percent of Lebanon’s total trade and exports, is so devoid of transparency that accurate figures are hard to come by and no companies are willing to open their books to external scrutiny.

“Around 90 percent of sales are not declared,” said one jeweler in a rare off-the-record disclosure.

Getting jewelers to talk is like getting blood out of a stone; they tend to clam up when it comes to figures, market variables and projections. Indeed, some jewelers are so tight lipped that half-hour interviews yielded just a few lines of useful information and usable quotes.

While Lebanon is well known for its banking secrecy, the jewelry sector should be equally — if not as infamously — renowned, particularly given its economic significance and export clout. According to the Syndicate of Expert Goldsmiths and Jewelers in Lebanon (SEGJL), Lebanon is the leader in jewelry and gold production in the Middle East (excluding Turkey), employing 8,000 people with 2,000 qualified jewelers and experts at some 60

major workshops.

According to the country’s other jewelry-related body, the Syndicate of Lebanese Jewelers, the sector employs 5,000 people. By comparison, the banking sector employs some 20,000 people.

Judging by the Lebanese Customs’ records, jewelry exports were valued at $707 million from January to September 2009, equivalent to 28.8 percent of the country’s total exports. Imports on the other hand were 4.2 percent of total imports, valued at $505 million in the same period.

However, domestic sales are not reported or listed by the Ministry of Economy and, as stated, much of what is sold and exported is not declared. According to SEGJL, approximately 80 to 90 percent of Lebanese jewelry is exported to the Gulf, Europe and North America. But the syndicate did not make clear whether that amount includes undeclared exports or not, and presumably much of what is actually exported is not disclosed, either by customers or by jewelers themselves travelling on sales trips.

When a single four-part set of jewels can sell for $4 million, “clients don’t want the value [of their jewelry] to be mentioned because of thieves and ransom threats,” said Gerard Tufenkjian, managing director of Beirut-based jeweler Tufenkjian.

One jeweler recounted that when he goes abroad for exhibitions he may take $3 million to $4 million worth of merchandise, but may only sell $2 million, so he will not declare the amount on arrival or departure. As Tufenkjian related, “Our business is in a bag, we come and go with one or two Samsonites [suitcases] to do our business.”

Patrick el-Khoury, head of publishing and events at Arabian Watches and Jewellery magazine, said he had heard rumors circulating within the industry that the sector was worth some $4.5 billion, which would be equivalent to a staggering 16 percent of Lebanon’s gross domestic product. “But this figure is not confirmed,” he stressed. Neither the syndicates nor jewelry companies would offer another figure.

The annual exhibition Joaillerie Liban 2009, however, stated on its website that “Lebanon has become one of the top five jewelry producers in the world,” with “60 percent of [the country’s] $1 billion production in jewelry and designer jewelry sold in Lebanon to visitors or importers from the region, Europe, the Far East and the Americas.”

Given the discrepancies of up to 90 percent between the SEGJL’s export figures, Khoury’s and Joaillerie Liban’s figures, the true value of the sector and the size of exports is essentially anyone’s guess. It is certainly one of Lebanon’s more successful sectors, but given its lack of transparency, a sizeable amount of money is not being disclosed and consequently, minimal revenues are going into government coffers.

Taxation is one reason the sector is opaque. Under Lebanese law, jewelers pay the standard income tax on employees’ salaries, but not on the value of precious metals or stones. For sales, taxation is 0.8 percent — a policy introduced in 2004 by the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

“We don’t impose this tax on the customer,” said Hovig Yessayan, marketing manager of Yessayan, adding that 95 percent of his firm’s sales go abroad to the Gulf and Lebanese expatriates.

The sector is dominated by family run firms, and families tend to not like their laundry, clean or dirty, aired in public

Diamonds are deception’s best friend

Another reason for the sector’s secretive nature is the diamond trade (see page 31). Lebanon exported 2.45 million carats in 2008, estimated at $48.47 million,  according to the latest figures from the global regulator, known as the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) (see chart below).

But according to Partnership Africa Canada’s “Diamonds and Human Security Annual Review 2009,” more than 97 percent of all diamonds leave Lebanon soon after they arrive, with 85 percent arriving in the country certified as industrial diamonds — used in drill-bits, saw blades and abrasives. Curiously, however, “some 250,000 more carats leave as gem quality diamonds than arrive — worth 36 times their import value,” the report stated.

With the average diamond imported into Lebanon at $19.67 per carat (among the lowest rates in the world), if exported at 36 times this value they would be worth some $708 per carat; carry this over 250,000 carats and there would be a $177 million differential between the value of diamonds entering and exiting Lebanon.

This math is only a guesstimate, however, as the value of diamonds per carat can vary widely depending on the specific stone; the global

average price per carat stands at around $95, while the highest quality diamonds can reach up to $4,000 per carat.

According to KPCS figures, there is a difference of just $1.6 million between Lebanese diamond imports and exports.

“The most common explanation of where diamonds are misclassified is tax avoidance, or some kind of [money] laundering scheme within a trading company,” said Annie Dunnebacke, a campaigner at the natural resource focused rights group Global Witness, based in London.

Quite clearly there are a lot of diamonds knocking around that are not being declared — at least in true worth — and so far, the KPCS has not investigated such discrepancies in Lebanon (see facing page).

When asked about why the sector is not better regulated, Hovig Yessayan said: “When [you are] making money for the country, no one cares.”

Keep it in the family

Among the factors allowing the sector to remain so hidden from scrutiny is that it is dominated by family run firms.

Leading companies such as Tufenkjian, Nsouli, Antoine Hakim, George Hakim, Azar and Gemayel have been in the business for more than 100 years. And families tend to not like their laundry — clean or dirty — aired in public.

“It is a closed sector, much like banking,” said Yessayan.

The cutthroat competition between the high-end jewelers over designs also emphasizes secrecy.

“Secrecy is very important in this business, there are lots of designers and outsourcing cannot be recorded,” said Khoury.

As Lebanese jewelers’ reputations continue to grow around the world, the opaque nature of the sector is only likely to increase. Lebanese jewelers can export to the United States tax free, and are expanding their presence in Europe, the Gulf and Asia, whether through showrooms or attending exhibitions and fairs.

“Some 250,000 more carats leave as gem quality diamonds than arrive — worth 36 times their import value”

Setting standards

Competition comes from the Far East, but Lebanon has the upper hand on design and quality for regional sales.

“The quality of the jewelry that is [made] in Hong Kong or China is not as good as Lebanon’s, it is thinner; Arabs are used to bulky jewelry,” said Yessayan. He added that jewelry is 15 to 20 percent cheaper in Lebanon than in the Gulf. “So if you are buying a set of jewels for $500,000, it is worth flying over; even Sheikhas take a private jet here and we close the whole building down as we want total privacy for royal clients.”

Lebanon’s designs and highly skilled craftsmen have also placed the sector on equal footing with Europe.

“The standards we have here are comparable to Swiss or French jewelry, and we’re very picky about our staff,” said Karim Hakim, one of the four brothers who run George Hakim, based in downtown Beirut.

“The designs, the model making, the execution of the casting process in all its five stages, the setting, electroplating, polishing and so on, all are taught here in our country and [produced] uniquely by Lebanese craftsmen,” said Berge Arabian, a senior member of the SEGJL.

Lebanese jewelers have weathered well the financial storm of the past year and a half, particularly the high-end stores, on the back of wealthy customers moving some of their money into hard assets due to concerns about banking stability, inflation and the depreciation of the US dollar.

The regularity with which regional clientele buy jewelry, compared to Europe or the Americas is keeping sales buoyant. “In the West, people will buy [new jewelry] once every 10 years, but Arabs will buy…something new every two to three years,” Yessayan said.

There has been a slight downturn, evident in a drop in regional advertising expenditure, but this has not prevented jewelers from expanding in the region. Yessayan, which saw 20 percent growth in 2009, plans to open a showroom in Saudi Arabia, while companies are working on developing their own brands and identity by increasingly moving into retail.

Rumors circulating within the industry suggest the sector is worth some $4.5 billion, equivalent to a staggering 16 percent of Lebanon’s GDP

Branching out

“There has been a big shift away from wholesale. You sell more and you get cash, you don’t wait for payments and it is better for the brand too,” said Yessayan. “We are heading into branding and creating an identity for ourselves, including a watch brand, Scala.”

Bejeweled watches are a growing segment for the sector, similar to how fashion and car brands started to bring out their own line of watches over the past decade. The jewelers team up with Swiss horologists to manufacture timepieces that are then imported to Lebanon to be turned into a watch.

“The Lebanese are starting to compete with international designers, and Lebanese jewelers have excellent design, execution and prices. The combination of the three is quite unique,” said Khoury.

Yessayan said the demand for such bejeweled watches predominantly comes from the Gulf, with prices reaching $100,000 for a diamond-encrusted offering. The Gulf will remain the sector’s primary export market for the foreseeable future, given the Gulf’s status as the fourth largest diamond market in the world.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Comment

Ungracious guests

by Nicholas Blanford
written by Nicholas Blanford

The Palestinian gunman, his face screwed up with rage, ran towards us, raising his AK-47 and yelled, “Get your hands up! Get your hands up!”

It was June 2007 and in the north of Lebanon, the Lebanese army and Fatah Al-Islam were in the early stages of a bloody battle at the Nahr Al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp — a confrontation that would last 106 days and leave 168 soldiers, over 200 militants and dozens of civilians dead.

The fighting in the north clearly had unnerved the Palestinian gunman. He was a guard at the entrance of a small military base at Ain Al-Bayda, near Kfar Zabad village in the Bekaa Valley, manned by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a Damascus-backed radical faction. The PFLP-GC runs five small bases in Lebanon: Ain Al-Bayda, Wadi Heshmesh just north of the Bekaa village of Qussaya, Jabal Al-Maaysara on a lofty mountain plateau east of Qussaya, Sultan Yaacoub in the western Bekaa, and another at Naameh, 15 kilometers south of Beirut.

The PFLP-GC and Fatah Intifada, another Syrian-supported Palestinian group that also operates small camps north of Rashaya in the western Bekaa, were on high alert during the fighting in Nahr Al-Bared.

My two colleagues and I were forced to sit on the ground, our hands on our heads, for five minutes until the arrival of the guard’s boss, incongruously dressed in a purple shell suit. Calm and polite, he told us: “We are guests in this country and we are here in these bases only to help liberate Palestine.”

That incident occurred more than a year after the National Dialogue, the round-table forum grouping Lebanon’s top leaders, had agreed to shut down the Palestinian bases and ban arms carried by Palestinian militants outside the 12 established refugee camps. Nearly four years after that decision was reached, it has yet to be implemented. The Palestinian bases still exist, surrounded by Lebanese troops who prevent civilians and journalists from accessing them.

The issue of the Palestinian bases may well become salient again in the coming months, given the easing of tensions between Lebanon and Syria since the formation of the new government in Beirut in November, and the visit to Damascus by Prime Minister Saad Hariri in December, 2009.

Although both countries have undertaken the historic step of exchanging formal diplomatic relations with the opening of embassies in Beirut and Damascus, the pace of rapprochement will depend greatly on how Syria reacts to Lebanese requests for assistance in some key — but solvable — areas. The first is the fate of the PFLP-GC and Fatah Intifada bases, the second is a decision to begin the long-neglected delineation and demarcation of the border between the two countries.

It is evident that following the Nahr Al-Bared experience, the army has no taste for forcibly dismantling the Palestinian bases, even though in military terms it would be a much simpler task to shut the isolated rural outposts than weeding out Fatah Al-Islam’s die-hards from the cramped interior of a Palestinian refugee camp.

Furthermore, the PFLP-GC, in particular, is an ally of Hezbollah — these days serving almost as the Lebanese party’s private militia force, which adds an awkward political component to closing the bases.

In January, Abu Musa, the leader of Fatah Intifada, declared that he rejected the disarming of Palestinians outside the refugee camps and that the fate of their weapons was a matter to be decided among Palestinians.

Abu Musa’s rare press conference appears to have been an effort to hinder attempts to close the bases before they had even begun. Importantly, however, Abu Musa would not have made such a bold declaration without the knowledge of his hosts in Damascus. Syria has said that because the bases lie on Lebanese soil, it has no jurisdiction to have them closed. In reality, if Syria instructed the PFLP-GC and Fatah Intifada to dismantle their outposts and return to the refugee camps in Damascus or Beirut, they would do so quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

Damascus bridles against international pressure and tends to dig in its heels when lectured by the West. Whether Syria will show goodwill over the Palestinian bases, remains to be seen. But if it does it would win international praise at almost no tactical cost to itself.

There are indications that the United States will soon develop a more nuanced approach toward Lebanon, beyond the repeated calls for the implementation of Resolution 1701. The new track will focus on the border between Lebanon and Israel, probably in terms of seeking to extend the current calm along the Blue Line. But there will be other indirectly related issues the Americans will likely pursue, such as encouraging Lebanon and Syria to begin mapping and formalizing their joint border and closing down the Palestinian military bases.

How Syria responds to such calls will provide early indicators as to how the Lebanon-Syria relationship will unfold in the months ahead.

Nicholas Blanford is the Beirut-based correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and The Times of London

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Editorial

The time for waiting is over

by Yasser Akkaoui
written by Yasser Akkaoui

Like the sands of Arabia, the movement of money has shifted, and those economies considered too slow (Saudi Arabia), too conservative (Abu Dhabi), too risky (Lebanon) or too small to be a player (Qatar) are now destinations for the region’s capital. Dubai, once the flagship of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s prosperity, is nursing a bruised ego and considering its options.

What’s the moral of the tale? That steady-Eddies are the best bet? That the tortoise eventually beats the hare? That Saudi Arabia was the perfect example of a state exercising leadership and intervention when crisis hit?

Well, it’s not quite as simple as that, and maybe the answers can still be found among the skyscrapers of Dubai, where businesses, or should we say the business community, is still struggling to adapt its strategies to the new reality. Essentially, human nature is risk averse and there is a reluctance in Dubai to seek out new markets, because businesses in Dubai are playing a risky waiting game, hoping to turn a corner that may not loom into view for a while.

It is a syndrome that the Lebanese know only too well. They sat around in the late 1970s convinced that the civil war would soon be over — in just a few months things would pick up again. Fifteen years later, they realized they were wrong and that for many of them, the best years of their lives had been wasted. The Dubai mindset must change. The private sector must seek its corporate sustenance in the fertile plains of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, all markets that rode out the financial storm.

But it is not all gloom and doom for the glamorous emirate. Its time will come again. The hard work has been done. Not only is Dubai ‘built’, it was built at a time when the price of construction commodities was lower than it is today and a time when the dollar was in ruder health. Today, anyone wanting to emulate Dubai’s undoubted magnificence, and they will for this is the nature of the beast, will have to pay triple the price.

The hard work has been done; the table is set; the private sector just needs to get hungry enough to go find some food. 

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Comment

Iraq’s electoral maelstrom

by Ranj Alaaldin
written by Ranj Alaaldin

Just two months shy of Iraq’s national elections in March, an apparent bombshell of a development hit the country. The country’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), as per the requests of the Accountability and Justice Commission, decided to ban more than 500 mainly Sunni electoral candidates from contesting the elections.

Iraq’s Sunni groups have organized and galvanized themselves in an impressive manner for the elections. There are at least three formidable groups that many expect to pose a serious challenge to post-2003 Iraq’s traditional powers: the Shiites and the Kurds. The Iraqi Accord Front, the Iraqi National Movement (INM) and the Unity Alliance of Iraq comprise serious and experienced politicians that, individually at least, have already proved their worth in Iraq’s previous elections.

Out of the three, it is the INM that has hit the headlines. One of the political parties within this coalition belongs to prominent Sunni Saleh al-Mutlaq, a former Baathist the IHEC has banned for glorifying and promoting the now outlawed Baath party. Banning such a well-regarded figure has the potential for disaster. It could lead to a mirroring of the 2005 Sunni boycott of the elections, with serious repercussions for the post-election environment and, as a result, complicate the United States’ plan to withdraw troops later this year.

Despite the headlines and the hype surrounding this debacle, it is not yet the “call to return to war” that some are making it out to be. The banned candidates were given the opportunity to appeal and 59 were reinstated. Ali al-Lami, the executive director of the Accountability and Justice Commission told Asharq Al-Awsat that the reinstatement of these candidates to the electoral list “was not a result of political or marginal agreements.” Rather, it was due to a mix-up over personal details such as names and dates of birth.

More important still is the reaction from Iraq’s other major groups, which have been relatively quiet; given that prominent figures such as Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his fellow INM member, the current Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, are still expected to take part in the elections, Sunni resentment in Iraq is unlikely to be anywhere as high as it was in 2005.

Analysts have been overwhelmingly critical of the IHEC decision, calling it a disaster for Iraq and a marginalization of the Sunnis. Some have derided the fact that just as former Baathists were being brought into the democratic system they are being pushed out again, just when they, and their “Sunni” Iraqi nationalist ideology, might pose a serious political threat.

Most former Baathists have recognized the futility of violence and are largely engaging in the democratic process. However, as the famous saying goes, do not confuse kindness with weakness. There is a feeling among Iraqis that as the so-called Baathists, or former regime loyalists, are welcomed back into the political arena, once they take up their positions of power and become comfortable (and confident), then they will start to show their true colors.

Take the example of parliamentarian Zafir al-Ani who recently, in defiance of the constitution, has openly praised Saddam Hussein and his former regime and has understated its crimes. This might be no more than attention-seeking antics, but it does stoke tensions.

Even more worrying for the vast majority of Iraqis were comments made in early January by British ambassador to Iraq, John Jenkins, who told the British Iraq Inquiry that a military coup in Iraq was a real possibility. Following this, Jenkins was vehemently criticized for making a remark that, essentially, played into the hands of those still yet-to-be reconciled Baathists.

According to on-the-ground Iraqis, the response from the Sunni tribes, who would be pivotal for any successful military takeover, was that they would be ready to overthrow the government if the British were willing to support it. The reason the British might want this, they said, would be that Iran wields too strong an influence in Iraq for the West to be able to match it through other means.

Just days after Jenkins’ remark, fears of a military coup abounded as Baghdad underwent a major security lockdown. According to Arab media reports, the lockdown was enforced in response to an attempt to overthrow Iraq’s Shiite-led government. The Iraqi government was quick to allay such concerns — reassuring that they had in fact foiled an attempted mass-terrorist attack — but the reality is that Iraq is still very much a victim of its past.

RANJ ALAALDIN is a scholar on Iraq and is published regularly in The Guardian

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Comment

Obama‘s self-defeatism

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

 

In his 2004 book “Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire,” the British historian Niall Ferguson offered an interesting premise for what might ultimately bring about the decline of the United States. 

Rather than being prompted by external phenomena, Ferguson wrote, decline might come from domestic financial dynamics, not least a ballooning fiscal crisis resulting from the American tendency to consume much and save little. The US, he warned, faced an impending social security crisis because Americans were living longer and the fiscal system was inadequate to pay for future generations. The self-defeating ways to deal with this reality, he continued, were to engage in massive increases in income and payroll taxes, to slash social security benefits by equally dramatic amounts, or to cut discretionary spending to zero.

Whether the massive debt incurred by the US government to absorb the repercussions of the financial shock of 2008 will accelerate this process is open to debate. But there is no doubt that the Obama administration has embraced a self-consciously skeptical worldview, with a willingness to openly admit to American limitations, financial and political. But, it’s not clear that honesty is the best policy in this case.

Take Obama’s speech last December, announcing his new Afghanistan strategy. What was to be a statement of American resolve was, in several passages, undermined. Instead of describing an America united in strength, Obama stated that “[in] the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our neighbors and friends are out of work and struggle to pay the bills. Too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”

On Afghanistan specifically, Obama stressed that Washington would not bankroll a nation-building project, because such a scheme “sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost.” How odd it was, then, that the American project as defined by Obama could only truly succeed if the administration actually does engage in nation building. In other words, the US is dangerously close to wanting to have its cake and eat it too in this period of acknowledged financial realism.

Most empires generally survive on two things: money and what we can call an ethos of domination: a sense of international entitlement and mission. In the case of the US, both have taken a beating in recent years, though American decline remains a relative concept. However, Obama, more than George W. Bush, has taken a bite out of America’s imperial ethos. From the start, as a presidential candidate, Obama highlighted American constraints, mainly to defend his idea of the country needing to seek cooperation rather than confrontation in the world. That was, perhaps, valiant, but the prospect of a weak America has great costs.

That’s because imperial powers can be instruments of stability, essential regulators of the global order. As Ferguson noted, the British Empire played an essential liberalizing role in the world economy, by being “an engine for the integration of international capital markets.” In the years “between 1865 and 1914 more than $4 billion flowed from Britain to the rest of the world, giving the country a historically unprecedented and since unequaled position as global net creditor, the ‘world’s banker’…or, to be exact, the world’s bond market.”

For the writer and academic Fouad Ajami, however, it is less the material than the psychological that preoccupies him when examining America’s, and Obama’s, newfound despondency. In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Ajami lamented what he called “the truth about the Obama presidency,” which he defined as “retrenchment abroad, and redistribution and the intrusive regulatory state at home.” Ajami expressed his anxiety with the administration’s essential isolationism, obscured by the “patina of cosmopolitanism” in the president.

“We’re weary, the disillusioned liberalism maintains, and we’re broke, and there are those millions of Americans aching for health care and an economic lifeline. We can’t care for both Ohio and Anbar, Peoria and Peshawar. It is either those embattled people in Iran or a rescue package for Chrysler,” Ajami wrote with barely concealed bitterness.

The desirable interplay between economic restrictions and political power is one the Obama administration has yet to properly define. In many respects power is as much about illusion as reality, even if the reality of US power still remains more compelling than the illusion. For the US to revel in its difficulties can also mean international instability. One needn’t like American power to realize that what America loses, the global political and financial system will lose too.

Michael Young

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Society

Style over substance

by Mona Alami
written by Mona Alami

 

Network companies around the globe have been reporting delays and difficulties in data transmission, due to the exponential growth of number of smartphone users. Lebanon is no stranger to the trend, in a country where outdated telecom networks have become a cause célèbre and BlackBerry users, trendsetters.

Last December, British mobile phone operator O2 apologized for service trouble as some customers were periodically unable to make and receive calls or transmit data because of pressure on the network from smartphones.

In Lebanon Ayoub Merhi, manager of the BlackBerry store in downtown Beirut, acknowledged that when BlackBerry was introduced in 2009, users had initially faced similar network problems. These problems could be partially blamed on increased use of applications by customers with smartphones, which repeatedly pull data off the Internet at short intervals.

“Network services have certainly improved since last year, as mobile phone [companies] beefed up the network by adding additional stations around Lebanon,” he said.

“MTC currently provides about 10,000 lines to BlackBerry users,” he added. “Alfa joined the market at a later stage — it had to first update its network grid to obtain the right to service BlackBerry users which, today for Alfa, amount to about 3,000 clients,” said Merhi.

However, some 2,000 to 3,000 users with prepaid cards do not have access to online applications or email services.

Imad Tarabay, chief executive officer of Mobile Broadband Wireless Internet (MOBI), said Lebanese mobile operators’ service problems were mostly the result of a deficient international network route, which has yet to be updated to accommodate the growing number of BlackBerry and other smartphone users.

“Another problem worth mentioning resides in the fact that many of the hundreds of applications available on the BlackBerry website are blocked from Lebanon for unknown reasons,” he added.

With some 30,000 Blackberry users expected in Lebanon by the end of next year (according to the BlackBerry store), telecom companies should try to learn more about smartphone applications and what their increasing popularity might entail in the long run, to try to alleviate pressure from phone networks.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Society

The ABC of corporate crisis management

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

 

May you live in interesting times.” More than ever before, this Chinese curse painfully rings true for companies treading today’s dangerous world, prone to corporate crises and scandals on a daily basis.

With the recent global economic downturn, companies worldwide have been undertaking significant cost-cutting to stay on their feet. But cutting costs means cutting corners and slacking off on quality. Last year’s melamine scandal that surfaced in China and shook the world showed us exactly what can happen when some companies are financially squeezed, when in an attempt to cut costs, dairy farmers and distributors ended up poisoning and even killing people, including infants.

The financial crisis has also contributed to a more hostile and cynical environment, with rampant mistrust that has the public ready to pounce and punish companies in the event of the slightest mishap. This is compounded by an increasingly connected public, making it much easier for scandals to break and spread, and where one frustrated customer on Twitter can cost a company millions of dollars.

In such merciless times a company mishandling its response to a crisis can mean its demise, the fittest are the ones that successfully deploy the right crisis management and communication strategy. This means following the ABCs of crisis communication, which can get a company through any ordeal with its reputation intact.

Act swiftly

Whenever there is a hint of a corporate scandal, the general inclination is to follow a “wait and see” approach, allowing the issue to unravel before deciding on the measures to be taken. Although this might seem like the reasonable thing to do, when many facts have yet to unfold and reactions have yet to emerge, a company that decides to test the waters to see how the public will react and then make a move will unmistakably be throwing itself into a blaze and is unlikely to emerge unharmed. Moving quickly is essential to mitigating the crisis, as stakeholders need to be reassured that the organization is committed to immediately investigating the issue at hand and ultimately taking the proper actions.

Johnson & Johnson’s handling of the poisonous Tylenol crisis is always used as a best practice example when it comes to acting swiftly; the company not only launched its investigations but immediately, and in parallel, sent out an instant alert about the dangers of the Tylenol product on the market at the time and recalled around 31 million bottles with a retail value of more than $100 million. Johnson & Johnson sent out a clear message that it puts customer safety first, before worrying about profit or reputation, by promptly responding to the crisis and assuming responsibility of the tampering of Tylenol although it was not directly responsible for the poisoning, and then proceeding with the complete investigation.

However, moving swiftly should certainly not imply acting brashly or responding before having reached a clear understanding of the issue, as Perrier learned the hard way. When traces of benzene were found in Source Perrier’s bottled water, the company issued a rushed explanation, which later turned out to be incorrect. This only served to undermine the company’s credibility and reputation.

Be transparent

There is no denying that transparency has become an essential value in the corporate world, with stakeholders considering it a fundamental right that companies provide them with all the information that might be of interest to them. Today, more than ever, the public holds companies accountable for their level of transparency and crises are no exception to the rule.

It is therefore imperative that, whenever a crisis emerges, the company openly acknowledges the problem, if in fact there is one, and accordingly assumes responsibility, regardless of the costs it may incur.

There have been many examples across history of companies withholding the real facts, trying to cover up the truth or spinning it in the hopes of escaping unscathed, and in almost every single case, this strategy backfired and ended up in severe and irreparable damage to their brand image, stock value and sales.

A recent example was when Coca-Cola launched Dasani water in Europe as a “pure, still” water. Soon after, the media broke the story that it was not natural spring or mineral water but purified water being sold for 3,000 times its price. Samples of the water were also found to contain a cancer-causing chemical, causing Coca-Cola to recall the product. Throughout the crisis, Coca-Cola responded to the accusations by using half-truths, issuing defensive statements denying the public concerns, and repeating its marketing messages. By spinning the truth, Coca-Cola only dragged out the crisis, made stakeholders even more wary of the company and left everyone wondering what the truth was about Dasani.

Choose the right spokesperson, message and channel

The time of a “one size fits all” approach has come and gone. This cannot be truer when it comes to crisis management. The nature of the issue, its extent and scale, who it has affected and its future repercussions, are only some elements that should imperatively determine the person who should be assigned to handle the crisis publicly. Whereas the company’s head of public relations can successfully ward off damage in a certain crisis, only the chief executive officer should address the issue in another, as the choice of spokesperson can speak volumes as to the seriousness and importance that the company is giving to the concerns of its stakeholders. In some cases, only the more knowledgeable person in the specifics of the issue should provide a direct and detailed response to the crisis.

A clear example was when the CEO of JetBlue Airways took it upon himself to address disappointed and upset customers and apologize to them, after a severe ice storm brought operations to a standstill and subjected passengers to major inconveniences. He also created a blog on the airline’s website where he personally addressed customers’ questions and interacted with them.

 

When it comes to communicating the right message, none can be more effective than a message of stalwart commitment to stakeholders and of placing their well-being and interests ahead of all other considerations. This implies adopting the right tone of sincere regret, apology and dismay in the case of harm that is caused by the company in one way or another. It also entails explaining the corrective measures to be put in place and, when warranted, the punitive actions that will be taken to hold those responsible to account.

Continuing with the JetBlue example, when their terminals buzzed with hundreds of disgruntled passengers and the airline was facing a maelstrom of criticism, the CEO adopted a suitable apologetic tone whereby he expressed the company’s true remorse for disrupting passengers’ schedules. He also explained how JetBlue was going to rectify the situation and emphasized that corrective measures were going to be taken in order to avoid such problems in the future, among which was the “JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights,” the company’s commitment to its customers as to how it will handle uncontrolled operational interruptions in the future, including details of compensation.

What sets a company apart today is not whether it monitors the web and social media platforms for burgeoning crises, but whether it also successfully leverages these channels to reach, inform and reassure its stakeholders. In January 2009, the Peanut Corporation of America announced a recall of peanut butter products due to salmonella contamination.

During this crisis, a comprehensive social media campaign was rolled out, using new media channels like blogs, eCards, text messaging, podcasts, online videos, social networking sites, widgets, micro-blogs and virtual worlds such as Second Life. The crisis communication fittingly leveraged these new channels, which reached and informed consumers, successfully mitigating the crisis and eventually saving many lives.

A savvy company in today’s world is the one that not only wards off damage to its brand and reputation in the wake of a crisis but also turns it into an opportunity to strengthen bonds with stakeholders by showing deep concern and unfailing commitment to their well-being. Successfully handling a crisis takes a disciplined implementation of the basic ABC principles of crisis communication, a formula that can break the curse of our tumultuous times and turn them into fruitful ones.

Dima Itani, Zeina Loutfi & Ramsay G. Najjar S2C

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Society

Modernizing the marque

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

BMW Group’s unveiling of the Ghost, its newest addition to the Rolls Royce line-up, at the Frankfurt Motor Show last September sent a small shockwave through the blogs and forums of the automotive world. Critics responded to the new model, which is smaller and significantly cheaper than its predecessors, with a mixture of surprise, praise and confusion.

As top dog in the high-end luxury auto market, Rolls Royce’s decision to “tone down” its new model, ostensibly to produce a more affordable, driver-focused experience, seems a deviation from the company’s long-standing policy of marketing only to the best-heeled buyers. Since its earliest days, Rolls Royce has cultivated a reputation as a kingmaker — today, just owning a Rolls separates suzerains from ordinary human beings. After more than a century of production, the company has built up a reputation that goes beyond the physical properties, considerable as they may be, of the cars themselves. Now the world is wondering: could an expanded consumer base put that reputation in jeopardy?

Certainly, expanding production seems to be a major feature of BMW’s plans for the brand. When the German automaker salvaged the company in 1998 it took concerted steps to keep the personality of the brand quintessentially Rolls — in terms of know-how, feel and luxury — as well as retaining the original factory in Goodwood, England. At the same time, BMW began a gradual escalation in production levels. In 2007, Phantom sales broke the four-digit mark for the first time in the brand’s history. Today, current projections for 2010 more than double that figure, with production of 2,000 to 2,500 Ghosts anticipated.

Speed demon

Yet the Ghost is by no means a streetcar. Carrying a price tag of between $200,000 and $300,000, the car is likely to satisfy buyers that the Rolls Royce marque, in terms of quality and luxury, is as alive as ever in this newest model. The body alone shows the effort its designers made to incorporate the brand’s most fundamental design cues: the upward sweeping sill line, elevated prow and long bonnet all impress upon the viewer that this car, in every essence, is a Rolls.

At the same time, there is an air of informality — if such a thing can be said about a Rolls Royce — and dynamism present in the Ghost that clearly sets it apart from other cars in the Phantom line or before it. Chrome tailpipes, the car’s smaller size and flowing, powerful lines hint at a shift toward speed and power.

 

Indeed, the Ghost is the most powerful car made by Rolls Royce to date, due in part to its smaller size, but also to a number of mechanical modifications. The new 6.6-liter V12 engine used in the Ghost supplies 563 British horsepower — enough to propel the car from zero to 96 kilometers per hour in just 4.7 seconds. That’s not quite a supercar, but it’s getting close in terms of performance.

Breaking new ground

At the same time, the Ghost’s interior boasts all the trappings of luxury. Elegant frosted lamps, reclining lounge seating and deep-pile carpets affirm the car’s true nature. Two LCD screens, analogue watches and meters, as well as the signature flying lady icon add to the image. There is little doubt that, powerful as the Ghost may be, it is still a luxury vehicle, and still a Rolls Royce.

The real question is: can the brand foray into new territory without corrupting its core values? At the moment, the general consensus seems to be yes. The Ghost maintains an elevated standard of luxury while breaking new ground in speed and drivability. One might speculate that, spurred by a drop in sales during the global recession, the car has taken Rolls Royce to a new breed of auto enthusiasts — younger, with plenty of money to spare and an eye for both luxury and performance — without selling the brand short of the expectations of its traditional customer base.

Where does the company go from here? Is the Ghost the lowest threshold, or will BMW continue to pare down the Rolls into an ever-fainter specter of its former glory?

A policy like this would prove fatal in the long run for the same reasons it might prove lucrative in the short run. It’s the name that sells the Rolls Royce, a name built up through decades of top performance. But the drivers play a role as well — every king, president, celebrity or sheikh that adds their name to the list of Rolls’ customers adds something to the brand as well. To spread that brand around, to make it more accessible to the public, puts its star power at risk — and without star power, what is a Rolls but a really, really high-end car?

Nadim Mehanna is an automotive engineer and has been a pioneer of motoring on Middle Eastern television since 1992

 

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Economics & Policy

Fiscal deficit at $2.6 billion

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

 

Lebanon’s Ministry of Finance has stated that the fiscal deficit widened to $2.6 billion in the first 11 months of 2009 — 25.1 percent of the 2009 budget. Standard Chartered Bank forecasts that the total budget deficit for this year will reach 9.5 percent of the economy, the highest in the Middle East and North Africa and the second highest in emerging markets. The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts the deficit to constitute 10.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2010. Government expenditure came in at $10.3 billion, a 15.5 percent year-on-year increase in the first 11 months of 2009. Debt servicing — the payment of interest on the public debt — also increased to $3.4 billion, making up a third of total expenditures. Revenues over the first 11 months of 2009 also rose to $7.7 billion (21.9 percent), mostly from taxes, which accounted for a total of $5.5 billion. A further $1.68 billion came from customs revenues over the same period, constituting a year-on-year rise of 72.9 percent. Some 87 percent of total customs receipts were processed through the Port of Beirut.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Economics & Policy

New year, few IPOs

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

The start of 2010 sparked discussions on better primary market conditions in the Middle East when compared with the preceding 18 months, but hard evidence for a good year in initial public offerings has yet to emerge.

The Saudi Stock Exchange (SSE) regulators had approved three IPOs back in December, of which one, by restaurant operator Herfy, took place in January. The other two, for industrial manufacturing group Al Sorayai and for travel company Al Tayyar, have been scheduled for February 1 to February 7, and February 22 to February 28, respectively.

Subscription to the $110 million Herfy IPO for 30 percent in the company closed on January 17. Details on the share allocation and distribution rate were not available at the time of going to press. The issue price of $13.60 per share included a premium of $10.93. 

The second IPO in the region was set off on January 17 by real estate developer Mazaya Qatar. With $137 million in value, the issue by an affiliate company of Kuwait’s Mazaya has faced skepticism from analysts.

Herfy’s major shareholders are Savola, the massive food conglomerate, and the Al Tayyar Travel Group, started 30 years ago as a family business. Little other information is available about either, as the companies have made scarce news in the international or regional press.

Moods in world markets were mellow with regards to IPOs at the start of 2010. Asian markets were reported as most optimistic on account of buoyant economic growth forecasts, but in the United States the year’s first public offerings had a rough time and issuers in January either reduced their price expectations, as in the case of insurance firm Symetra Financial, or cut the size of the offering.

 

Although the fourth quarter had been positive for secondary markets in the Middle East, and emerging equity markets rallied in the past three quarters, 2009 provided such slim pickings in primary markets that it seemed almost inevitable to expect more from 2010.

In 2009, even the comparatively low value of $2.1 billion in aggregate Middle Eastern IPOs — excluding issues that had been offered for subscription in 2008 but started trading in 2009 — masked the fact that more than 75 percent of this value was delivered in only two of 15 IPOs: Vodafone Qatar and National Petrochemical Company in Saudi Arabia.

Some of the 11 IPOs that were completed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (SSE) in 2009 were so small in size that one had to hunt for them with a magnifying glass. This was reflected in the fact that demand for SSE primary market issues fell back to an average of 1.16 million subscribers per IPO.

The forecasts that every investor would like to have — what will the markets be like in 2010 — have been circulating in January in the vast agora of advice and opinions, but there is no sign and no reason to expect that this year’s predictions will be different in their reliability from those made in 2008 or 2009.

Among the more amusing expectations, one Gulf-based newspaper had apparently given its editors the New Year’s holiday off and came up with a late December tale that “as many as 45 Saudi-listed (sic) companies have plans to launch initial public offerings” in early 2010.

The count of companies that have at some point voiced ambitions for flotation on one of the bourses in 2010 is easily above 150.

How many of these rumored offerings will be delayed further, channeled into different equity raising deals or simply evaporate is anyone’s guess, but might not even be the main question. It still seems to be a too widely held assumption that a large number of public offerings are automatically good news for the market.

One might note, though, that post-IPO track records of primary market activity in the past few years showed some highly hyped companies falling severely short in performance and governance compliance, such as the case of jewelry company Damas, which apparently incurred a very costly mishap to investors due to not applying basic practices of corporate governance.

To return to hard numbers, the post-IPO performance data in the Middle East showed two clusters of companies coming out on top.  Last year’s debutants in Saudi insurance showed share price gains since flotation at an average 335 percent and six companies listed on the new Damascus Stock Exchange (DSE) achieved climbs of 138 percent, on average. The DSE, which will celebrate its first anniversary in March, could still radiate some of the charm of a sleeping beauty awakened when further companies will list there in the coming months.  

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail