Banking & Finance

Of royals and rotors: Choppers taking off

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

In the Middle East’s market for executive travel, business jets have a well-established presence. Another segment of privileged transportation, one with underused potential, is the market for helicopters.

Demand drivers for helicopters in the region have traditionally been oil, royals and defense—three components of a flourishing helicopter market that many Arab countries have no shortage of. Additionally, the region has been engulfed by the increased security concerns in the post-9/11 world that have pushed global helicopter sales upwards.

“Helicopter sales are not only increasing in the Middle East but really worldwide, the primary reasons being increased oil prices and the need for security post 9/11,” Dan Pranke, Middle East sales director for American helicopter manufacturer Bell, told Executive.

Nonetheless, sales of helicopters between Dubai and Cairo have been less than they could be, especially in the corporate and VIP markets. Sales managers for some of the industry’s major manufacturers blame restrictive regulations and reluctance of governments to license operators.

Oil boom boosting chopper market

In Arab oil-producing countries, the rise in oil prices from $15 a barrel five years ago to levels of $60 or more has induced oil companies to enhance their exploration and exploitation efforts onshore and offshore, meaning more helicopters needed to transport crews and supplies to digging sites.

The mid-sized workhorse helicopters used in the international oil industry constitute a substantial investment, as illustrated last month by delivery of three 19-passenger Sikorsky helicopters to Brunei Shell Petroleum for its oil service operations. The choppers were said to cost $18.5 million apiece.

GCC countries naturally have a strong role in this market. Companies like Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producing company, operate veritable helicopter fleets to support oil field exploration, drilling and production. In Qatar, Gulf Helicopters, a firm established in 1970 by Qatar Petroleum, has a fleet of 24 helicopters consisting mostly of Bell’s model 412.

Military and security forces worldwide and in the Middle East are prime customers for helicopter manufacturers, accounting for around half of global sales for leading producers. The other half of the market is the civilian sector, including uses in offshore, corporate transportation, medical and emergency services, sightseeing and media, which are served by manufacturers such as Eurocopter, a daughter of Airbus maker EADS, and American firm AgustaWestland, in addition to Bell and Sikorsky.

Although most helicopter sales in the Arab world are military and police-related, industry experts say that there is a rise in commercial and civil helicopter use in recent years and the market is tipped to become more lucrative.

“I see a great deal of potential in the market because unlike Europe, this market is still in its infancy. There will be a couple of drivers for it in the next five years, especially Dubai with the World Islands and Palm Islands projects,” said Pranke, adding that sales in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region represent about a quarter of Bell’s global sales.

A worldwide demand survey by turbine manufacturer Honeywell and others projected in its latest (2005) edition that the Middle East, Oceania, Asia and Africa will account for 16% of global deliveries of new civilian helicopters between 2006 and 2010.

The United States is the world’s leading market for helicopter sales, followed by Europe. The survey said more than 2,600 civilian helicopter deliveries are expected in the five years from 2006 to 2010. Total deliveries of both civilian and military helicopters are estimated to reach in the neighborhood of 12,000 units during the period from 2006 to 2016, and analysts forecast substantial growth rates that will hike the value of the global helicopter market to $15 billion in 2011, up by about 50% when compared with 2005.

Well over 500 sold civilian units per year is not bad for an industry where a manufacturer like Sikorsky reported 2006 revenues of $3.2 billion from all its activities (they delivered 110 helicopters last year) and Bell last month peddled some 10-year old “pre-owned” units at prices of up to $5.5 million on its web site. They don’t publish retail prices for new machines.

No wonder that new trade fairs for the helicopter buyer are in the Middle East. The Dubai Helishow is a biennial industry show which debuted in 2004. It reported 30% exhibitor growth to 104 participating companies in its December 2006 show.

For Bell, the Dubai Helishow in December was good in terms of contacts and future leads, said a manager for the company while refusing to give any information on unit sales in the Gulf region.

“While we did not sign any deals in the Dubai Helishow, there were numerous conversations and meetings with very senior people in the region that opened or furthered negotiations that will lead to conclusion of deals,” said Mike Cox, vice president of communications at Bell Helicopter.

Another helicopter conference, Heli Mideast 2007, is scheduled to be held in May to address the growing needs for helicopters for emergency and rescue services, firefighting, industrial and private ownership.

Loosening their grip on airspaces

Organizers of the event, the UK-based aviation publisher Shephard’s, say the event will also tackle the issue of governments relaxing their grip of the airspace.

That’s where the issue of the royals comes in. While persons of royal blood in the various countries of the region are excellent customers for expensive flying gear, helicopter manufacturers bemoan the fact that many countries of the region lack regulations that authorize commercial operators.

In Saudi Arabia, people other than the royal family are not allowed to own helicopters. “It’s a security issue because helicopters can land anywhere, so the Saudi government limits the ownership of helicopters to special government agencies,” Pranke said.

“It really comes down to how senior the royal person is and how much clout they have with the relevant police force,” said Andrew Drwiega, publishing director of the Shephard’s Defence Helicopter magazine.

“Rolls-Royce has a 42% share of the civil engine market in the region,” said Martin Brodie, communications director at Rolls Royce, adding that the main engines are for civil airlines like Emirates and Etihad.

Abu Dhabi Aviation, which has a paid-up capital of $110 million and is 30% owned by the emirate’s government, operates a fleet of 38 helicopters and fixed wing aircraft to the private and public sectors, signed a deal in December with AgustaWestland to become its regional spare parts and repairs center. The value of the deal remained under wraps.

AgustaWestland have also sold choppers to the Libyan Red Crescent and the Abu Dhabi police. AgustaWestland said in December its Middle East sales in 2006 increased by 15%. It said sales from the region will contribute around $260 million, or 11.8%, of its $2.2 billion global sales, according to Gulf press.

Helicopters will continue to claim a growing role in corporate transportation in the Middle East. It is entirely predictable that the rapid growth of population centers and the high-speed commercial development of office cities, industrial cities, special trade zones and super-luxury residential towers in emerging regional centers will create demand and outright need for wider VIP and executive travel options by helicopter, given the security, prestige, and time benefits accorded by these super-convenient transportation machines.

Additionally, helicopters can be expected to even start playing a new role in short aerial commutes in association with commercial air travel in an age where the drive to the airport and security check in the terminal sometimes take as long as a flight to a nearby country. Last year, a member company of Korea’s Tongil Group launched a manufacturing project to develop helicopters that will be used in the framework of mass transport.

The Middle Eastern helicopter market may still require some time to develop into a civilian market but manufacturers will not want to miss it. “I think in today’s market any potential market is important for any manufacturer, even if it’s a small number. They are all in competition for the ones out there and also if there are rulers and royals who want to have extras on their rotors,” said Drwiega.

Industry representatives and observers agree that states like Abu Dhabi and Dubai will lead the market opening for commercial operators and private ownership of helicopters in the Middle East. If you have your million-dollar abode on the Palm, the Pearl or the World islands, where will the fun be if you and your neighbors can’t drop in on each other in a stylish chopper.

 

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Banking & Finance

Driving fast for sales: Nissan stays ahead of the chasing pack

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Nissan cars once again topped the regional sales charts. That the brand was able to do this in Lebanon was down to the energy of local agent Rymco, which achieved its projected annual sales targets despite the destruction wrought by the month-long summer war that wiped out a vitally important tourist season. Rymco’s CEO Abdu Sweidan recalls a challenging year, how he snatched retail victory from the jaws of defeat and explains what drives the Lebanese car buyer.

E How would you describe the major rhythms or trends that drive the Lebanese car market?

Whenever you want to talk about the Lebanese market specifically, you have to identify two major segments: B2C, or business-to-consumers, and B2B—that is business-to-business. The size of these two segments is very interesting. B2C is constant and has been constant for the past 5-6 years. B2B is the segment that varies. If the season is booming, and the country is comfortable, then B2B business grows and takes the total demand for new cars with it. If the tourist industry is slow, and corporate business is down, then demand from car rental companies and fleet operators diminishes, thus reducing the total volume of demand in Lebanon.

E So what has the industry looked like over the past few years?

In 2004, we witnessed a peak in total demand for new cars in Lebanon, hitting the 20,000 unit mark for both consumer and commercial sales. In the years prior to that—2003, 2002, 2001 and 1999—we saw record lows, especially in 2001 and 2002, when annual sales were 14,000 cars in total. But since 1999 we have seen many humps and dips: anyone in an industry like this should be extremely cautious about forecasting or planning for the next year, because when you talk about 20-25% variances in product demand in any industry—if you are trading in shirts and cottons and undershirts, it’s scary enough, what if you are dealing with the car industry where 20-25% variance translates into from 5,000-6,000 cars a year? This is potentially catastrophic.

E Planning and predicting is life or death?

All car dealers have to watch their planning processes, because unlike any other industry, we have to plan our sales and productions one year in advance, and in some instances, two years in advance. And all our quotas have to be filled, we have to buy all the cars that we order irrespective of whether the market can sell them or not. This creates heavy pressure. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Are we going to sell them? Is the country going to be safe enough in three or four or six months or next year to be able to absorb this new model?’ The scariest part is really planning and inventory management, not exceeding the ratios that are acceptable in best business practices, which allow you to have inventory from 2-3 months—but that is highly subject to continuous sales. If you have interruptions, then your inventory piles up month after month.

E Is that what happened in Lebanon in recent years?

In the last two years, we witnessed two major hits: in 2005, we had the assassination of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the 14 explosions and the six assassinations that followed. From February to November, we were subject to vibrant—in the bad sense, not in the good sense—political instability that affected the sales rotation. So we were all—car dealers, as an industry—we were all affected by a high level of inventories that stockpiled because the sales rotation of the period did not match our forecasts. Again, our cars, our inflow, come to us irrespective of whether the country can absorb them or not. So we have to find markets, and secondary markets. Then of course we had the war in 2006, and all of the instability that followed. If you add the two years together, I can tell you that in the past 24 months, we saw no more than six to seven months of stability and they fell in the first and second quarter of 2006, the only stable period in the last two years.
 

E Did we perform in that period?

Funnily enough, yes. This non-event period saw the best two quarters ever for us here personally, at Rymco, and for the industry in general. The total market demand for the first six months of 2006 was around 10,000 units, so we heading for the 20,000 unit cycle again and heading for a peak.

E Do you normally hit 50% of targeted sales by the first two quarters?

No. We expect to reach 50% from May to July, so we were on track for an even bigger year, because June was big, and July was expected to be bigger as car rental agencies and fleet operators were gearing up for what was supposed to be a superb season, but then we were hit with the war, so all orders stopped, all orders were cancelled, while our inventories were already in. Like all car dealers, we stock inventories during the months of the high season. 50% of our sales happen in the four months of May, June, July, August. This is our big season and we were stripped of a major opportunity to exceed the 20,000 unit mark.
 

E Sales must have slumped to zero?

Correct. July sales were nil. August sales were niller, and September was nil as well. At least it was nil for all the fleet operators, which currently constitute about 45% of the total demand. So today, if you asked me, “Can you please draw me a roadmap of the car industry in Lebanon?” I would tell you, “Very simple. 10-12,000 units a year will be bought, no matter what, by you, by me, by him, by your friend, by your neighbor—this is constant. Business-to-business, however, will buy 8,000 units a year in a good year—in a bad year, it will go down to 2,000, because it is subject to business, not to a buyer’s emotional decision.” So anything above 10-12,000 units total is subject to the political instability and the tourist season in Lebanon. If it’s a good year, sales go up to 20,000, 22,000 maybe; if it’s bad, sales go down to 14,000 to 15,000, as we have seen in 2005 and 2006. Business-to-business has the potential for growth, and it is increasing, but the business-to-consumer market is stable. We don’t have baby boomers here—they are in Dubai, Qatar, the GCC and Europe.
 

E How did you deal with the challenges presented by the war, as a business? Did you close up shop?

No. During the war, we kept our operations up and running, with adjustments. We managed to divert most of our inbound shipments to other markets, though we did have some units stuck in Barcelona and Cyprus. After the war, we had four record months when we made offers. We had to offer extra value to the customer to sell the 2006 models. People were looking for deals, so we figured if deal hunters are on the prowl, let’s provide them with some meat. We performed so well that we found ourselves short—we had to buy 150 units from the Dubai free zone.
 

E How much competition do you face from the used car market? What are your strategies to woo customers into the new car market?

The market for imported used cars has diminished and been replaced by new cars, only because of the availability of financing, auto loan programs that are now available with at least 10-12 banks. And they all offer attractive rates, rates that are more attractive today in 2007 than they were in 2001. Interest rates from 2001 to 2007 have increased by at least 3-4%, but interest rates on auto loans have diminished 20% from 2001 to 2007. This is because the pressure of liquidity on the local and foreign banks here has forced the banks to find outlets for financing, and they discovered that auto loan programs are a secure instrument. So the ability of auto loan financing has migrated sales from the used car business to the new car business.

E Do you have figures?

In 2001, the total market for imported cars, new and used, was around 66% used and 33% new. Today, it’s 50/50. And the trend is continuous cannibalization for the new car against the used car. Safety requirements have become a priority, and cars are now tested for compliance on an annual basis. All this has added to the headache, the extra burden, for any adventure with an imported used car. Consumers now want a car with a 3-4 year warranty, one that is headache-free, worry-free, so they go to a dealer where auto loan finance is available: all of a sudden, your perception of a purchase is no longer the price of a car, it is what you can afford each month. You no longer think of a car as costing $30,000; you think of it costing $550 or $700 a month. The dealer is there, you have a warranty, if anything goes wrong you just go back, etc.

E How have the various car segments fared over the past two years? Which cars are still selling well, and which have taken a hit?

Over the past two years, one of the segments that has not been affected is small, family sedan cars. Typically, this car has a four-cylinder engine, 1.6 to 1.8, it’s economical and worry-free. Cost of ownership is low and repair minimal. This car can last five years without you ever having to worry about anything like the transmission or engine, and it’s priced anywhere between $15-20,000. It is sporty, trendy, and has a brand. The focus today is on the brand; people here are brand-oriented. Because of the high customs paid on these cars, it is the investment that the customers want to capitalize on when they sell the car again. They want to own it for five years, and sell it at 50% of value, and this is what’s happening amongst all major brands in Lebanon.

E 50%? That’s a good return after five years.

Of course it is. The second segment that is also growing is the small SUV. It’s a multi-purpose car. Again, they are usually 4-cylinders and again they are worry-free, again they have brand value and today, most car manufacturers are offering them. We love them here in Lebanon because of the high mountains. They are safer; they are higher up and they cost anywhere between $25-30,000. It’s better than buying a large sedan family car. It is dual purpose. The third segment, which is not surprising, is the luxury segment. The luxury segment in Lebanon has not been affected, even in the troubles of 2005 and 2006.
 

E So what took a hit?

Low priced cars, let’s say, below $10-11,000, with no brand equity—cars that are usually bought for the fleet business. The reduction in demand from the fleet businesses affected the demand for them, not because they are not good cars—but because they are used by the fleet segment and when they see a dip in business, they do not renew the fleet. So, if you are the owner of a large pharmaceutical company, and you need to regularly replace 100 or 200 cars because you need these cars for your sales reps, in a good period you change them every 2.5-3 years. In a bad period, you say, ‘I’m not going to change my fleet.’ This business is subject to the sensitivity of the country.

E But consumers will always buy, right?

Yes. The Lebanese consumer will spend more—not in absolute terms—but if the value of the car has a monthly payment issue. Take a $10,000 car or a $15,000 car: the difference is 30% if you pay cash, but if you are financing, it might cost you only $40 to $50 more a month. So you rationalize it, saying, “For $50 a month extra, let me drive this sexy car that I really want, and not the one I can afford—I’ll cut costs elsewhere.” As I mentioned earlier, today we buy what we can afford to pay on a monthly basis. So we have to develop those segments—family sedans, SUVs and the luxury cars—and work on a strategy to encourage growth in these areas. But you need to have the right product and fortunately, at Rymco, we do. We are well-positioned within every growth segment in the Lebanese market, which is good news. Not only is it enough to be well-positioned, we must be fairly positioned, so we evaluate what our competition is doing in these segments, and what our products offer against the competition in value and in price. In all these segments, we have discovered that we are very well positioned.

We have become more of a financial engineering firm than a trading company. In Europe, the biggest departments are financing and insurance. As an industry, we are still a long way off in Lebanon—we have too many family-run firms. We are the only one listed on the BSE; we have a board of directors, we have shareholders, and we have huge leverage with our financial institutions. We are well integrated, and they know where the money is going.

E Who is your primary market for financing programs?

We are targeting the $1,200 salary bracket because we know that banks will not give a loan unless the salary is three times the monthly payment. But we also know that he might be under financial pressure elsewhere, he might be financing a fridge, so we have to be creative in helping him pay. If we aren’t, he will go elsewhere, so we tailor a program to ease the burden with an annual balloon payment or multi-balloon payments or accelerating or decelerating payment schedules. I can confirm that 47% of Lebanese households live on between $800 and $1200 a month, not including remittances. Banks don’t care about remittances, they look at what you actually earn, so we have to get the buyer ready for marriage—we have to get him hooked up with a bank.

E But how are you convincing people to splash out on a new car in such times of uncertainty?

Leasing is our new weapon. It targets the medium-luxury, $40K-50K car buyer who has either left the country, or can leave and doesn’t want to commit. Without leasing, we would not have sold so many cars in the post-war period of 2006. In the first three days, our phone lines were jammed with people inquiring about leasing. In the past, leasing never really caught on here because the proper structure wasn’t in place. Even our partners were skeptical at first, but when they saw the response, they got on board. Right now, we have three more banks that want to join us in leasing, because leasers are the customers they want.
 

E How does Lebanon fit into the regional automotive dynamic?

Lebanon is the trendsetter. Cars that do well here do well in the rest of the Middle East. Our disadvantage is our market. The region sells 1.2 million news cars and our most optimistic forecast for 2007 is 20,000 units. That is if all the segments, B2C and B2B are performing, and we have a good tourist season and so on. But as I said, we are a brand volcano. Manufacturers are cautious, because they want their models to work here. Many tourists from the rest of the region rent cars here, and they might like them and want to buy them. Some brands are not launched in Lebanon for that same reason—manufacturers are scared of having an unpopular car on our market.
 

E Lebanon is more of a trendsetter than Dubai?

Yes, of course. Dubai is a consumer bully; here, we are a brand bully. Lebanese consumers are cruel—they can reward and they can destroy.

 

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Editorial

The last dance

by Yasser Akkaoui
written by Yasser Akkaoui

Last month saw the cream of the world’s leaders, businesspeople, economists and experts meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss today’s most pressing issues. And they are plentiful as they are urgent: poverty, climate change, trade barriers, famine and disease, to name a few.

But as the world works together against malaria, the digital divide and melting polar ice caps, the Middle East continues to be mired in its own set of anxieties – anxieties compounded by the vaulting ambition of President George W. Bush, whose presidency has been garnished with equal dollops of steely determination and colossal hubris.

Back in 2005, the Middle East’s leaders put impressive store in the issues that plague our planet, but the conflicts America’s influence in the Middle East has directly and indirectly fomented, have not only put real developmental issues (à la those discussed at Davos) on hold, they have stripped an entire region of its focus. It is as if the whole notion of development has fallen off the region’s agenda. We are lagging behind in our global priorities, and this will inevitably be reflected in our societies.

Nowhere has this been more evident that in Lebanon over the past month. While world and industry leaders held dialogues at the Swiss resort, laying the groundwork for progress and cooperation, in the streets of Beirut, old wounds were opened amid senseless violence.

So even as Fuad Seniora returned from Paris with $7.6 billion, there was only muted applause. We are all well aware that if the funds are used for a quick fix, with no meaningful attempt to ease internal pressure and seek to remove Lebanon from the regional political dynamic, it will only be a matter of time before another Lebanese delegation takes the begging bowl to Paris.

If that happens, there may be no one left to tango with.
 

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Lebanon

Stormy weather ahead for BMed as potential investors circle

by Thomas Schellen
written by Thomas Schellen

The skies between the Levant and London got a little cloudier at the start of the year, as airline BMed admitted it had suffered such substantial losses in 2005 and 2006 that its main stakeholders refused to pump more cash into the operation.

According to the Times of London, BMed reported profits of $10 million in the financial year ending on March 31, 2005. Indeed, the carrier (formerly British Mediterranean Airlines) boasted impressive annual growth rates through 2004, before taking an initial blow from increased fuel costs. But profits were hit hardest last year by Israel’s war.

Jokes in Beirut suggested that the airline should appoint certain anti-government Lebanese politicians as marketing agents, because every inflammatory statement and call for protests led to a spike in bookings on BMed flights from Beirut to the calmer shores of the Thames. Nonetheless, UK media projected 12-month losses of BMed by to reach or even exceed $40 million by end of March 2007. With Beirut as BMed’s signatory destination, it appears that instability in Lebanon over 2005 and 2006 and, above all, Israel’s 2-month blockade of civilian flights to Rafik Hariri International dealt a severe blow to the airline.

BMed flew its maiden flight to Beirut in 1994 and celebrated its tenth anniversary in the Lebanese capital. While the carrier has developed routes to central Asia— Baku, Tehran, Bishkek, and Yerevan are among its destinations—and recently Africa, its Middle Eastern routes have always been its bread-and-butter.

Conversely, BMed has been an economic lifeline for Near Eastern travelers who have business in the City. The carrier offered the highest frequency of daily flights between Heathrow and Beirut (eight flights per week before last summer), Damascus and Amman. BMed was the one carrier that gave Levantine travelers an alternative to the respectable national carriers MEA and Royal Jordanian, the not-to-everyone’s-taste Syrian Air, or cumbersome indirect flights.

Partnership approach

BMed adopted an approach of complete partnership with the United Kingdom’s big carrier, British Air as its business model. Using the same livery, uniforms, and booking system as BA, the BMed identity was downplayed until it was indistinguishable from BA’s to many passengers; the carrier’s destinations were limited to those ceded by its larger cousin—in Egypt, for instance, Alexandria became a BMed destination, but BA-serviced Cairo was no-fly zone for the airline.

BMed’s chairman and a major shareholder was Lord Hesketh, former Conservative Whip in the House of Lords. Privately-held and run with the tight-lipped approach of a firm that had no stock market obligations—and adhering to the Arab habit of keeping private ownership out of the public eye—BMed managers refused to discuss shareholding structure with the media. The standard line only stated that BMed was owned by British citizens of Middle Eastern origin.

When a UK newspaper revealed in early January that BMed was facing troubles, it also reported that the airline’s main shareholder was an investment trust for the family of Syrian-born financier and philanthropist Wafic Said, whose name is associated with the Said Business School at Oxford University and the Karim Ridda Said Foundation, which sponsors the education of young Middle Easterners.

As news of the investment negotiations became public, BMed management issued a statement confirming that the Mikati family of Lebanon—which appears to be in an excellent financial state after its sale of telecoms holding Investcom—was riding into town as the primary contender.

A subsidiary of Mikati-owned M1 Group was in talks to become the new main shareholder in BMed, confirmed the airline’s CEO, David Richardson, in a statement.

If the investment deal were completed, M1, founded by brothers Najib and Taha Mikati, would infuse close to $60 million in new capital into BMed. As an intermediary step during the negotiations, the Mikatis provided the airline with bridge financing of up to $7.5 million to cover immediate needs.

According to a statement on the talks, the M1 Group has business interests that include “property, telecoms, oil and gas, and aviation.” The aviation interest currently stands for a recent shareholding participation in a four-year-old Geneva-based airline called FlyBaboo that offers short-hop service in Europe.

The M1 subsidiary for aviation is M1 Travel Ltd, run by a younger-generation Mikati, Maher. In a previous executive role, he tried managing several of the Mikatis’ information technology ventures in Beirut, including software company IdealSoft and an embryonic cable television company that fell victim to the failure of Lebanese lawmakers to regulate the piracy-dominated cable services market.

Talks continuing

However, as the talks for restructuring BMed progressed through January, M1 Travel lost the exclusivity of the negotiations and may no longer be the frontrunner for buying into BMed. In late January, BMed, true to its secretive style and without naming the new contenders, said it was now negotiating with three interested parties, including M1.

Media reports in London alleged one of two new aspirants is bmi (formerly British Midland) the second largest full-service airline in the UK and a member of the Star Alliance. Bmi, which has also reported a decline in passenger numbers in recent years, serves European and long-haul destinations but has no overlap with BMed’s route network; like BMed, bmi may need new concepts to stay in the air.

A partnership with another airline might make better sense for BMed than working with investors, who cannot provide the same operational synergies as a carrier with potential to develop network relations.

However, a partnership with a BA competitor would raise questions over the future of BMed and BA’s tight relationship. In any case, BMed will need to decide if the franchisee business approach—with its inherently limited freedom—is the best way to continue its development, which includes plans for fleet expansion.

Should BMed opt for the M1 partnership after all, it will be required to prove to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority that the company is still majority-owned and controlled by British citizens, in order to maintain its international traffic rights as a British airline. Fortunately, several members of the Mikati family hold British passports, so this is unlikely to become a major issue.

The good news for the Near Eastern business community is that those convenient seats to London will hopefully still be available in the future. It remains to be seen whether under different ownership, BMed would put as much emphasis on the Lebanese market as in its first decade.

However, that question will largely hinge on the ability of the Lebanese to settle their internal affairs: the main issue pending is whether Beirut can pull back from the brink and reassert itself as a business and tourism center, or whether it will revert to an image of senseless chaos. The path the country chooses will play a much larger role in determining the appeal of ‘destination Lebanon’ to airlines and passengers than the identity of the next owner of BMed.

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Lebanon

Ad agencies enter fray in Beirut Campaigns spark debate

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Traditionally advertisement serves as a communication tool to brand and promote a product, yet in recent years its role is less and less restricted to the corporate world. Today, numerous non-governmental organizations, politicians, military, religious groups and even artists have discovered the power of TV ads and billboards to promote their cause. It is the so-called “information society” that rules and Lebanon is no exception, certainly not in the turbulent times it is currently going through. Most creative work for non-profits.

For both ad agencies and the public, it is an absolute blessing that they can also apply their creative energies in the non-profit sector. As they are less restricted, they often produce their best work. Take a recent campaign for Amnesty International in Switzerland. Under the slogan “It is not happening here, but it is happening now” we see images of human suffering and injustice, superimposed on images of Swiss daily life. In Lebanon, arguably the most visible and well-known non-corporate campaign are the “I Love Life” billboards and balloons we see everywhere. Designed by Saatchi & Saatchi in simple red and white centered on a heart, its message is a simple one. “As Lebanon and the region are increasingly caught up in a culture of violence,” said Ibrahim Eid, one of the campaign’s organizers, “we wanted to emphasize a culture of love and life. We wanted to offer people a window of hope: there’s more to life than politics.”

Notwithstanding its seemingly universal message, the campaign was politicized from the start by members of the opposition who claimed the I Love Life campaign was an attempt by March 14 to stigmatize Hizbullah and the downtown demos. Eid admitted that all of the campaign’s organizers are individuals who met “in the spirit of March 14, 2005,” yet most of them were not affiliated to a political party. “We truly wanted this to be a logo for all Lebanese,” he said. “The message was born out of a deep conviction that Lebanon’s only hope lies within civil society, not in politics.”

The I Love Life campaign was sponsored by a number of individuals, companies and trade associations, including the Chamber of Commerce and Bankers Association, while ad agencies and printers did not demand their usual fees. Still, no matter how much Eid and others emphasized I Love Life was apolitical, within no time the opposition launched a counter campaign.

This time there was no doubt whatsoever that the campaign had a political edge, as it was signed, “the opposition.” The design and main slogan were almost identical but added were the words “with colors,” “with dignity” and “without debts.” On the internet circuit, I Love Life spoofs appeared, “I love Aishti” and “I Love Capitalism” being just a few of the new takes.

Opposition chimes in

The trouble with the opposition’s campaign was that it bore too close a resemblance to the original. The public merely assumed that it was a new take on the same theme, churned out by the same people. An altogether more interesting non-profit campaign was created by H&C Leo Burnett for 05AMAM—Arabic for “forward”— and is an abbreviation of al-mujtama al-madani (civil society). 05AMAM also fell within the spirit of the March 14 movement and was also non-political. Its aim was to reflect the main issue underlying the political divide, which according to those within 05AMAM, is sectarianism. At the end 2006, H&C Leo Burnett created a series of billboard ads that have become something of a cult hit on the internet. The images show, among other things, a Lebanese car number plate with “Shi’ite,” a building for sale to “Druze only,” and a parking lot “for Maronites only.” A number of doctor signs show not only name and specialization, but also their religious background, while another ad shows business cards that state nothing but name and sect. With each of the images the accompanying tag line was, “Stop sectarianism, before it stops us.”

“With an eye on the crisis, we wanted to do something, yet nothing political, but rather something that would spark debate,” said Bechara Mouzannar, regional executive creative director at H&C Leo Burnett. “So, we came up with the ‘Stop sectarianism’ campaign for 05AMAM. At first, we faced some difficulties getting it approved by the censors, as it took them some time to realize the campaign was not meant to insult or upset people, but to make them reflect.”

In an advertising world which generally opts for the beautiful and glamorous, the campaign was unusually edgy and gritty. Surprisingly, there was only one incident. “It was a misunderstanding,” said Mouzannar. “The images should be seen in relation to each other. Unfortunately, in this particular case there was only one image in the area, and some people took it as an insult.”

Overall however, the campaign was an enormous success, not just within Lebanon, but around the world. For many a foreign newspaper, the ad campaign became the peg for a news or feature story on Lebanon’s complicated sectarian society. As in the case of I Love Life, the anti-sectarianism campaign was paid for by sponsors, while ad agencies, printers and billboard companies waived their usual fees.

The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) liked the campaign so much they sent a letter to all agencies to produce a TV ad, for which LBC would offer the studio, equipment and free air time. H&C Leo Burnett created two clips. The first shows a series of cars, each with a “sectarian number plate,” after which the camera slowly zooms in on a broken car with a Lebanese number plate. The slogan, freely translated from Arabic: “Drive the sectarian way and this is where you’ll end up.” The second was a critique of the state’s employment practices, which place maintaining the sectarian balance over qualification. Ad a powerful indictment of sectarianism

Elsewhere, Grey International produced a film on the same theme, showing people from around the world in front of their flag, stating their nationality. It ends a number of Lebanese, who instead state their sect in front of the Lebanese flag. Finally, the private sector had its say with “I Love You in Winter.” Sponsored by Aishti, ABC, Banque Mediterranee, Banque Audi-Saradar, the Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel, Virgin Megastore and MEA, the campaign encouraged the Lebanese (and any tourists that happened to be here) to shop like hell during the festive season. A similar campaign, by more or less the same group of companies, was launched in the summer of 2005 following the assassination of Rafic Hariri and the string of bomb attacks that followed.

According to Maya Matalani of Aishti, special discounts were offered and special events were organized, while MEA offered 23 free tickets. Anyone buying for more than LL 30,000 worth of products had the chance to win an air ticket. “The last two weeks of December were very good,” said Matalani. “People really did go out, although in downtown it depended a lot on where you were located. The area closer to Riad el Solh Square, where the demos were, did not do as well as other areas.”

And “I Love Life”? The billboard campaign has already expanded. After the New Year’s party, a new website is imminent. It will include news, a blog, forums, an article archive and plenty of interactivity. I Love Life downloads will also be available, with visitors encouraged to propose their own activities within the virtual community. Will the opposition respond? We will have to see. But as an I Love Life spokesman pointed out, “What better subject is there to debate?”
 

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Financial Indicators

Global economic data

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

OECD’s Development Aid Committee (DAC) member country responses to tsunami disaster

Millions of US dollars

The unprecedented humanitarian response to the Indian Ocean tsunami prompted governments, international organizations, private individuals, charities and companies to pledge $13.6 billion to the affected countries. Of that, $5.3 billion was from OECD member governments, and a further amount from private citizens in OECD countries.

Donor governments and the European Commission have committed $1.7 billion to emergency aid and $1.9 billion to longer-term reconstruction projects, to be spent by 2009. More than 90% of the emergency aid – nearly $1.6 billion – was spent in the nine months immediately following the disaster. For reconstruction, $473 million has been spent, leaving $1.4 billion committed and in the pipeline for spending over the coming years.

Together, Indonesia and Sri Lanka have received more than 60% of the funds committed so far.

Telephone access

Number of telecommunications access paths per 100 inhabitants in 2003

Access to communication networks continues to expand in all OECD countries. At the end of 2003, the total number of fixed and mobile telecommunications paths had increased to more than 1.4 billion. This represented a 6.7% increase over 2002 and an average increase of more than 12% in each year since 1998.

For the first time, however, growth was not occurring across all access paths. The number of cellular mobile communication subscribers continues to climb. An additional 69 million mobile subscribers were added in 2003. By way of contrast, some segments of the fixed connection market have begun to decrease. The number of fixed access lines decreased in both 2002 and 2003 and will most likely continue to do so over the coming years.

Since 1991, growth in access paths per inhabitant has been particularly high in those countries that started from a low base – Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico – and somewhat slower in those where the number of access paths per inhabitant were already quite high, such as Canada and the United States.

By 2003, all but four OECD countries – Mexico, the Slovak Republic, Turkey and Poland – had more than one telecommunications access path per inhabitant and eight countries reported more than one and a half per inhabitant – Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Luxemburg, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Among the five non-OECD countries, growth has been spectacular in China, which had less than one access path per 100 inhabitants in 1991, but more than 40 in 2003. For four of the five non-members, access paths per inhabitant are between 40 and 50, with India as the exception. Although there has been steady growth over the period, there were still only about six access paths per 100 inhabitants of India in 2003.

Arrivals of non-resident tourists staying in hotels and similar establishments

Average annual growth in percentage, 1998-2005

Over the period as a whole, the United States recorded the largest number of arrivals in hotels and similar establishments followed by France, Italy and Spain. In general, the larger countries record the highest number of arrivals, although Austria and Greece are relatively small countries with a high number of arrivals, and Japan and Mexico are large countries but record relatively low numbers.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in sharp falls in arrivals in the United Kingdom and the United States but did not noticeably affect arrivals in most other countries. Countries in central and eastern Europe have recorded strong increases in arrivals since 1990. The above graph shows annual growth in arrivals of non-residents averaged over the period since 1998. Arrivals declined in the United Kingdom, Greece, Switzerland, Norway and the United States, but grew at 6% per year or more in Turkey, Japan, Iceland, the Slovak Republic and New Zealand. Among the five non-members, growth was particularly high in the Russian federation and China.

Tourism 2020 Vision is the World Tourism Organization’s (WTO-OMT) long-term forecast and assessment of the development of tourism up to the first 20 years of the new millennium. Although the evolution of tourism in the last few years has been irregular, the WTO-OMT maintains its long-term forecast for the moment. The underlying structural trends of the forecast are believed not to have significantly changed. Experience shows that in the short term, periods of faster growth (1995, 1996, 2000) alternate with periods of slower growth (2001 and 2002).

WTO-OMT’s Tourism 2020 Vision forecasts that international arrivals will reach over 1.56 billion by the year 2020. East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa are forecasted to record growth at rates of over 5% per year, compared with the world average of 4.1%. The more mature tourism regions, Europe and the Americas, are expected to show lower than average growth rates. Europe will maintain the highest share of world arrivals, although there will be a decline from 60% in 1995 to 46% in 2020.

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Financial Indicators

Regional equity markets

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Beirut SE: Blom  (1 month)

Current Year High: 1,934.21  Current Year Low: 1,187.86

The Beirut Stock Exchange in the occupied Central District of the Lebanese capital saw trade volumes melt to new lows. The BSE entered the Christmas holidays 9.68% lower than the index had been at the start of the year and at a, yes, new low for the year with 1,182.69 points. While under siege of what politically correct locals call “political disturbances”, the BSE management put on a good face and announced a number of plans for service improvements in 2007. These plans include remote trading facilitation for brokers (operating in a test phase from the last week of 2006), as well as creation of a new BSE website that will finally provide live tracking of traded securities. Not to forget that the bourse will set up auxiliary premises at a location outside the Beirut Central District – for “disaster recovery” in case of emergencies.

Amman SE  (1 month)

Current Year High: 9,015.94  Current Year Low: 5,267.27

The Amman Stock Exchange, not to be left out of the regional contraction crowd, reached its new index low for 2006 a few days after GCC peers at 5,267.27 points on December 17. The ASE index ended the third week of the month at 5,357.11 points, 328.4 points lower than its November 26 close. The ASE said it will introduce a system for electronic initial public offerings in the first quarter of 2007. Royal Jordanian Airlines said it expects to be partly privatized by end of 2007. In a curious December tale, a hitherto unknown holding company held a press conference announcing plans to operate with $4.23 billion in capital and establish 10 new companies over the next two years, including a $2.82 billion real estate company in Jordan.

Abu Dhabi SM  (1 month)

Current Year High: 5,253.99  Current Year Low: 2,936.40

Trading on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market was unexciting in terms of volume and after a 64-point dip below the 3,000 point level in the first week of December the index kept around 3,000 points through the middle of the month before sliding into another minor downtrend in the week ended December 21, which it closed at 2,968.52 points. The ADSM management announced a plan to enforce stricter rules aiming to thwart insider trading, including new disclosure requirements for listed companies to publish the names of shareholders with stakes of more than 3% and an extension of off-limits periods during which company officers may not buy or sell shares in their companies in reporting seasons. After signing a cross-listing agreement with the Muscat Securities Market in early December, the ADSM is set to also enter a cross-listing agreement with the Lahore Stock Exchange.

Dubai FM  (1 month)

Current Year High: 8,013.99  Current Year Low: 3,997.29

After establishing a new year-low of 3997.29 points on December 4, the Dubai Financial Market went on a 350-point hike upwards, but weakened again in the week ended December 21. The new Dubai Financial Market General Index, which was launched in early December, closed the week down by 2.57% at 4,153 points. There was no indication that the market has settled and could not go down any further. The DFM added Bayan Investment and Markets Complex companies, both Kuwaiti, to its traded equities. Bourse officials said that trading in the shares of the DFM, which undertook the region’s first flotation of a stock market, will commence in January. The DFM management denied that the IPO was the reason for the slump in the market’s liquidity this month.  

Kuwait SE  (1 month)

Current Year High: 12,054.70            Current Year Low: 9,164.30

Trading activity on the Kuwait Stock Exchange was more solid than that on some other GCC bourses and the index ended the third week at 9,892.90 points, but not before the KSE recorded a new year-low of 9,164.30 points earlier in the month. The KSE supervisors took measures to temporarily ban shareholders in 13 companies, among them three banks, from voting in stockholder meetings on account of disclosure violations. Government decisions to stop ongoing contracts with some companies, most prominent among them the recently renamed logistics firm Agility (previously known as Public Warehousing Company) resulted in critical reviews of government announcement practices as Agility shares suffered an exaggerated drop upon the cancellation news found in a newspaper.

Saudi Arabia SE  (1 month)

Current Year High: 20,634.86            Current Year Low: 7,665.73

The Tadawul index rebounded early in the month from a drop to 7665.73 points, another new low for the year. But, after reaching nearly 8,250 points it did not succeed in staying above the 8,000 points level at the end of the third week in December, with the TASI down 53% in the year to date. Industrial group Al Abdullatif said its initial public offering on the SSE was oversubscribed 162% with $352 million in subscription amounts. Retailer Al Hokair debuted on the SSE after formalities were resolved which had delayed the start of trading. The Capital Market Authority found an investor guilty of fraudulent behavior, ordering him to pay a fine of $640,000 and pay back $24 million in illegal gains.

Muscat SM  (1 month)

Current Year High: 5,799.77  Current Year Low: 4,657.16

The Muscat Securities Market remained undisputed as best performing GCC bourse in 2006 in terms of index development, closing the third week of the month almost 15% higher year-to-date. The market, which had drifted slightly lower in the first half of December, climbed rather nicely to 5,659.31 points on December 21 in a 260-point rally over 10 days. A new brokerage, Al Amana Securities, received its license from the Sultanate’s Capital Market Authority. The brokerage, owned by Oman National Investment Corporation, brings to 20 the number of financial intermediary and asset management companies registered with the MSM. In a step to enhance trading activity on the bourse, which Omani regulators said has grown organically this year but could benefit from increasing volumes, the MSM entered a cross-listing agreement with the Abu Dhabi Securities Market. 

Bahrain SE  (1 month)

Current Year High: 2,347.01  Current Year Low: 1,996.68

The Bahrain Stock Exchange ends 2006 with low volumes, moving sideways from 2,152.62 points on November 27 to 2,160.95 points on December 21. Fluctuations of 35 points up and 45 points down early in the month marked the exciting points in the market that stayed true to its reputation as being disassociated from trends on larger GCC markets. Value buying, institutional buying, bargain buying were the buzzwords for the month whose third trading week was shorter than usual due to the national holiday. The BSE reported that corporate results of listed Bahraini companies improved year-on-year by 29.9% in the first nine months of 2006 and reached $1.26 billion. Ithmaar Bank stock was moved to the regular market after trading for six months on the BSE’s IPO market. 

Doha SM: Qatar  (1 month)

Current Year High: 11,279.98            Current Year Low: 5,825.80

The Doha Securities Market was in step with several GCC peers and weakened to a new year-low in early December at 5,825.80 points. In the third week of the month, however, the DSM sped ahead and climbed to 6,536.99 points on December 21 – still about 40% down year-to-date but 711 points better than its low. Doha Bank successfully completed its first subordinated bond issue, a $340 million issue under the bank’s $1 billion Euro Medium Term Note Program and the first such bond by a Qatari bank. Gulf Commercial Bank, another DSM banking mainstay stock, launched a new $275 million mutual fund with two investment classes for domestic and foreign subscribers. Gulf Commercial Bank said it will offer 120 million shares in a $275 million IPO in the first quarter of next year.

Tunis SE  (1 month)

Current Year High: 2,339.55  Current Year Low: 1,597.73

The Tunisian Stock Exchange kept on rolling in December, and although trading sideways during the month, its almost uninterrupted rise over the past five months made the TSE the region’s only bourse to approach the yearend with a new 12-month high. The Tunindex’s December 21 close of 2, 343.38 put the TSE 16.58 points up compared with November 27 and 45.09% up year-to-date. Over the past four years, the number of TSE-listed companies almost tripled. The bourse’s index committee announced the composition of the Tunindex for 2007, which includes 32 stocks that were traded during more than 60% of the TSE’s trading days in 2006. In FDI news, Dutch drinks manufacturer Heineken bought just under 50% of unlisted Tunisian beverages firm SPDB for $35.3 million and wants to build a new brewery in the country.

Casablanca SE All Shares  (1 month)

Current Year High: 9,109.55  Current Year Low: 5,337.53

The Casablanca Stock Exchange climbed to a peak above 10,000 points in December, with the Casa All Shares index reporting in at 10,132.61 points on the 13th of the month. However, the index dropped back to 9,583.96 points on December 21 in the market’s first slight weakening in a while. The Moroccan bourse went into the Christmas season still more than 500 points better than its position had been on November 28 but market watchers started to say that it may be time for an adjustment in the bourse’s path. Valuations have been driven up to a price to earnings ratio estimation of 19.5 times for 2006, placing Morocco now above PE ratios of GCC markets, although the Casablanca rally has so far not ventured into valuation territories as excessive as those scaled by the Gulf bourses last year.   

Cairo SE: Hermes  (1 month)

Current Year High: 68,994.73            Current Year Low: 41,965.37

In the lead-up to the 2006 Christmas season, the regional investor tip is go north – North Africa that is, not Santa’s HQ at the pole – and see where shares are moving north too. The Hermes index of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges didn’t quite make it back to the 60,000 points before Christmas but nonetheless came close with 59,800.23 points, and stood 2,322 points higher than on November 29. Deutsche Bank issued a Buy recommendation on the shares of Orascom Telecom, giving the stock a 10% upside potential. The MobiNil phone operator, in which Orascom Telecom is a major stakeholder, meanwhile announced a 46.2% cash dividend to be paid before year’s end. Government officials in Cairo said Egypt Air will be going for a 20% initial public offering, presumably in 2007, to obtain cash for its expansion.

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Retrospective

A chip off the old block

by Norbert Schiller
written by Norbert Schiller

Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein was more than just a ruthless dictator. Like most psychopaths, he could be likable—even charming—when he wanted. Saddam Hussein was a survivor. He came from peasant stock and learned early on that in order to move up, he had to make the right friends, use them and dispose of them.

However, his eldest son and “original” heir-apparent Uday inherited none his father’s manipulative charm, and all of his ruthlessness. Uday, who was born into power, used only fear to move through life.

Whereas Saddam was omniscient figure that the average Iraqi saw only in newspapers, on street murals and on television. Uday, on the other hand, was much more visible in person, with his entourage of shady characters driving expensive cars. He appeared in public mostly at night, going from one upscale nightclub to another. He was even known to crash the weddings of women he had previously been interested in.

During my travels to Iraq over the past three decades, I came face to face with Uday on a few occasions. The first encounter was in 1990, four months after Iraq invaded Kuwait. In order to stall the imminent invasion, Iraqi authorities rounded up all the male westerners they could find in Kuwait and Iraq and held them against their will at strategic installations they believed would be targeted by the American-led coalition. As international pressure mounted to release the “Human Shields,” Iraq decided to host an international Music and Sports Peace Festival as a way of gaining sympathy for their country. The host of the festival was none other than Uday Hussein.

People from across the world flooded into the Iraqi capital. A Japanese senator arrived with an entourage of wrestlers, musicians, and kite flyers. A group came from the US, claiming to be an all-in-one basketball/volleyball team and singing troupe. Even former heavyweight boxing champion Mohammed Ali showed up with assorted peaceniks and businessmen.

Uday was the center of attention, dividing his time between listening to impassioned pleas from politicians and housewives to release the “Human Shields” and attending almost every festival event. He beamed when Iraq’s national basketball team demolished the American singing troupe.

When the festival ended, everyone nervously waited to see if the Iraqi parliament would vote in favor of releasing the hostages. Was the festival a success? Was Uday pleased by the turnout? The parliament met in an emergency session and within a few minutes declared that the Iraqi military was now strong enough to defend the ‘homeland,’ so there was no need to hold any foreigner against his will.

The years which followed the first American invasion of Iraq took a high toll on the country. The sanctions slapped on Iraq hardly affected the ruling party. Instead, it was the poor and middle classes that suffered. Those who could leave the country did and with them went the vibrancy of Iraqi society. From one visit to the next, I would see shops boarded up. Restaurants and cafes shut down, and Baghdad’s once throbbing night life was reduced to the disco in the Rasheed hotel, one of Uday’s favorite haunts.

One evening a group of friends and I headed to the disco, hoping to cheer ourselves up. By then, Saddam Hussein had put a ban on selling alcohol in public places but the Rasheed disco was left untouched. After too much Johnny Walker Black Label, we hit the dance floor. As the only nightspot still open, Baghdad’s high society was out in numbers. Men and women danced to the Arabic top 40, seemingly oblivious to the hardships the rest of society was facing. Suddenly, I awoke from my alcohol-induced daze and realized that I was dancing alone, with only a few other men scattered across the dance floor. I stumbled back towards my friends and in a loud and boisterous voice asked where all the women had gone.

An Iraqi friend motioned to me to come close and keep my voice down; then he pulled me even closer and said in my ear, “Don’t make it obvious when you turn around, but the party-pooper just arrived.”

NORBERT SCHILLER is a photographer/editor

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Special FeatureTelecom

Disappointing performances Oh-Gero

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Both provide telecommunications services. Both have postponed going public. Both are linked inextricably to Lebanese issues. But there is much more than one tiny ‘o’ in difference between Oger Telecom, the Gulf-based multi-market provider of mobile and landline services associated with the Hariri family empire, and Ogero, the landline phone division attached to Lebanon’s ministry of telecommunications and would-be operator of a third mobile network in the country.

Would be – if plans for evolving Ogero into a modern company called Liban Telecom – were implemented with key components of getting the government entity ready for privatization and adding a mobile operator license to its portfolio to make it more attractive to buyers.

Lagging behind

In more real terms, Ogero is the entity that brought Lebanon public pay phones early in the 21st century, rolling out some 2,700 by the end of 2004. It is also in all probability – although the hypothesis has not been verified by global research – the world’s premier telecommunications services provider to confess on its home page that a customer service project of mailing phone bills to subscribers “is suspended for the time being”.

Other operators may have discontinued putting the bill in the mail because of paperless notification and payment; countless Ogero customers still queue in the “centrals” on payment date and never experienced the luxury of a mailed invoice. When the entity one day is turned into a customer-centric corporation and finds a way to deliver invoices electronically (rather than making customers ask for the invoice info), it will probably claim that it leapfrogged over the paper age.    

But that is a long ways off. Ogero is not going to push for an initial public offering in 2007. According to Lebanon’s Higher Privatization Council, the operator could be transformed into Liban Telecom in late 2007 and be ready for partial privatization toward the end of 2008. The privatization act could involve taking a stake in Liban Telecom public.  

Oger Telecom, by contrast, may very well do an IPO in 2007. The company actually stepped back from a planned $1.25 billion initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange and the Dubai International Financial Market in November, preferring an embarrassing last-minute withdrawal of the offer – which was overpriced by judgment of analysts – over the possibility that it would be a financial disappointment to its investors and greater damage to its corporate reputation.

Avoidance of disappointments has not been a priority for Ogero, or rather the decision makers who derailed the entity’s privatization with embarrassing repetitiveness since the national privatization debate started around eight years ago with plans developed by the administration led by Salim Hoss.

In 2000, for instance, Ogero was slated to be prepared for sale before 2004. World Bank (WB) documents show how the institution was committed more than five years ago to assist the government of Lebanon in readying Ogero for privatization, at the time expected to be “the next major transaction” after selling off Middle East Airlines with help of the International Finance Corporation.

According to the WB, the preparation for Ogero’s privatization was to include establishment and operation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), to act as supervisor of the sector and provide support for severance payments associated with the privatization transaction. The estimated mid-point project cost of these measures was estimated at $27 million, out of a $90 million privatization support package to which the WB was willing to contribute $70 million.  

On average once or twice per year since then, the issues of telecommunications liberalization, auctioning of mobile operator licenses, and privatizing Ogero have ruled the political and public debate in one form or another. The TRA was legislated; mobile phone license auctions were announced, delayed, called off and reshaped into management outsourcing agreements; Ogero employees protested against restructuring plans; network and service improvements were presented with fanfare and postponed without them. All that and more happened with the well-known triple effect of stifling investments into new technology, eroding anyone’s confidence in governmental announcements on telecom restructuring, and dooming the country to be an overpriced underperformer in telecommunications, period. 

In June 2006, the situation had moved so far into the absurd that a – however laudable – student initiative by the Lebanese club at MIT was hailed as the solution to the country’s telecom misery. The group had a plan to draw up another road map for making Lebanon “a vibrant and sustainable technology hub in the Middle East and North Africa region”.

The good news in the current situation is that the transformation of Ogero and privatization of Liban Telecom does not play a central role in debt reduction plans associated with the hoped-for Paris 3 donor gathering.

Privatization plan sabotaged?

As the minister of economy and trade, Sami Haddad told Executive in late December that the Lebanese government’s main revenue proposition for sellable assets in connection with Paris 3 negotiations is again telecommunications. But it is the mobile sector which, according to the government’s international advisors, could fetch $5 billion.

This revenue would be used for debt reduction, Haddad said, but equally important, the privatization of the mobile sector would be the “largest inflow of foreign direct investment in Lebanon”, creating new jobs and possibly expanding the mobile phone sector from the current one million to three million subscribers within a year.     

For Sami Haddad – who also says that MEA should have been privatized “yesterday” – the ogre factor in the Lebanese telecom story is political resistance to getting telecommunications privatization off the ground. “What stands in our way is that the TRA has been sabotaged by [President] Emile Lahoud. At every cabinet meeting, he sabotaged it,” Haddad said.

“The main thing for privatization is telecommunications and we have a strong parliamentary majority for it,” the minister added. “I think we should privatize the two mobile companies to 100%.”

In Haddad’s opinion, privatization of the mobile companies should take place through IPOs and that the government should ascertain, as laid out in its ministerial declaration on the issue, that no single person or company will own more than a stake of “x” in an operator. This limit has not been decided, but Haddad indicated there is wide agreement that it should be 50%. 

By reaching market penetration rates of 70% or more in a short time, private sector mobile operators in Lebanon would reach goals that the old BOT operators in the 1990s, FTML and LibanCell, had seen as attainable for the year 2000.

And here, high growth stories from the private sector, like that of Oger Telecom or those of Kuwait’s MTC and Egypt’s Orascom, can today serve as examples. They show how companies with ambitious strategies could set and achieve not only good economic performance in regional markets, but expand outside of the Middle East with equal or larger success. They also illustrate how to handle setbacks that may arise en route to implementing targets – as Oger Telecom did with its IPO withdrawal, which did not discernably dampen the company’s plans for further acquisitions and growth.   

Over the past five years, developments of the regional telecommunications industry have established new leaders in markets that were only vaguely defined a few years earlier. The sector’s rapid evolution has moreover shown that even several staid, state-owned landline companies and incumbents could transform into transnational corporations with tremendous performance under gradual privatization schemes.

In this, Batelco, Etisalat, and QTel stand in the same line as Saudi Arabia’s STC and Egypt’s Telecom Egypt. Compared to the un-dynamic bureaucratic bodies that some of these companies once were, their modern incarnations are centers of functionality that are well taking advantage of the region’s present favorable climate for telecommunication expansions and privatization measures.  

The Lebanese government will see a major headache dissolve if its plans for privatizing the mobile operators finally come to fruition within 2007. For the transformation and privatization of Ogero, a question will remain if the currently strong hunger of potential telecom investors will stay strong, or if price scenarios will change by the time the company is ready for an IPO and sale to strategic partners. But, in any case, Liban Telecom will need time and will arrive on a regional communications landscape long after territories have been marked and bigger fish have built their markets.

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Real estateSpecial Report

New city in the making The Dubai effect

by Executive Staff
written by Executive Staff

Across the Arab world, Gulf-based property developers are changing the face of the region’s capital cities – and their real estate markets too.

Dubai today is a new city in the making. The seafront on the road south to Abu Dhabi is a forest of cranes, all operating ceaselessly at the hands of imported labor. Further west, just behind the skyscrapers on Sheikh Zayed road, is the prefabricated skeleton of the Burj Dubai, which when completed will be the tallest building on earth. It is reportedly going up at the rate of a floor every four days, while the overall level of construction in the Gulf Emirate is second only to the Chinese city of Shanghai.

Some within the market find Dubai’s breakneck speed of development hard to comprehend. They say the pace at which projects are announced and constructed is unreal.

But so far, there is no sign of a slowdown, and the naysayers, who have long predicted a crash or were doubtful that the Emirate’s property market had real substance to it are watching on with growing incredulity. Believers simply point to the fact that Dubai is stamping 60,000 new residential visas a month, and all of these people will need somewhere to live.

Contagious development

But, while Dubai is a master of attracting media attention, it is not the only city in the Arab world whose real estate sector is being transformed by the huge levels of capital derived from the high oil prices of the last three years.

Right across the region, from Rabat on Morocco’s Atlantic coast to Muscat in the Gulf of Oman, property developers – and mainly those based in the Gulf – are literally changing the face of most capital cities.

Over the last three years, real estate markets in the Arab world have benefited from surplus oil capital, the repatriation of investments following 9/11 and the increasing demand created by urbanization and population growth within the Arab world.

An improvement in property legislation in some countries has also been a factor contributing to a steep rise in property prices, which in some Arab cities have doubled in recent years.

The most visible effects are in the Gulf itself: drive 70 kilometers down the coast from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, where the capital of the UAE is planning around $270 billion in new construction projects over the coming years. Some $8 billion is set aside to build a new island city that will house 100,000 people, while plans are afoot to develop several other natural islands, one of which will feature a Ferrari museum and another a branch of the Guggenheim Museum – as well as, so it is rumored, an offshoot of the Louvre.

This level of construction and development will also be seen in most of GCC states in the coming years. In Bahrain developers are responding to the chronic shortage of land by “reclaiming” it from the sea, the prime example being the $3 billion Durrat Bahrain development on the south-eastern tip of the main island that planners say will accommodate 50,000 people.

New pastures

Yet while such monumental levels of activity within the GCC will continue, investors are starting to realize that saturation is possible. In order to spread risk, new opportunities should be sought, and sought largely on home ground.

The signatures of gargantuan developers, such as Dubai Holding and Emaar, are those most often found on the resulting string of mega-projects, which are signed on a seemingly daily basis across the entire region. The latter in particular has embarked on a monumental spending spree across Asia and the Middle East, spearheading Gulf-sourced investment in real estate.

The fact that these are inherently unstable areas has so far not been a turn-off. Lebanon is probably the best example of a country whose real estate sector is able to shrug off conflict and instability and still attract investors. Abu Dhabi Investment House (ADIH), for instance, has said that it will push on with its $600 million Beirut Gate development despite current travails, supporting the maxim that Beirut real estate never loses its value – no matter what else happens in the country.

Across the border in Syria, hardly considered an easy or stable place to do business, Emaar has announced two projects worth a combined $3.4 billion. In Amman, the government’s decision to move a military base out of the centre of the city has created 2,592 hectares of prime real estate in the heart of the capital. Abdali, as the project is known, has already seen $1.5 billion of investment.

Into Africa

Further afield, North Africa is also attracting serious interest, particularly since it is often perceived as offering the familiarity of the Arab world but also a certain insulation from Levantine instabilities.

With probably the largest middle class in the Arab world, Tunisia has recently hosted a number of Gulf suitors studying retail and residential projects in the country. Emaar has lead the way – this time with an $1.88 billion marina investment – but Dubai Holding and other developers are also tentatively exploring the market.

Morocco, despite an economy still highly dependent on rainfall, has in the past year launched a series of large-scale joint ventures with Gulf-based investors on the Atlantic coastline in and around Rabat and Casablanca. Many now feel the country is on the verge of a property boom, given heightened interest not only from the Arab world but also from Europe, where developers see great potential in a tourist industry whose hotel capacity will struggle to keep up with demand.

And, while neighboring Algeria is still emerging from more than a decade of debilitating civil conflict, Emaar recently announced plans to construct a tourist development on the Mediterranean. Others will surely follow. Even in Libya, one of the most untouched markets in the region, the Dubai-based developer last month signed a deal with Muammar Gaddafi’s son to build a free zone in the north.

Is it viable?

So far, property prices in the greater Middle East show no sign of being dented by the worsening situation in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. If anything, these conflicts are fueling a rise in some places. Jordan, for example, is now a center for the Iraqi middle class who have fled the violence in their country and are pushing up property prices in Amman.

It appears that buyers and investors alike are indifferent to the potential risk that exists within many of the region’s property markets. Indeed, in some Arab countries real estate is one of the only segments of the economy to show any serious activity, which makes it even more difficult for governments to resist the advances of mega-projects whose less-publicized effects include raising wider property prices out of the reach of most locals, pushing up inflation and blotting out historical skylines.

Spurred on by double-digit yields and apparently undeterred by the swaths of bureaucracy and corruption evident in most of these markets, developers are likely to continue their investment drive across the region. This kind of inter-Arab economic activity should be applauded. But, whether the investment is the result of genuine financial logic or simply a bubble inflated by countries with massive amounts of capital and a pressing need to invest, is another question.

Another issue to be examined is whether these investments create communities that will guarantee the long-term social health of Arab cities. In Beirut, for one, there are fears that the luxury apartments sprouting up in the city centre will be empty for most of the year, only occupied while their owners visit during the summer holidays. Some projects are seeing the same problem in Dubai, with developers gradually realizing the importance of creating mixed-use communities as well as making good investments.

Whatever strategy is adopted, the urban landscape of the Arab world is undergoing an unprecedented period of change. Not even mentioned here are yet more giant developments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, all of which suggest that this could be just the start of a wider transformation. How that will change everyday life for the average citizens living in these countries remains to be seen.

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