Not A Fire Sale

It takes but a few steps to walk from the site of the first bomb explosion that shook Lebanon in March in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination and anti-Syrian protests to the offices of one of the country’s largest insurance brokerage firms, Beirut Broker. The offices of the brokerage in fact suffered some slight damage from the blast in March and in a perfunctory nod to the heightened awareness for security, the doors of the no-frills office building in New Jdeideh now remain closed and have to be buzzed open during business hours.    Inside, the mood is cautiously upbeat, despite a very slow period in the last three months. “The entire retail business saw basically no growth in the last couple of months; that was not at all our expectation for 2005. In 2004 we grew and started feeling that clients are more and more accepting bancassurance,” says the