Levant

Opening up

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

With private finance still in its infancy in Syria, private equity has yet to get up and running, but the foundations are being laid for a sector that could be as hot as elsewhere in the region.

Spearheading the direction private equity could take in Syria are holding companies, which were introduced to the market over a decade ago by the likes of former Lebanese prime minister and businessman Rafik Hariri.

But it has only been in the past few years that holding companies have started coming into their own, spurred on by the economic reforms implemented since the death of Hafez al-Assad.

The de-regulation of the finance and banking sectors has been the most crucial change, creating a more competitive financial environment as well as prompting businesses to pull up their socks and adapt to the new climate.

“Holding Companies are a new concept entering the terminology here,” said Dr. Nabil Sukkar, managing director of the Syrian Consulting Bureau for Development and Investment. “Businessmen are thinking of setting up holdings, but don’t know the benefits and what it’s all about.”

New Company Law

Indeed, holding companies were not mentioned in Syrian law until 2000, in Law No. 7, which allowed for special tax treatment, and the recently enacted New Company Law has a section on holding companies.

Two Syrian holding companies are at the forefront of this fledgling sector. Souria Holding was established by 24 investors in early 2007, with a capital of $80 million, and is behind the entry of international supermarket chain Spinneys into Syria.

The biggest venture, Cham Holding, was established with a starting capital of $360 million by 70 Syrian investors, with business moguls Nabil Kuzbari the president and Rami Makhlouf the vice-president. (How last month’s decision by the US Treasury Department to freeze Makhlouf’s assets in US financial institutions, as well as prohibiting US citizens and firms from engaging in any business contacts will impact on Cham Holding remains to be seen.)

With the management largely consisting of repatriated Syrians who have had professional experience in the Gulf and the West, the company’s mantra is to “lead the private sector into the new era,” said Bahaa Issa, British-Syrian head of communications.

Part of this involves — as always — the creation of a brand identity to put Syria back on the international business map.

“Our vision is to be at the head of the train of the new economy, and we want to position ourselves as the opportune delivery system for the Syrian economy,” said Issa.

Cham Holding is focusing on six industries, including: BENA, for hospitality and property development; the Cham Capital Group, for finance and banking, capital finance and insurance; SANA for energy and power generation; health and education; and a new private airline Cham was recently granted a license to operate, Pearl Airlines.

According to Issa, Cham Holding plans to “create 50,000 jobs in the next five years, which would indirectly create 600,000 job opportunities.”

Since its launch in 2006, Cham has entered into a raft of strategic partnerships and joint-ventures. In December, it inked a $5 million partnership with British-US company Gulfsands Petroleum, which works in the US, Syria and Iraq. Cham has a 65% controlling stake, with the aim of acquiring high-value energy projects in Syria, and possibly Iraq.

In addition, Cham has entered into a joint-venture with three Kuwaiti firms to tender for large utilities and other infrastructure contracts in Syria, and is reportedly in discussions with Siemens to establish a ‘clean-coal’ power station. Encompassing projects valued at over $1 billion, Cham is also behind the Hejaz Railway station shopping mall, which has yet to get off the ground despite the foundations being dug more than two years ago, reportedly due to resistance from heritage groups.

More than greenbacks

Cham is bringing more than greenbacks to Syria, acting as consultants to the government and striving to introduce corporate governance and regulatory compliance through its own example.

“Compared to Dubai the challenges are tremendous,” said Mohanad Moussly, chief Risk and Compliance Officer. “Here the government is working with the mindset that the public sector is the best provider of services to the public, and to go into critical areas of industry. This mindset is changing, but public sector employees are hesitant about change.”

Holding companies as well as private foreign banks in Syria are hopeful that the upcoming Damascus Stock Market — which was slated to open in the first quarter but looks more likely to start later in the year or early 2009 — will spur on greater de-regulation and attract further capital to Syria. That will also include the entry of private equity firms.

Currently, there are few firms capitalizing on the opening of Syria’s economy. The UAE’s SHUAA Partners, a private equity arm of SHUAA Capital, has however invested $100 million in Syria, to enter the mobile telecom sector.

“We want to invest more in Syria. We have $100 million to deploy in equity and more than just equity when you factor in leverage. We want to go into three markets in Syria:  telecoms, financial services, and real estate/hospitality,” said Jamil Brair, SHUAA Partner’s senior vice president.

For the time being, Syria has further to go before there is a more profound entry of venture capitalists, private equity firms and the like, but holding companies are giving an idea of the direction a more capitalist Syria will resemble.

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Levant

Aviation taking off

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Fitting in to what appears to be the private sector’s modus operandi when investing in Syria in the wake of economic reform, private airlines are only this year taking to the skies, three years after the law had been amended. In 2005, Damascus allowed private investment in air transport for the first time in 60 years, during which the national carrier, Syrian Arab Airlines (SAA), enjoyed a monopoly.

But it has only been in the past six months that the private sector has started to capitalize on the liberalization of the market, with Damascus granting licenses to three private Syrian airlines, of which Sham Wings is the first to get underway with a charter flight to Sharm el-Sheikh in early February of this year.

This seemingly cautious approach to investing in Syria reflects the banking sector’s trajectory into the market, only setting up shop years after private banks were formally allowed into this formerly socialist economy. But the recent flurry of activity in aviation is indicative of the changes the economic reforms in Syria have brought about, with the time lag between the liberalization of the sector on paper and actual developments on the ground creating the conditions for a more viable aviation industry.

Rising tourism numbers

“The main reason for us to set up was the rise in tourists and Iraqis in Syria,” said Salim al-Sawda, technical director of Sham Wings Airlines, which was established by Iraqi and Syrian private investors.

In the past three years, investment in the tourism sector has surged from $400 million in 2004 to $2 billion in 2006, while the number of tourists visiting Syria has spiked from 2.5 million in 2005 to 3.1 million in 2006, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. And if Iraqis and Lebanese were to be included in the figures, the number of visitors would stand at 4.4 million in 2006, versus 3.4 million in 2005, a rise of 29%.

Indeed, with an estimated 1.4 million Iraqi refugees in Syria there is a ready market for air links between Damascus and Baghdad, which until February had been dominated by Iraqi Airways (IA). Now Sham Wings offers flights, directly competing with IA at $567 return (due to high insurance costs at the Iraqi end).

Sham Wings, the country’s first charter airline, has started with one aircraft, a 147-seater McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased on an ACME basis from an Egyptian company, that way getting around the US ban on the Syrian aviation sector.

The airline plans to buy aircraft “one by one,” said Sawda, and is currently in discussions to by a European-made Folker-100 jet. “We have already increased our timetable, not only to Iraq, but also Sharm el-Sheikh and Alexandria, and we will open a new line to Istanbul, as well as to Ukraine and Belarus. Our destinations will be ones not covered by Syrian Airways.”

The airline, which plans to be profitable within the next two years, is to be joined this year by Syrian al-Nisr Airlines (The Eagle), established by Syrian private investors Al-Harith al-Assad and Mayyar Arnous, and by Pearl Airlines, which is backed by Syria’s Cham Holding. Both airlines have been granted international licenses but have made no statements on intended destinations.

Other licenses are also pending, for cargo, charter and non-charter airlines, said Flight Commander General Hazim al-Khadra, director general of the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority.

“The policy of Syria now is to open the market in the field of aviation. But there is no Open Skies Agreement, only to Bassil al-Assad Airport in Lattakia, as we cannot do it at Damascus International Airport (DIA) since we must have more than one national carrier that can compete with other airlines, let alone the capacity of the airport itself,” he said.

Airport expansion

With the number of tourists visiting Syria increasing by 20% in the past year, and foreign investment flooding in, the country’s airports are witnessing a turnaround, with a 10.5% increase in passengers to 3.485 million last year.

According to al-Khadra, “This is a result of the action plan drawn by our leader, Bashar al-Assad, towards the development and rehabilitation of modernizing Syria.”

As part of the country’s second five-year plan for the 2006-2010 period, some $3.75 billion is forecast for infrastructure developments in the transport sector. Much of this is earmarked for port and road development, but aviation is also getting a much needed boost.

In January, Malaysia’s Mahibbah Engineering won a $59 million construction contract at the DIA to rehabilitate and upgrade the passenger terminal building, roads, car parks and parking apron.

This is just the start of major projects to expand the ageing airport, said al-Khadra, with plans on the drawing board to increase DIA’s current capacity from 1.5 million to 3.5 million passengers a year. “With the next fifth action plan there will be another terminal, catering to 7-8 million passengers, maybe in the next five years.”

The number of international airports is also to be increased, from the current five — Damascus, Lattakia, Aleppo, Deir al-Zor and Qamishle — to eight, with Homs, Tadmur (Palmyra) and Al-Raqqa to get airports of their own.

Al-Khadra said bids and tenders to build and upgrade facilities would be open to international bidders, and there was potential for ground services at the airports to be privatized, pointing out that “This all depends on the development of the economic situation in Syria. Nowadays, Syria values investment from everywhere.”

The number of airlines operating out of Syria could also increase from the current 40 that fly out of Damascus, but that is all “related to the political situation in the region,” according to him. “For instance, European and American airlines are not allowed to operate out of Syria. This is a consequence of the US ban against Syria.”

The US ban on Syrian aviation is one of the biggest hurdles the sector faces, not only in terms of increasing flight destinations and enticing operators, but in particular for the national carrier. Under the 2003 Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSA), Washington placed a ban on all US exports to Syria, a ban on US investment in the country, and a ban on Syrian flights to the US, among other regulations. Under such sanctions Syrian Airlines is unable to upgrade its ageing fleet of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, last added to over a decade ago when in 1996 the US granted a special waiver to the airline to purchase used Boeing aircraft from Kuwait and two Airbus A320s in 1998.

“It is a big problem because US aviation interferes with the aviation industry, the spare parts for commercial airlines in particular, which maintain the safety of passengers. And these passengers aren’t only Syrians, but also Europeans, Americans, Asians and so on,” said al-Khadra. “Even Airbus is included in this ban as they cannot sell Syria any Airbus aircraft or spare parts because the Americans are between 10-15% shareholders in these companies.”

The other option for SAA is to buy Russian aircraft, but he said they lacked the American-made Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS), which is essential for air safety and a requirement for commercial aircraft by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Diversifying Syria’s air sector may therefore be the only way to get around the crippling US bans, for unless SAA gets spare parts, the airline could be permanently grounded — if planes don’t actually fall from the sky — as private Syrian airlines take to the skies.

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Egypt’s foreigners

by Norbert Schiller
written by Norbert Schiller

For foreigners and the Egyptian aristocracy, the 1952 July Revolution marked the beginning of the end of their rule. Gone were the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the influence of the British, Italians, Greeks, French, Levantines, and Turks. Now there was a disgruntled military in charge and it was led by a young and charismatic officer named Gamal Abdel Nasser. His first order of business was to change the nature and make-up of the government, most notably changing the country from a monarchy to a republic. As a way of minimizing foreign opposition, he assured those concerned that their interests would not be touched. After purging the government, he turned to land reforms breaking apart feudal farms and distributing the land among landless peasants. Then, after successfully nationalizing the Suez Canal in 1956, his government turned to the industrial, financial and commercial sectors, forcing the vast majority of foreigners, who had believed that their interests were safe, to leave the country, many penniless. With the old-guard out of the way and the foreign influence gone, Nasser finally turned to the Eastern block for military assistance and backing.

Even though Nasser’s socialist reforms have been in place for the better part of the past 50 years, present-day Egypt is more like it was under the King, though not as chaotic and elitist; a trickle-down effect has in fact created a thriving Egyptian middle class. But the economic power stills lies with the Egyptian elite, albeit a different circle, and once again foreigners are allowed to settle, own businesses, buy property, and build a future. In fact, this past year Egypt was named by the International Financial Corporation, the World Bank’s financial arm, as the world’s top reformer. It achieved this by cutting the minimum time required to start a business, lowering fees for registering property, and relaxing bureaucracy for construction permits. Last year, Egypt also emerged as the number one recipient of direct foreign investment in Africa beating South Africa.

On a recent trip to Egypt, I visited the Red Sea resort town of El Gouna, one of the most exclusive resorts in the country. While admiring the Abu Tig Marina with all its multi-million dollar yachts, I ran into an elderly gentleman who was asking for directions to a particular shop. There was nothing unusual about his request except that the man, who was obviously European, addressed me in Arabic. At first I thought that he was short sighted, because I, too, look very European, and to avoid embarrassing him I responded in Arabic. He responded with a big smile, thanked me, and walked off in the direction where I had pointed.

I didn’t think much of the encounter until a few days later when I was invited to dinner by a friend who wanted to introduce me to a few Europeans who have made El Gouna their home. The group was small and included the Italian women who owned the restaurant where we were eating, two Italian sisters, an Italian man who was the manager of the local casino, and my Lebanese friend who runs the winery in El Gouna. The conversation started out in Italian, but because neither my friend nor I could follow, the group began to split with some switching to English and the others French except for the elder of the two sisters who continued on in Italian. When she finally realized that I didn’t understand a word she said she switched to Arabic which came naturally to her. I asked her if she spoke English or French and she said, “not very well.” I then told her the story about the elderly European man who also spoke to me in Arabic. She asked about where I had seen him and if he was wearing locally made sandals. I said: “Yes, he was wearing shibshibs and I met him in the Marina.” She started laughing so hard that everyone turned around to see what was going on.

Her younger sister then jumped in and in English explained to everyone that the elderly gentleman was none other than their father who had been born and raised in Egypt to Italian parents. After finishing his studies he started his own successful textile business in Cairo. “Everything was going well for him until 1961 when Nasser began nationalizing all foreign owned businesses. My father thought that he was immune and continued on with his business as if nothing was happening until one day, in 1964, our family business was nationalized and we were forced to leave the country.” With nowhere else to go, and very little money, the family moved to Italy. The eldest daughter had also been born and raised in Egypt learning both Arabic and Italian at the Italian school. The younger sister was born after they had already left Egypt. “Italy was always my home but my sister and especially my father were really never able to assimilate back in our ancestral country and my father always wished to one day return to Egypt.”

A few years ago the elder sister visited the Red Sea and was so charmed by El Gouna that she bought a home there. The younger sister followed, also fell in love with the place, and bought a home there also. Suddenly the father, whose wife had passed away, became very lonely without his daughters and insisted that they bring him back to Egypt. Thus, when he was already well into his 90s, his daughters brought him back to Egypt and bought him a small apartment. “My father never felt at home in Italy, he always wanted to come back to Egypt even if it is just to die.”

With foreign investment at an all time high, maybe this nonagenarian may be able to pick up where he left off and start another business in the land of his birth.

Norbert Schiller is a Dubai-based photo-journalist and writer.

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Editorial

Fighting words

by Yasser Akkaoui
written by Yasser Akkaoui

This month’s Private Equity report represents not only a first for Executive in terms of size, content and execution, but I believe it has propelled the way regional business is reported to a new level. In essence, Executive has set a new benchmark.

We want the regional businessman — the chairman, the CEO, the fund manager, and the business owner — to see Executive as his magazine — the name after all is not a coincidence. We want Executive to be a magazine that monitors his/her business environment; that engages him/her on a personal level; that offers an open forum for discussion and encourages transparency in an increasingly transparent world. We will not so much judge as moderate.

The nature of communication has changed and so must the way we communicate. The media might remain the same but the methods of disseminating new data and telling the new business story must embrace the new dynamism that stretches from New York to Beijing via the increasingly important Middle Eastern gateway.

In this new and exciting era, awareness is high and business is changing, especially in the Gulf, where change is effected at a phenomenal rate. Yet the region is small and intimate and one of the deliberate aims of this and future special reports is to reflect this intimacy. To bring together the key players and accurately report how they perceive doing business in their own words; the new front line dispatches if you like. We want to be the magazine of record for those who shape business.

In doing this we have had to set new standards for ourselves. We must be extra diligent if we want to connect with the business community on its level. We can not rest on our laurels nor can we allow ourselves to just “get by”, month after month, as long as annual projections are satisfied. A good business will not operate like that and a business magazine that wants to maintain a keen edge cannot either. To truly report business it must abide by the same standards, and work under the same pressure as the people it reports.

Fighting words?

You bet.

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Lebanon’s tremors

by Nicholas Blanford
written by Nicholas Blanford

The recent earth tremors felt in Lebanon served as a timely reminder of the volatility of the land mass on which Lebanon rests. The good news is that, unnerving though it is to experience an earthquake — even minor tremors such as those that shook Lebanon in February — they are a reassuring sign that the fault systems beneath are feet are moving as they should. Indeed, a prolonged absence of seismic activity in an earthquake zone is far more troubling, as it suggests that a fault is jammed. Pressure builds up and is eventually released in one convulsive and destructive shock.

Lebanon has a long history of major earthquakes, which have destroyed Beirut at least twice and helped shape Lebanon’s current coastline.

The country lies at the nexus of three continental plates: the African, the Arabian and the Eurasian. The African plate is heading south-west and the Arabian plate north-east at approximately two centimeters per year. The Dead Sea rift between the African and Arabian plates runs up the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aqaba, along the Jordan valley and into Lebanon where it becomes known as the Yammouneh Fault following the western side of the Bekaa.

However, Lebanon’s dilemma does not center solely on this one major fault but on the dozens of others running throughout the country. As an example, Beirut has at least five recognized faults. One follows the Beirut River, another called the Town Center Fault begins at Normandy and heads through downtown, another fault is in Ras Beirut, and two faults follow the Beirut coastline and bisect just off Ras Beirut. Geologists believe that it is these last two faults that created the Beirut peninsula by forcing the sea bed above the surface of the sea.

Other than the direct action of shockwaves, earthquakes can also generate other phenomena such as tsunamis and soil liquefaction.

A tsunami is a wave generated by an earthquake the epicenter of which is located beneath the sea bed. They can travel at speeds of 750 km/h at a height of 30-40m and can deliver on average 100,000 tons of water per 1.5 sqm of coastline. According to two Jesuit priests, Fathers Plassard and Kogoj, who conducted an extensive survey of Lebanon’s seismic record in the 1960s, Lebanon’s coastline has been hit by tsunamis 14 times over the last 2,500 years.

Soil liquefaction occurs in areas of loose earth, such as sand or silt, which also contains a high water content. With repeated shaking the soil develops the consistency of water completely undermining foundations with the result that buildings can topple over in one piece like felled trees.

Many seismologists believe that earthquakes are cyclical, occurring at regular intervals throughout history. Given this information, as well as a detailed knowledge of the faults themselves, some believe that earthquakes can be loosely predicted over the long term.

Lebanon is fortunate in this regard, as earthquakes have been documented over the last 2,500 years. By contrast, the notorious San Andreas Fault in California has records extending back only 250 years.

If anyone is in any doubt as to the impact earthquakes can have on Lebanon, one only needs to consult these records: 525 BC — Tyre destroyed; AD 349 — most of Beirut destroyed; July 6, 551 — total destruction of Beirut, massive damage to Tripoli and Tyre, coastline altered, part of Ras Chekka falls into the sea; 1170 — destruction of Tripoli; October 30, 1759 — destruction at Quneitra and Safad, 2,000 dead; November 25, 1759 — Beirut and Damascus destroyed, more than 40,000 dead. The above are only the major earthquakes, more have been chronicled.

An earthquake of a similar magnitude to the one of November 1759 would today be a national catastrophe. One earthquake in Lebanon could cause as much damage in a few minutes as was sustained by 16 years of war.

Although earthquakes cannot be avoided, their impact can be mitigated through prior planning, specifically the enforcement of strict seismic building codes for new construction. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Lebanon’s buildings constructed over the past 40 years lack any seismic qualifications. The near ubiquitous design of a reinforced concrete frame filled in with cinder block walls offers little protection against an earthquake.

The difference between cities that have incorporated seismic building codes and those that have not is shown by comparing recent earthquakes. The 1994 Northridge earthquake in California, with a magnitude of 6.8, killed 33 people. Yet the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, with a magnitude of 6.6, killed 30,000 people. The 1995 earthquake at Kobe, Japan, had a magnitude of 7.3 and caused 4,600 casualties but the 1999 earthquake at Izmit in Turkey with a magnitude of 7.5 cost the lives of 45,000. California and Japan were prepared, Iran and Turkey were not.

When I last discussed the earthquake threat to Lebanon with an expert, I was told that Lebanon experiences a very strong quake exceeding a magnitude of seven approximately every 200 to 250 years. The last big earthquake was in 1759. Given that it is impossible to accurately predict the timing of earthquakes, the expert said that there was a 60-70% probability of a destructive earthquake occurring in Lebanon over the next 50 years. The bad news is that conversation took place 11 years ago.
 

Nicholas Blanford is a Beirut-based journalist and author of “Killing Mr. Lebanon – The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its Impact on the Middle East.”

 

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Lebanon

Micro-credit – In Abundance

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff
 
Sporting funky glasses, a hipster beard and a ponytail, Muhammad Ali Mansour stands proudly in front of his modest convenience store in urban Beirut. He had been an employee in this store for seven years before he decided to buy and run the establishment himself. Having been approached by an AMEEN credit officer based at the local Credit Libanais Branch he decided to apply for credit. Eight months ago, Muhammad received a $1,500 loan, which he used to help finance the purchase and expansion of his supermarket. “The expansion definitely brought more customers,” he says.

Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus offered his first micro-credit loan in Bangladesh 32 years ago, using $27 from his own pocket. Since then, the concept of micro-finance has spread around the world. Lebanon’s version is dominated by a lending house known as Access to Micro-finance and Enhanced Enterprise Niches (AMEEN), which got its start as a pilot program in 1999 under the international non-governmental organization CHF. In that same year, AMEEN forged a deal with Jamal Trust Bank to get lending operations underway. AMEEN would provide the advertising and out-reach while Jamal Trust would provide the technical support. Both partners equally split the capital to be lent, the profit and the risk.

The micro-finance house chose to partner up with Jamal Trust Bank because “it believed in the mission. It supported the idea and had the right network of branches,” said Ziad Halaby, general manager of AMEEN. Later on, three other banks have joined as partners: Credit Libanais in 2001, Lebanese Canadian Bank in 2004, and most recently FRANSABANK in February 2008. Phillipe al-Hajj, Fransabank responsible for the AMEEN relationship, commented on the new partnership saying, “FRANSABANK’s branch distribution in north Lebanon and the Bekaa will be a big benefit for the lending house.”

AMEEN provides the outreach for its partner banks. It has 56 credit officers going door-to-door, introducing the concept of micro-finance to possible borrowers. This type of personal outreach is extremely important to the project as potential borrowers are usually from an income bracket that has no previous contact with the banking industry. The credit officers are always from the target community because they know the local needs best.
 

Going forward

After contact has been established and an individual has applied for a loan, a joint committee of AMEEN and partner bank personnel review the application. Although collateral is rarely a requisite, cosigners are often needed for approval. If the loan is approved, the partner bank contributes 50-100% of the capital, depending on its arrangement with AMEEN. The borrower then repays the loan by monthly installments, including 14-15% interest compounded annually. This is a relatively high interest rate compared to more traditional “macro” loans. However, macro- and micro-loans have distinctly different profit margins.

Assuming the same interest rate, the profit from 100 loans worth $1,000 each is the same as the profit from one $100,000 loan. But the labor and administrative costs are almost 100 times as expensive. These excess administrative costs, in addition to the resources required for outreach and education, justify the higher interest rates.

Since its inception, AMEEN and its four partners have given out more than 50,000 loans worth over $67 million. The average loan size is $1,400. Roughly 80% of recipients are male and over 40% of loans have been made to residents of South Lebanon. AMEEN’s Ziad Halaby explained that these discrepancies are predominantly related to the branch locations of its early partner banks and the current aim of the lending house is a more even distribution of borrowers throughout the country. Adnan Youssef, assistant general manager of Jamal Trust Bank, said that the micro-loans his bank facilitates are “targeted at all Lebanese citizens throughout Lebanon” and all 22 branches of Jamal Trust Bank are moving towards that goal.

Currently, AMEEN has 9,300 active loan portfolios. This burgeoning success can only be a good thing for potential borrowers. Halaby suggested that more loans mean higher aggregate profits, which should in turn allow lenders to decrease their interest rates. But he also pointed out that, despite the relatively high interest rates, surprisingly few recipients default on their loans. AMEEN has recorded a less than 1% default rate since opening its doors. And it’s not as if borrowers throw off the bonds of debt with the payment of their last installment, never to look back. Many recipients of micro-loans return for more. In fact, over 18,000 loans were to repeat borrowers. Banks also seem to be happy with the system. Not only has AMEEN been able to attract four partner banks giving out loans between $300 and $5,000, rumors of expansion abound.

Results

AMEEN and its partner banks consider the facilitation of micro-finance a part of their corporate social responsibility to society. Some critics say the positive benefits of micro-finance are hard to assess. Halaby agreed, saying “The main anticipated result for this type of project is capacity and material increase. These are difficult to measure in dollar amounts.” And although AMEEN occasionally conducts client surveys, Halaby averred that the high number of repeat borrowers is the best testament to the program. He suggested that the very fact the loan recipient returns to take another loan means that jobs are being sustained. Adnan Youssef of Jamal Trust Bank added that the existence of repeat borrowers means “we are achieving our primary goal. And that is to fight poverty.”

Back at the supermarket, Muhammad Ali Mansour is contemplating expansion. He has plans to take out a $3,000 loan in the near future to grow his shop into a second floor. And if that goes well, he says, why not another loan to buy a new location entirely?

 

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Lebanon

Port of Beirut – A Trading Culture

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff
 
The Beirut Container Terminal, the center of Lebanese maritime trade, located in the Port of Beirut has an illustrious history to live up to. As the motto of the port reads, it is “An Ancient Port for the Future” and the figures for last year certainly live up to it. In 2007, port revenues reached $114 million, up $32 million from the previous year, and custom revenues achieved $736 million, an increase of $118 million. The economic buoyancy of the terminal has clearly not followed that of a seasick Lebanon. This is apparent in the fact that it was in 2005 that the Beirut Container Terminal began its rapid growth. Even the 2006 war could not keep the terminal at bay. Although during the war the port was closed for two months, within 24 hours of re-opening all the major shipping lines were back and queuing three to four days to get back into the port, according to Elie Zakhour, president of the International Chamber of Navigation.

It was June 2005 that the Beirut Container Terminal Consortium (BCTC) and the Port Authority (PA) announced that, for the first time in the history of the port, the container terminal would begin to handle transshipment vessels. Transshipment being the process, in which a large mother vessel comes into the container terminal, unloads its containers and then these containers are loaded on to other smaller ships for distribution to other regional ports. The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) — “the second biggest shipping company in the world,” according to Muhammad Fakhreddine, vice president of MSC Lebanon — began a transshipment line that directly connected Singapore to Beirut and the Lebanese capital to Antwerp (Belgium). MSC entered into an agreement with BCTC to transship 250,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units: a container 20ft long and 8ft wide) per year through the terminal. Soon after MSC signed a transshipment agreement with the port things got even better, when in February 2006 CMA-CGM, also one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, began to use the port for transshipment and signed a contract with BCTC to handle 100,000 TEUs per year.

The success in attracting these two globally operative shipping companies to the container terminal has meant that the port is running at almost full capacity, thus delaying local shipment. Fouad Bawarshi, the vice president of local shipping line Gezairi, told Executive that toward the end of 2007 there was severe congestion at the port and thus the Port Authority had to open two of the old quay terminals. Joseph Farhat, the PA’s study manager, informed Executive that “currently we have 947,000 TEUs and the limit is 1.2 million using the old area. However this area is not fit for use, so we need to have a new quay with new equipment, such as gantry cranes to lift the containers.”
 

Expanding horizons

The rapid growth in the number of TEUs coming through Beirut’s port has been articulated by the fact that Quay 16, which only became operational in 2005 at the cost of $150 million, has already reached full capacity. Farhat told Executive that when the economic study for the new Quay 16 was carried out in 1997, it concluded that by 2010 the container terminal could reach 500,000 TEUs. “All the studies said that we would not get a transshipment line to the terminal, but we got it!” Due to the introduction of transshipment the target of half a million TEUs came four years early, in 2006. As a result, expansion of the Quay 16 is on the way. “We plan to extend Quay 16 to the east by 170 meters to be completed in two year’s time. This extension will give us 130 meters of extra space and allow roughly an extra 200,000 TEUs a year. The cost of this extension will be around $55 million,” Farhat explained.

Despite this, shipping line owners want more and have become frustrated by the increasing traffic at the port. Elie Zakhour, president of the International Chamber of Navigation and managing director of Uniship, told Executive that the planned 170 meter expansion is insufficient. He pointed out that two other transshipment companies, which he was not allowed to name, were interested in coming to the port but were unable to do so because of a lack of capacity. “The PA has the possibility to extend the port up to Beirut River and double the length of Quay 16, with a 600 meter extension. Unfortunately, due to other situations the government has agreed to extend this quay by only 170 meters.”

Although many shipping lines have been left frustrated by the decision to only extend Quay 16 by 170 meters, the Port Authority is defending their decision, as it is they who will be left with the bill if the transshipment companies leave. Adding to this argument, Farhat explained that, “if we extended as far as the Beirut River we don’t know how much it will cost as there is loose material 40 meters down, near the river.” Ammar Kanaan, chairman of the BCTC, however, agrees with the government’s decision. “The 170 meters was needed to respond to the immediate requirements. There was a serious [business] risk of building an additional 600 meters and not having anyone coming to use it. I think that the way forward should be to expand to the 600 meters and maybe more but to do that with a commitment from the private sector to use this capacity.” However, as Kanaan admitted, in the current political environment getting commitments for the future from these private companies maybe expecting too much. There is a pronounced risk that the current success may only be short-term as Kanaan explained, “The transshipment business is very unfaithful and un-loyal. Unlike the local traffic that is always going to be here, transshipment can easily go away.”

Making it alone

So how did the container terminal achieve the feat of convincing two of the world’s biggest shipping lines to set up regional hubs for transshipment in what is perceived of as an extremely volatile area? Everyone agrees that luck was a major factor. The container terminal acts as a great hub because of its geographical location and the 15.5 meter draft of Quay 16. The draft is especially important because it means that the large mother vessels of the transshipment companies, which have a length of 335 meters and can carry 9,000 TEUs at a time, could use the port. The depth of the draft has really set Beirut’s container terminal apart from its regional competitors and made the it attractive to large shipping companies, MSC’s Muhammad Fakhreddine explained. Added to this, Fakhreddine relayed to Executive the fact that because of the weather conditions in Lebanon, the port can be open 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, which is also very attractive. Luck also came in the form of incompetence from competitors, Kanaan explained. “When MSC first started working with us, as a transshipment hub, it was because they had problems in Greece. [They] were looking for a quick alternative and we were efficient, had infrastructure and were available.”

The government must also take credit for utilizing the inherent benefits of the port in building a modern deep water terminal and setting up a public private partnership with a US-British-Lebanese consortium to create the BCTC. The success of the BCTC has been an important element in attracting transshipment to Lebanon, specifically because of their efficient operations. Kanaan outlined the way BCTC attracted major transshipment to the Port. “A mother vessel has a charter of $80,000 per day, so when BCTC saves them half a day in terms of productivity I am saving them $40,000. And our rates are very low and among the cheapest in the world. So when you’re saving $100,000 per vessel, you will come to Beirut. Your insurance is no doubt up by $20,000 but you are saving still $80,000 [a day].” Everyone seems to agree that the low rates have been essential in attracting companies such as MSC, except MSC itself. “BCTC made an offer to MSC, we gave a counter offer and reached an agreement. It is not the real issue if the Port of Beirut is less or more than other ports,” said Fakhreddine. However, he does agree that the efficiency attained and maintained by BCTC and the PA has made the port attractive to companies such as his.

Achieving this efficiency has not been a painless process. Automation has been a major way in which the BCTC has achieved gains in efficiency and a tighter control of its income streams. But this has not been well received by some at the container terminal. Kanaan explained to Executive that automation is unpopular because it narrows down the possibility of revenue leakage and has led to strikes from those trying to resist this process. Strikes are a huge issue for the port and the low level of strikes was one of the reasons that MSC came to the Port of Beirut. The BCTC therefore has had to undertake a careful balancing act of reforming the terminal at a pace that its employees are willing to take, while attaining a level of efficiency that is not only regionally but globally competitive.

Is transshipment really that beneficial?

BCTC have not just been upsetting the truckers. “Some members of the shipping community are always complaining because priority is being given to transshipment, but the reason priority is given to transshipment is obvious,” said Bawarshi of Gezairi. Ammar Kanaan has become increasingly frustrated at the criticism leveled against Beirut becoming a transshipment hub and sees it as nothing less than a triumph. “Sure, the congestion might have affected negatively the few shipping companies that are not doing transshipment in Lebanon. But when two of the top three shipping lines in the world use Beirut as a transshipment hub, then Beirut all of a sudden is getting direct services from the Far East and northern Europe. It probably used to take 40 days to get a box from the Far East, and now it is 17 days. So the savings are enormous and the competitiveness of the Lebanese trader has increased because of this.” Elie Maamary, the export manager for Ksara, agrees with Kanaan in that it has been easier for them to export since the arrival of the big shipping liners. However, Maamary and others complained that the major problem for them currently with the port is the cost of exporting. “The price of shipping a container constitutes a major figure in our costing price. Each container costs about $700 and that’s a lot more than at other ports.”

Despite the complaints of local traders however, local traffic has been robust. In 2007, it consisted of 444,165 TEUs, up from 339,174 in 2006. According to Kanaan, the reason for this growth has been unexplainable. “You can explain total volume of the port to be high because of transshipment but why local traffic is high, while people are complaining about the economy, I don’t know,” he said. It is especially surprising since local overland transit traffic has dropped dramatically over the years, mainly due to the situation in Iraq, which “has always been the number one partner of the Port of Beirut, and secondly because neighboring countries, for example Jordan and Saudi Arabia, now have their own ports,” according to Bawarshi.

Here today, gone tomorrow?

Competition is now getting intense and for how long the benefits of transshipment will last is yet to be seen. Ports around the region in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Syria are all having major infrastructure upgrades. While none of them have the depth of draft as the Port of Beirut, they are building up their competitiveness. Subsequently, Kanaan argues that the major challenge for the Port of Beirut is “building more capacity and signing up more contracts with global lines” in this increasingly competitive environment. Of course, how competitive the Beirut port remains relies on a large part on Lebanon’s political stability. Although the political situation has been largely circumvented in terms of the effect it has had on the economic vitality of the container terminal, concerns still remain. “I am not afraid of the political problem but we need security. If anything is shut in the port we will not survive,” said Elie Zakhour. As usual for Lebanon, the Port of Beirut has a chance to make or break. Or, as Kanaan told Executive, “Lebanon has a serious chance of making it into the major leagues of maritime transport. Already, in the Mediterranean we are up there. If people refrain from going mad we can do it, but clearly if the political situation continues as it is, sooner or later these shipping lines will go. I can almost guarantee it.”

 

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Lebanon

BLOM Cedars Balanced Fund – For Lebanese, by Lebanese

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Recently, BLOM Invest has launched an investment fund, the BLOM Cedars Balanced Fund. The fund is an open-ended mutual fund with weekly subscriptions and redemptions. It is a balanced fund in that it combines two asset classes: Fixed income from bonds, which comprise 75% of the fund, and a maximum of 25% invested in stocks. The fund will invest only in Lebanese securities, both stocks and bonds. Executive talked to Michel Chikhani, head of Asset Management, and Bechara Bardawil, portfolio manager at BLOM invest to discuss this new entry into the family of Lebanese funds.
 

What is so unique about this fund?

Bardawil: It is unique in that it is the only all-Lebanese fund that actually has a component that invests in Lebanese equities. The previous funds in Lebanon all invested in fixed-income securities only. The idea behind the fund is to enable our retail customers to participate in the Lebanese capital markets with minimum capital, starting at $5,000. They would participate in this basket and take advantage of any recovery that these capital markets should enjoy in case the situation in Lebanon stabilizes and would enter into a phase of catch-up with the rest of the region. Basically, this is a way to boost the return they are getting on their deposits especially in the climate of declining interest rates on the US Dollar.

Chikhani: Features such as weekly redemption and subscription allow investors to move into the fund more frequently, and eventually, if they want to move out from the fund, they can. In terms of the process of management, the risk management is very different because you have two asset classes — one of them is equities and the way we deal with equities is very different from how we deal with fixed income.

There are three aspects that are immediately striking: The low buy-in rate, the focus on Lebanon and the weekly redemption. Can you expand on these three aspects?

Chikhani: Concerning the low buy-in rate there are a lot of people that have savings and who are depositors. These people are potential investors, but unfortunately no one is addressing them as such. These potential investors are not able to take advantage of any of the opportunities that an investment could bring, instead they are just putting their money in bank deposits. If you take into consideration any country where you have people with small amounts of money, they still have access to investment vehicles. We started with $5,000 because any amount less than that we don’t see as being an investment.

We have two tranches of units, which is another unique aspect of this fund — one of them capitalizes and another distributes. Currently, people know more about interest rates and the bond market but very few understand the stock market. If one looks at the stock market from the perspective of the BLOM Index then it was very rewarding to stay invested in the Lebanese stocks. We don’t have a lot of Lebanese stocks but their performance has been significant for any one wanting to invest in them. However, in order to approach these markets you need professional people in terms of investing and this is what BLOM Invest is offering in this fund.

Was a weekly redemption approach taken so investors could easily get in and out?

Chikhani: It is much more to get in than to get out, because if someone has money he does not wait until the end of the month to decide to enter into an investment. People don’t want to lose time waiting for an opportunity. If they believe they have to invest, they want to do it now and this fund will give them the opportunity. All are liquid investments and as this is an open ended mutual fund there is no need to place money on a monthly basis. The weekly redemption is also for those that want to get out. If someone wants to redeem units to the fund, most likely the client needs this money for something else, so why should he wait a month to get his money out?

What is the recommended amount of time that people should leave their money in for it to properly mature?

Chikhani: As long as it takes to realize the expected annualized return. Otherwise, we recommend two to three years, the optimal being three years. Also, it is important for this fund that, since it has opened a window to the equity side, it will accompany the investment universe of the equity for the next 15 years. So basically, if we have more stocks that are going to be listed on the Beirut Stock Exchange or Lebanese stocks that are going to be listed abroad, it is going to be able to give access to the development of the financial markets as well. It is not to be restricted to what is available today in the market only.

Now, the proportion of 25/75 is one that we think is the most conservative knowing that the universe of stocks is very limited and quite correlated. However, with time we may change this within the prospective of the fund, or launch other funds once the underlying proportion has changed. We give the investor the opportunity to invest in everything that is available through a balanced formula, which we believe is conservative. And over the long run, we continue to offer investment vehicles that portray the Lebanese market universes in terms of liquidity, availability and instruments.

Bardawil: Although a lot of high net-worth individuals were interested in this fund, the bulk of people that this fund is aimed at are not the type of investors who would invest overseas, say in the US, Europe or China. The people attracted to this fund, psychologically, like to be close to where their money is invested. They know Solidere and the major banks and are living the economic and political situation everyday. For them it makes sense to invest in their own country.

Chikhani: We are very keen for the investors to know exactly what they are investing in. We don’t want people to think that we are offering something that we are not. That is why we kept the proportion of fixed income at a high level to protect the capital, although we don’t think the stocks will fall to zero. We took the maximum the stocks are going to fall, which would be a theoretical zero, and made sure it was protected. Although many investors have a lot of money, they are not the main target of this fund. We think that the retail market needs to be more educated and the road is long. What we are doing is conservative, heavily controlled but at the same time not static and forward looking, and certainly it is for the benefit of our customers.

It is very interesting that you focus on the Lebanese market. Is it not a high risk and unstable environment to invest in currently?

Chikhani: There is still a very wide gap between interest rates, the differentials between what we can get inside Lebanon and outside. Investors in Lebanon are all invested indirectly in the same instruments that we are talking about. We are talking about the fund that invests in securities in which the underlying investment is $30 billion already held by Lebanese whether this is eurobonds, directly or indirectly through the banks, or it is the stock market. So we are not trying to find some illiquid markets that we want to be in. We think that there is a sufficient underlying state in the market, which is already held by Lebanese and or institutions in and outside Lebanon that can justify the launching of a fund with such instruments. Now concerning the instability, the Lebanese market has proven resilient and uncorrelated to other markets. The volatility of the market is quite controllable and very low. We have seen major events taking place in summer 2006 without too many incidents on the market. If we take into consideration the risk of the instruments that we are involved in, we take into consideration liquidity risk, or counter value risk, or default risk, each component, whether fixed income or equity, has a different risk. We believe that by investing with deposits on the one hand, through papers from the central bank and commercial banks, through papers issued from the Lebanese government and through equities that are not held by the Lebanese government we are offering a nice combination for investors, which is 40-50% invested inside the government debt. We are betting on the dynamics of Lebanese corporations and their momentum outside the country, namely Solidere, and the main banks as well as other companies that may step in. We have valued many banks and see that their PE ratio and price book ratio are much lower than at other banks in the region, and so they are at attractive prices despite the unstable political situation. All the companies on the Beirut Stock Exchange have the desire to expand internationally, so it makes sense to include them in the portfolio.

Thus, although the political situation is unclear, many other issues have been quite stable in the country, in terms of development of business and the international development of business. The valuation is still low and we believe that all these criteria mean that it makes sense for investors to step in. We believe that the assets in which we are investing today are under-priced. The question is not just “Why now?” It is a question of valuation in a certain point in time, how much we want to value our investments in stocks and equities. The whole environment gives us a very decent price to step in.

What rate of return do you expect?

Chikhani: We believe it to be a between 8% and 12% plus.

Bardawil: This is annualized over a period of three years.

Chikhani: The benchmark is to be able to exceed the deposit rate and to give something that will compensate for the inflation rate, while also keeping this investment liquid, which is why it has a weekly redemption. For us, 8-12% is a very decent return.

How has the fund been received so far? 

Chikhani: The initial subscriptions have been more than expected and we are continuously receiving new ones.

Bardawil: There have also been very few redemptions, which means that people are not getting cold feet about this. Hopefully, our efforts, at BLOM, to instill in our retail customers the culture of long-term investment are succeeding.

Chikhani: But this is also because people know why they are investing as well. We have provided enough awareness in our branches and our staff to convey the message to our customers. And now we are moving broadly toward the market, but the product is not just dedicated to be sold in the Lebanon, but around the world.

 

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Lebanon

Recycling – The potential of garbage

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Garbage is a nuisance. It threatens public health and nature, as well as sticking around for generations to come. Disposing of it is an issue with which every country has difficulties, and only few have a handle on the problem. Burning trash and open landfills are part of the regular practice of most waste management services but for many reasons, neither of these is a good solution. However, waste can be controlled, and what we toss into bins as rubbish could be a money maker and even help the environment. All that is needed are the right governmental policies and the creativity of ingenious entrepreneurs.

Consumption behavior in Lebanon is different than the West. A typical Lebanese garbage bag is filled with nearly 70-80% organic matter, mainly food remains and paper. This can be compared to the trash content of New Jersey, where organic material makes up only 40%, according to Ziad Abichaker, CEO of waste management company Cedar Environmental. The remaining 20-30% of local trash consists of plastic, glass, metals, textiles, and miscellaneous material. Of the total waste content, only textiles — which account for less than 10% — are currently not recyclable in Lebanon, nor can they be sold to recycling centers abroad.

State of affairs in waste regulations

Waste collection, or the hiring of a collection service, is under the authority of the municipalities. However, regulations have not caught up with the times. As Abichaker pointed out, open dumping remains the main disposal method not only in Lebanon but in the whole of the Middle East. Open dumping, or landfills, means that all garbage, including recyclable materials and organic substances, is simply thrown together in one area. He explained, “They are used to the idea that garbage is waste, something to be disposed of.”

Not only is it a shame to waste materials that could be used again, this approach is an environmental hazard that leads to sink holes, methane gas explosions and fires from the organic materials rotting away.

Sukleen is the largest waste management service in Lebanon and operates within Greater Beirut and Mount Lebanon, with the exception of Jbeil (Byblos). Ill-equipped and under-

funded, most other municipalities are getting buried by their own waste. Jacopo Monzini, technical officer for the Italian Cooperation for Development, a general directorate of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that as 90% of municipalities are not covered by the Sukleen contract and therefore must deal with waste removal themselves, “They don’t know what to do with their waste nor have they any idea how to treat it.”

Ali Darwish, president of Green Line, a Lebanese environmental NGO, thinks that this is a national problem and thus requires a policy at the national level rather than policies that are decentralized and individualized for each municipality.

Currently, only an estimated 5% of recyclables (plastic, glass, metals) are being recycled and less than 20% of organic items are turned into compost, according to Wael Hmaidan, executive director of IndyAct, the League of Independent Activists. And, he said, at present cities such as Saida and Tripoli do not have recycling programs.

The Saida “garbage mountain” is a good example of an open landfill and its ramifications. The garbage site, 45m high and 150m long, has a total volume of around 1 million cubic meters. The landfill is a mixture of municipal solid waste but also contains industrial, hospital, and slaughter waste. Pockets of methane gas are formed inside the mount from the decomposing organic material and regularly catch fire.

The garbage mountain is a travesty both in terms of public health and the environment. Besides being an eyesore on the coastline and the terrible smell, the mountain is leaking chemicals into the ground water used for drinking and garbage regularly falls into the sea. Just in February alone, as a result of a winter storm the garbage mountain dumped an estimated 150 tons of trash into the sea.

Unfortunately, aggregate statistical information remains unattainable. According to Sukleen’s own estimation Lebanon produces 4,000 tons of waste per day, with Greater Beirut and Mount Lebanon alone accounting for 2,300 tons, but nobody knows for sure. The Italian Cooperation, through its Ross Program, has been working to collect data to fill this void. “If you don’t know how much waste you are producing, it’s impossible to plan,” explained Federico De Nardo, project coordinator at the Italian NGO. “You have to know how much raw material you are getting.” The Italian Cooperation is also collecting data on the amounts of material collected by the municipalities to forecast needs and help them to manage their waste and recycling. A major effort is the reorganization of recycling programs that previously had been random, and often resulted in potentially recyclable material to become unusable for recycling companies. By correcting this problem, the waste has also become more valuable.

Several NGOs have called attention to solid waste management and lobbied for stronger regulations and more efficient collection processes. However, most of their cries have gone unheard. In the past, development aid to Lebanon had included waste management. USAID has funded several facilities, but once the project had been completed these proved to be unsustainable. The Italian Cooperation is now rehabilitating five of those facilities to make them sustainable and restart recycling in the south.

NGOs are also battling the perception of many in the government that recycling is neither profitable nor worth the effort. But as Green Line’s Darwish pointed out, one perfect counter-example is the fact that hundreds of people are living from individual recycling collection efforts in the suburbs.

Out of the high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic that makes up most plastic objects like, shampoo bottles, vegetable containers and flower pots are made. PET plastic, used in most drink bottles, is also recycled locally. Metals have to be shipped abroad to be recycled because of the high energy needs of their recycling plants.

With per-ton prices at $1,000 for aluminum, $400 for HDPE plastic, $250 for PET plastic, and $90 for other metals, the informal sector has become involved in picking through trash bins for extra cash. “The informal sector you see collecting cans and cardboard are now actually organized companies,” explained Hmaidan.
 

Sorting at the source

Sorting garbage is a multi-stage process. The most effective takes place at the source, i.e. when you throw your garbage away. Several projects are aiming at getting citizens to sort their waste at the bins themselves. In South Lebanon and the Bekaa, the Italian Cooperation has begun a public awareness campaign and provides public trash bins dedicated to organic and inorganic waste. “It’s very important for the municipality, as they can more efficiently separate the recyclables and get some income from recycling,” explained De Nardo. However, sorting bins is not a national policy and there are few working sites despite calls for more.

Composting

After sorting the organic from other materials, the waste is then processed in two ways. The recyclable materials go to specific recycling plants and the non-

recyclables make their way to landfills or are burned. The organic matter that should not be in landfills is converted into compost to be used by farmers as a soil enhancer and goes through an approval process for agriculture use. The Italian Cooperation, for their part, complies with European standards for composting. De Nardo insisted that there is a demand for compost in the South because of soil depth and mineral deficiencies as well as the lack of animal farming.

The business model for setting up a waste management plant is difficult. Cedar Environmental’s Abi­chaker explained that for the municipalities, setting up a recycling plant rests solely on the part of the investor as they operate under the assumption that the investor puts up all of the money for the plant (around $400,000) and they give the plant the garbage for free. However, he explained, “It’s not profitable now because if I have to put up the initial investment and operational costs, the break-even point takes between 7-8 years while the lifespan of the project is only 10 years.”

According to him, when Europe and the US faced the same problem with waste management they instituted what became known as a “tipping fee”: The public sector gives the plant a flat rate per ton of waste collected. With the tipping fee, the break-even point is shortened to that of a normal industrial plant of 3-4 years.

Getting paid by ton

The tipping fee isn’t without its critics. For Darwish, however, being paid by weight gives very little incentive to separate the refuse for recycling without stricter recycling policies in place but instead lends itself to collecting more and more. “When you get paid by the ton, you have more interest in collecting more tons to dump into your site.”
 

This situation, he said, has led to the problem with the Naameh landfill just outside Beirut. Instead of separating the waste and landfilling only those parts that could not be recycled or composted, the focus moved to simply collecting more. The landfill had initially been projected to run for 10 years. Because of open landfill policies in place the dumping ground reached its capacity halfway through and had to be expanded.

Lebanon’s most famous waste collection and recycling company, Sukleen, is a giant operation with around 1,200 regular employees and 1,800 cleaning operators. Its activities are handled by two main departments: City Cleaning Operations for the municipal solid waste collection, street sweeping, recycling, in addition to special operations, and Vehicle Maintenance & Repair. Both departments operate with the common objective of providing the best quality services for the community, in conformance with the ISO 9001: 2000 quality standard. The City Cleaning Operations units work around the clock. Sukleen keeps abreast with the latest technology in the waste management sector through, for instance, the implementation of the Fleet Management (FM) system, which is a monitoring system to evaluate the drivers’ performance and the vehicles parameters. As part of the FM, all vehicles have Global Positioning System (GPS) units that allows routes audit, planned versus actual routes comparison, and thus increases operations efficiency.

Sister company to Sukleen, Sukomi Waste Treatment runs four plants using a state-of-the-art technology for sorting. The final disposal of waste rejects and bulky items takes place at two different sanitary landfills, operated and managed by Sukomi. Both landfills were designed and constructed, and are operated, managed and controlled as per the British waste management standards and codes of practice. Both Sukleen and Sukomi are owned by Averda, one of Lebanon’s largest companies. Unfortunately, data for revenue is not available to the public.

Cedar Environmental operates nine facilities on a small, decentralized model in communities of around 25,000 people — located mainly in the south in Naqoura, Aitaroun, Jbaa, Queia, Qabrikha, Khirbit Siyum, Chakra and Kfarsir, and two in the north (Douma and Jbeil) — which makes for easier manageability and cuts transportation costs. Yearly revenue is around $1-2 million. The waste management company sorts out the recyclables into their different categories. Plastics are then further sorted by type, shredded and sold to other recycling plants. Organic materials, as usual, are made into compost. By using their odorless “Dynamic Composting Technology” in the process, Cedar Environmental has not faced the same NIMBY (not in my backyard) problems with which other operations have to contend. Altogether, Cedar Environmental is able to recycle 98% of the waste.

In order to be profitable, the company had to find innovative ways outside of the low tipping fee provided by municipalities and the recycled materials they sold. As a major innovation, Cedar Environmental has been able to produce a fertilizer out of their compost that has been authorized for use in organic farming. The quality of the compost can fetch $100 per ton instead of the non-

profitable regular compost.

Abichaker is working on an awareness campaign for farmers to make the switch to organic farming, which can get double the price of ordinary produce. Cedar Environmental is also doing a bit of its own organic farming to use as an example of just how profitable making the change can be.

He avers that “the switch is going from a quantity paradigm to a quality paradigm.” If farmers would come on board, he argued, Lebanese produce achieve value added and could serve the growing, very lucrative market for organic food. “Ultimately, I believe, we could be leaders in this kind of agriculture.”

 

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Lebanon

Extraordinary risk insurance – Playing it safe in a dangerous world

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff
 
February was an unsettling month in Lebanon and not just on the political front. On February 15, the country experienced a earthquake that registered 5.1 on the Richter scale, according to the Bhannes Center for Seismic and Scientific Research. And although just a few injuries were recorded, it was definitely a reminder that danger can come from other than the political sphere. Every year catastrophes and disasters kill tens of thousands of people around the globe. In 2006, the most recent year for which precise numbers are available, the Zurich based reinsurance giant Swiss Re estimated that 213 manmade disasters and 136 natural catastrophes killed 31,000 people worldwide.

Earthquakes caused the most damage. In Indonesia alone, two earthquakes claimed 6,600 lives. The financial losses from these events were not small either, amounting to a whopping $48 billion in total. Other natural catastrophes accounted for most of the damage checking in at $11.8 billion, whereas manmade disasters cost $4 billion.

In a world this dangerous it makes sense to have insurance. Yet only one-third of the losses mentioned above had been insured. And in Lebanon, this number would have been much lower — just 20%. This does not bode well for the country as the number of disasters and catastrophes around the world appears to be rising in the long term, putting Lebanon more at risk every year.
 

Extraordinary risk insurance

Earthquakes are just one type of insurable risk categorized as “extraordinary risk”. This type of insurance covers events that either have high aggregation potential, like the fall-out from a big earthquake, or an exceptionally high probability of occurring, like the assassination of a Lebanese politician.

According to Maroun Corm at the Beirut-based Libano-Suisse Société D’Assurances, there are two main types of extraordinary risk insurance, acts of God and political violence. Acts of God are divided into three aspects: flood, earthquake and tidal wave (tsunami). Usually, all three can be simply added on to a fire policy. Earthquake and tidal wave insurance are often slightly more expensive due to their higher aggregation potential. It is also interesting to note that geographic location within Lebanon does not affect premium rates for earthquake coverage, so cost is the same no matter where you are in the country.

Interviewed by Executive, Jean Hleiss, associate general manager at ADIR insurance, said that although February’s earthquake caused little damaged, now is a good time to purchase earthquake insurance as it is likely reinsurance providers will increase their rates next year. He explained that a typical earthquake add-on to a standard fire insurance policy for a $1 million building would amount to a $500 annual premium.

Political violence insurance

The second type of threat covered by extraordinary risk insurance is political violence, and can also be divided into three groups. The first type, SRCC, protects against strikes, riots and civil commotion. An example of this would be the January 27 riots in Mar Mikhail. Second is insurance against terrorism. The random bombing campaign that targeted Beirut in 2005 best represents this category. The third category is war insurance, which appears to be straightforward at first glance but can be divided into both war and civil war by some insurance companies. Premiums and deductibles for all insurance guarding against political violence are much higher than those for acts of God.

Depending on the company, all three can be purchased separately or as a package and can be added onto a pre-existing standard fire policy. Unlike a standard fire policy, however, premium rates swing wildly. They can range from 1% of the property value up to 10%. As always, it is best to purchase a policy when the political situation is calm to take advantage of lower initial rates. Although premiums do change with the political situation, a long-term client will likely get much more favorable rates when things do go sour. It is also important to keep the higher deductibles in mind, which often start at a minimum of $500,000 for war damages. Other factors are worth considering as well. Location, for example, can affect premium. If your building is next to the headquarters of a political party in Beirut you will certainly pay more due to increased risk.

Due to the significantly higher premiums and deductibles, very few insurance policies, protecting against terrorism and war, are sold. Of the five insurance companies Executive interviewed for this article, three said that they had not sold a policy of this type in the last year and the other two had sold less than 10. This does not keep some insurance companies from advertising, however. For example, Medgulf’s promotional brochure on personal accident insurance has two schemes, Plan A exclusive and Plan B inclusive of passive war coverage.

Assassination insurance

But apart from property, how do people insure themselves against political violence? Again, due to high premiums and deductibles this type of insurance is generally very rare and is usually sold on a case by case basis, in direct contradiction to Medgulf’s plan B system. Hisham Barraj of Arabia Insurance Company explained that his company does not offer a standard coverage because “each person has to assess his own value. A human life is not a material that can be appraised by someone else.”

Libano-Suisse’s Corm said that recently he had written a policy of this type for the chairman of a prominent Lebanese business. The client had himself insured for up to $500,000 against kidnapping, ransom and terrorism (although he is not covered against personal assassination). His premium is 10% of the total insured or $50,000 per year. It is important to note that the rate is not that high because of the client’s job but to the territoriality limit, as he frequently travels to Iraq.

It appears that for some, policies for businessmen headed to Iraq are big business. Hleiss of ADIR said his firm has written no-less than 500 policies in total to insure clients against kidnapping and ransom, and added that from those policies his company had only seen two or three claims. However, those can be costly: ADIR recently paid out $3 million on a claim resulting from an assassination in Beirut.

Read the fine print

Farid Chedid, managing director of Chedid Re, pointed out what a lot of people neglect — the details. He said that one major problem with insurance in Lebanon is that the contracts here are based on European wordings. For example, in Europe a standard SRCC contract specifically states that “rioters” are unarmed people.

Unfortunately, when this standardized contract is used in Lebanon unmodified, damage incurred would often not be covered as it is not unusual for rioters in Lebanon to carry weapons. Therefore, it is important to use an insurance company that is particular about contract wording and has a good reputation for honoring claims.

When looking for a policy, one should also keep exclusions in mind. Most policies will not cover damage incurred during nuclear, chemical or biological attacks, or in a war between any two of the world’s five superpowers.

Of course, for local and regional residents, these particular instances are rather unlikely, and give no reason to avoid purchasing insurance altogether. In fact, with a little bit of common sense and preparation, the astute client will be able to insure himself well against the extraordinary risks of our uncertain world.

 

 

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