Investment in Facebook

Facebook - don't know what it is?

About Facebook - Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Lots of my friends have it and I got an account too. I don't fiddle with it but just read what other people are doing in their life. This blog of mine is good enough. The facebook is just to maintain contact with friends or their whereabouts.

And if you think that Facebook is nothing or not interesting, read the following:-

* Microsoft has invested US$240M in Facebook's equities during Oct 2007. (source: Microsoft)

* Yesterday, Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong's richest billionaire, has invested US$120M in Facebook's equities via his foundation company. (source: Reuters)
Tags: Facebook, Microsoft, Li Ka Shing, Li Ka Shing Foundation

Financial Collapse

Just when I wrote about the financial effects on Malaysia with Citigroup's poor financial results, it came to my attention read that Singapore's Citibank branch could be affected. The Singapore office, being the key hub for the Asian market, employs about 9,000 people.

Citigroup staff rattled by bank's global lay-offs
By Gabriel Chen & Grace Ng
THERE was an air of apprehension at Citigroup's Singapore office as staff confronted news that the battered United States bank is axing thousand of workers across the world.
Some local staff from the corporate and treasury divisions have already been shown the door - part of the first wave of 4,000 sackings from Citi's global workforce of 375,000.
Anxious staff told the Straits Times they are also expecting the knife to be taken to their bonuses, which are to be announced soon.
'Bonuses will probably be announced next week, but nobody is expecting good [ones]. Expectations have been moderated,' said a senior Citi executive.
'Bonus?' said a bank researcher in his 40s, 'if you're not laid off, that will be a bonus.'
The bank is expected to eventually axe about 20,000 staff worldwide and sources said Singapore - a key hub for Citi in Asia with about 9,000 workers - cannot hope to escape the bloodletting, despite the region's buoyant economy.
A Citi management associate described the mood at the bank's Centennial Tower offices as 'rather ominous'.
He added that people are looking furtively around the office to see if any cubicles had been vacated overnight.

What would the probability be when Citigroup is axing 20,000 staff worldwide?

This will be a test on what I have posted earlier under Sweating Outcomes about God's provision.
Tags: Citigroup, Citibank, Asian Market, Retrench

Collapsing Financial Markets?

Citigroup, the largest bank in USA, needed to write down a record US$18.1 billion from their accounting books which caused a reported US$9.83 billion loss for the quarter ended 31 Dec 2007. Reduction of staff is the next thing to stabilise the bank. Will Malaysia's Citibank be affected?

Bank of America ("BOA"), the second largest bank, needed to retrench 650 staff from the corporate and investment banking jobs and required to sell off prime brokerage unit,. BOA's fourth-quarter profits could be down by 80% and 32% overall. Hmmmmm, wonder how is BOA Malaysian branch faring.

All this, partly due to the financial crisis involving the mortgage sector and it's slowly eating into the banking system. The above stated results are really bad and Malaysia should be ready for it. Malaysia's predicted 6% rise in 2008's economy could take a real beating.

Malaysians should be prepared for a USA recession and when it hits, it will really whack us. With rising costs in all aspects that could happen right after the general elections (rumoured to be in Mar 08), we have to tighten our pockets.

Those living on borrowed credits should take pre-cautions now and that's the issue which is bothering me as I'm hunting for a house. I'm sure the banking interest rates will rise above the current BLR rate of 6.75%. So, those BLR -2% offers are just blinding us common folks and will be meaningless when rates are increased. Banks will want to maintain high profits and when we didn't account for an increase, we will be caught with high interest and thus high monthly payment or worse, bankruptcy. Yeah, I do play real safe.

I met with a financial institution guy the other day to discuss on a potential housing loan and when he assessed my financial situation, he said financial institutions don't like people like me. HUH?????

What? With a low outstanding housing loan, no car loans, no personal loans, zero credit card debts, properly insured with diversified investments - this isn't good enough?

Nah, his meaning is financial institutions preferred people on high housing loans, with car loans, with many personal loans, with carried forward credit card balance so that the financial institutions could earn more. The more default payments the better. But if everyone is like me, the financial institutions will collapse.
Tags: Citigroup, Citibank, Bank of America, Financial Institutions, Mortgage, Housing Loan, Bank Lending Rate, BLR

Actual Credit Cards Liability

Upon reading the newspaper article on Most unaware of RM250 limited liability - Stars, found it perplexed that financial institutions kept quiet on this Clause 13.2 of Bank Negara Malaysia’s ("BNM") Credit Card Guideline.

It was stated that if you have reported on the loss of credit card to the financial institutions as soon as possible, you would not be liable for any expenses that was incurred fraudulently but up to a limit of RM250 only.

It was also mentioned that financial institutions have kept quiet on this Clause 13.2 but have added this instead "that all transactions carried out before the loss of the cards are reported to the banks, are deemed to be carried out by the cardholders".

One has to be aware of the time limit for "as soon as possible" as stated in BNM's Clause 13.2. I would reckon that besides the "as soon as possible", the other aspect is if you can prove your whereabout when your credit card was used fraudulently. How can a bank force you to pay up for a fraudulent charge when you were actually at another part of the city.

The financial institutions are declaring profits of up to hundreds of millions per financial year but they will still go to this extent of charging their customers fraudulently. Maybe that's how the financial institutions raked up those millions in profits, by profiteering from uninformed customers. Not uninformed but purposely don't inform or misinformed.
Tags: Bank Negara Malaysia, Credit Card Guideline, Credit Card, Financial Institutions, Bank, Fraudulent

Antique Copyright Law in Egypt

Remembered seeing this head somewhere before? Yeah, it's the sphinx located in Egypt.

Recently, the Egyptian government has cleverly thought of a money generating source of income. Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities will be passing a copyright law in the country that would made all copies of the ancient sphinx or pyramid illegal. In a way, pay up before you can use the replica of such.

There is a relief somehow whereby if your design is not the same as those found in Egypt, you don't need to pay up. As long as it's a same replica and it's being used for commercial purpose, you have to pay royalties. And if you wanted a replica in your large garden, a permission is required from the Egyptian government first.

Soon, this copyright law would be applied throughout the whole world. Does Malaysia has any of these replicas???? Can't think of any now. The only place that I could think of is the Las Vegas tourism area.

A good example is the Luxor Hotel and Casino itself.
Reading: Egypt 'to copyright antiquities' - BBC News/Africa

Tags: Egypt, Egyptian, Sphinx, Pyramid, Supreme Council of Antiquities, Antique, Copyright, Las Vegas, Luxor Hotel and Casino

Shell Citibank Credit Card

Shell Citibank Credit Card - A Cash Draining Card
Fancy getting a credit card that offers 5% rebate on shell petrol and 1.5% rebate on other purchases? If your answer is yes, then you are draining your money away!

The newly launched Shell Citibank credit card is not as good as its sounds - to enjoy the rebate, you must have a carry forward balance. Yes, a carry forward balance that you have to pay Citibank 18% interest per annum. But that's is not all, your so called 'rebate' is based on your current month spending. That means if you have a carry forward of RM10,000 but did not use the card at all for the current month, you get 'zero' rebate.

To be precise, this 'rebate' card is an old card - it has been around for about 2 years. But now taking advantage of the fuel cost concern, Citibank co-branded it with Shell.

This is how the rebate scheme works:-
First, you need to have a carry forward balance. The amount of that carry forward determines the rebate rate (%) that the card holder is getting.

Then based on your current month spend, you will get the rebate (as shown by the rebate table above) - your rebate is not based on your total carry forward balance. Repeat: your rebate is not based on your total carry forward balance, but current month spending.

In short, to get your 'rebate' you must have at least of RM2,000 outstanding balance in you card AND continue use the card. The outstanding balance is the net of previous month balance minus current month payment.

If you do that, every month you will be paying RM30.00, or RM360 a year for the minimum RM2,000 outstanding balance.

Let's do a simple math here:-
If you spend RM500/mth on shell petrol and your classic card has a RM2,000 outstanding balance, at 1.5%, you are getting RM7.50 as 'rebate', while at the same time, paying RM30.00 for the interest. The 'nett' profit for Citibank is RMRM22.50. Your are essentially "over paying" 4 times the price (30/7.5)

To 'break even' (so that your RM30.00 interest payment = rebate value), you need to pump RM2,000 shell petrol a month, or charge RM6,000 a month for non-shell related purchases.

The USD100.00 per barrel of crude oil won't kill you, but the Citi-Shell card will (Source: Smart Consumer Banking).

In my opinion, this rebate will benefit only the big spenders and if you own a petrol guzzling motor vehicle. Otherwise, the rebate doesn't make sense at all compared to the 18% p.a. interest that you are going to pay for the balance carried forward each month.
Tags: Shell, Citibank, Citi-Shell, Credit Card, Smart Consumer Banking

Corporate Strategies

Thought of sharing the humourous cartoon pictures extracted from an email.
Tags: Corporate Strategies, Management, Downsizing, Business, Sales Engineer

Lack of Accounting Staff

Just when I did mention that excuses could be abused if allowed for the delay in submitting financial results to the authorities was due to lack of accounting staff, another public listed company has submitted the same reason for the submission of their quarterly financial results.

Ho Hup Construction Company Bhd has now requested for additional time in order to prepare and submit the financial results. They were supposed to submit it by end of Oct 2007.

Yesterday was Gold Bridge Engineering & Construction Bhd.
More of such excuses to come?
Tags: Quarterly Financial Results, Financial Results, Ho Hup Construction Company Bhd

Ran Out of Excuses for KLSE

Gold Bridge Engineering & Construction Bhd, a public listed company in Malaysia, was unable to submit their unaudited financial report for its first quarter ended 30 Sept 2007 to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange ("KLSE") within the given timeframe.

The reason given were “loss of senior management” and “lack of accounting staff support”. If KLSE is to accept this then the rest of the listed companies will take advantage of this precedence.

Gold Bridge should have anticipated that the loss of such critical staff would have detrimental effects on its financial report submission. You mean to say their Human Resource Dept and the Board of Directors couldn't foresee such situation?

I have heard from many local human resource practitioners that their bosses' mindset are usually like this - "let them leave as we can find another replacement". Egoistic problem?
Tags: Human Resource Dept, Board of Directors, Gold Bridge Engineering & Construction Bhd, Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, KLSE, Public Listed Company, Unaudited Financial Report, Accounting Staff

Customer's Reaction on Customer Service

How would you have reacted if Customer Service provided at a restaurant was not what you had expected even though you have been a regular customer of that restaurant?

Many companies, shops and services have avenues for customers to lodge complains against bad treatments/services received/provided by their staff but what about avenue for staff who had been treated unfairly by a customer instead.

-----------------
Following is what happened at a restaurant which was about to open for business:-

It was just after 11am, and a female customer walked into the restaurant with her two children. She is a regular customer who often comes with her husband, who was parking the car today. The woman said: "I want my usual seat."

The receptionist explained: "This is just after 11am, and we do not have a full staff yet. Your usual seat is back in the farthest corner of the restaurant, and we will not be able to serve your properly." The customer said, "I don't get it. I am a good customer and you won't give me my usual seat. Well, if that's how it is, then I want this other table in front here."

At that particular table, the waiters and waitresses were quickly eating their lunch at the time so that they can start work soon. The receptionist explained: "Our workers are eating right now. We cannot just tell them not to eat anymore and make way for your party. I am sure that you appreciate the difficulty. We will be happy with any of your other choice of table in the front of the restaurant."

The customer huffed and puffed a bit, and sat down near the front entrance. Several minutes later, her husband showed up and asked her: "Why are you sitting here? Why can't we get our usual table?" The same explanation was offered, and there were some more rounds of abuse heaped upon the receptionist.

Then the husband decided that he was wasting his time in talking to a receptionist. He said, "There is no point in talking to you. I need to speak to the highest level of management in this restaurant." So the restaurant manager was summoned, and another round of explanation was made.

Here are some choice words from the husband to the manager: "You don't look like a restaurant manager ... you have a haircut in the style of street punks (="teddy boys") ... I cannot believe this restaurant chain would hire a street punk as the manager ... if this restaurant chain hires people like you as managers, they will be bankrupt before too long ... "

And then there was the final threat: "I had signed up for a frequent diner club before, but I want to cancel the card immediately." The manager explained that he was willing to oblige. However, club membership was premised upon paying HK$300 in cash in exchange for HK$300 in coupons.

If a customer wishes to cancel club membership, he needs to return the coupons before he receives the HK$300 in cash back. This particular customer had already used his coupons. When he heard the explanation, the customer said: "Give me the telephone number of your company headquarters right now because I intend to file a complaint against you and your restaurant ... do you know that I am a solicitor? ... you should be expecting to receive a legal letter from my office shortly ..."

Before the customer even made that telephone call, the manager had already called the company headquarters about the incident. This occurred several days ago, but the solicitor's letter has not been sent yet.
-----------------
Is the customer always right?
Tags: Customer Service, The Customer Is Always Right, Regular Customer

Daughter for Sale!

this NOT a sponsored post.

For those of you who are in need of money and so happened to have a daughter, you can sell her at this website, Marry Our Daughter. Register and insert a profile, picture and then wait for response from potential buyer from any part of this world.

On the main page of the website, a 16 year old teenage girl is for sale US$49,995. Is you daughter worth that much too?

You must be thinking why did I blog about this website. Am I getting paid for such introduction? Or I'm part of the syndicate? Am I in deep financial trouble that I require such sinful money?

Apparently, this website is a hoax. It was launched 2 weeks ago and has generated a readership of 60 million hits from all over the world. Do report to the authorities if you do come across any websites that sell girls or boys online as it's known as human trafficking!

Reading: The Bride Buyers- Newsweek
Tags: Bride Buyers, Daughter, Marry Our Daughter, Human Trafficking

Japan's High Class Cybercafes

I do frequent Kuala Lumpur's ("KL") cybercafes those days before I went over to Sudan, usually on Friday nights to show-off my combating skills in the Counter Strike game (a sniper myself) but not lately. Got too many things to do. In KL's cybercafes, the rate is about RM2 to RM3 per hour, would say all of it are air-conditioned with a quite comfortable chair for you to sit on for the next few hours.

They will usually have a good pair of speakers for each computer terminal. Even if your speakers are out of order, your neighbour's speakers on both sides would be loud enough. But some nerds would turn on their speakers to the max... as if the last person in the cafe needs to listen to it too. If you wanted some drinks, some cybercafes provide for it at a slightly higher price. Food? Nope. That's they have in KL's cybercafes.

When the Japanese goes into a business, they will try to outdo every single person in the world. Nowadays, Japanese cybercafes are not only serving students from schools/colleges but targetting young professionals or people who demands for extra services (don't think dirty).

In Japan, if you are the owner, providing simple facilities like those found in Kuala Lumpur would have caused your business to close down within a month. What do customers ask for in Japan? Japan's broadband service at home/office is superbly fast and what must a cybercafe provide to draw customers.

Innovative cybercafe operators are providing the following to 'steal' customers from their next door competitors:-
* Your chair is not just a chair but a massage chair;
* DVD rentals within the cybercafe;
* Piping hot shower;
* Snack selection up to 40 dishes;
* Manga libraries;
* Theater rooms complete with large flat-screen TVs; and
* Design that mimics a Bali resort hotels.

What's their rates like? US$17 would allow you to surf up to six hours with free flow of soft drinks and when you are tired from the surfin, you could get some magazines and comics from the library to read or have a quick shower (with toiletries and towels provided).

Cybercafe operators like Valics (under the Kaikatsu Club brand) and Aprecio have big-time investors behind them. This would be the kind of upscale cybercafes that would come to Malaysian shores when the investors are ready to dump their money into this business.
Tags: Cybercafe, Internet Cafe, Japan, Valics, Kaikatsu Club, Aprecio

How to Sell Your House at a High Value?

Now this is a picture (taken from Reuters), that shows a farm house surrounded by flood water form the Blanchard River cutting off all road access. But if you compare with the picture as below, you could sell off the property as an exclusive property, an island property that is.

You could also say that it comes with a full-size football field......wow..... but where's the jetty/helipad since it's a small island.

This was an island property put up for sale at a price of US$8.5million at Lavallette, New Jersey.

All depends on how you take those pictures for advertisement purpose.
Tags: Flood, Farm House, Island Property, Housing Property, Blanchard River, Lavallette, New Jersey

Malays Calling for Changes to NEP?

Read opinions from two persons who are well respected in their respective field.

* Tun Musa Hitam, one of the former prime ministers and former chairman of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission.

* Nazir Razak, the CIMB group chief executive and the younger brother of the current deputy prime minister.

Both of them called for a review on the New Economic Policy that guarantees the 30% interest for the Malay race in all business sectors, deals, transactions marginalising the non-malays in Malaysia and foreigners too.

This two persons who are very familiar to the business situation in Malaysia said that with such a ruling still in place, foreign companies are reluctant to invest in Malaysia and rather go to neighbouring countries which has no restriction or not 'forced' to give away shares to people they do not know. Malaysia's Foreign Direct Investment has been on the decline and lower than our neighbouring countries. With that too, Malaysia's competitiveness cannot match the greater business environment nearby.

The NEP does not affect foreigners only but locally, it deprived the non-Malays from earning their rights to participate in business fairly. My previous postings on the local scene affecting the freight forwarders and legal firms do affect the business scenario as the best may not be involved.

Asking for such a review is not taking the privilege away but we have to look at the future. Anyway, everyone is entitled to give their comments, so I think their comments would be read once only and put aside later on.
Tags: NEP, New Economic Policy, Tun Musa Hitam, Nazir Razak, Doing Business in Malaysia, Malay

Mattel is Bleeding Away

Call it bad luck, call it bad control, call whatever but Mattel is not smiling at all.

The situation is again the same. Mattel and Fisher-Price have gotten 2 contract vendors to do the work and this 2 companies subcontracted the jobs to China based manufacturing companies which didn't meet with the standards at all. That also took a number of months to detect. The toys, if it had been bought / played by the children, would have affected children across the world by now. With that, another batch of recalling again. This time, 8.5m toys. More to come???

Barbie-branded toys. The specific affected parts include:-
* Dream Puppy House – orange on miniature dog
* Dream Kitty Condo – brown on miniature cat
* Table & Chairs Kitchen Playset – yellow food on two dinner plates, brown on miniature dog, yellow and orange on potato chip bowl, orange on salad bowl
* Bathtub & Toilet Playset – brown on miniature cat
* Desk & Chair Bedroom Playset – brown on miniature dog
* Living Room Playset (deluxe) – brown on miniature cat
* Living Room Playset (premium) – yellow flower on purse

Fisher-Price toys recalled are two Fisher-Price GEOTRAX toys and one "It's a Big Big World" toy. Fisher-Price toys with specific parts affected include:-
* GEOTRAX Rail & Road System Freightway Transport – yellow headlights on train car and miniature ladder
* GEOTRAX Special Track Pack – yellow headlights on train car and miniature ladder
* "It's a Big Big World" 6-in-1 Bongo Band – painted decal on top of clear plastic on drum
Tags: Mattel, Fisher-Price, Toys, Barbie, Geotrax, It's A Big Big World, China

Sale of MV Agusta

The Malaysian government has stated that the sale of MV Agusta was executed after taking into account of proper decisions and research. The government stated that they relied on the research conducted by Credit Suisse Boston.

But when questioned on the ability to dispose of one of MV Agusta' renowned brand, the Husqvarna Motorcycles, at 93m Euro to BMW Motorrad International by the new management, the following was the response from the Prime Minister of Malaysia:-

1) "The rational of the sale of MV Agusta to GEVI SpA was to enable Proton to pay attention to its core business, which was manufacturing and sale of cars, thus the decision taken by the management of Proton at the time the sale was implemented was the right option in the interest of the company (Proton)'s interest and business"

2) "Proton till now has made several investigations through public sources and confirmation on the accuracy of the information thus far could not be obtained" - hello, you can read from MV Agusta and BMW Motorrad's respective websites on that sale lah, what you mean you can't obtain any information????

3) "Proton no longer has any business connection with MV Agusta. Thus any question related to question of mis-management should not arise" - you mean to say that any mis-management would be forgiven / excused because MV Agusta has been disposed of????? so I can make tons of mistakes but will be absolved from any punishments later on provided the investment MUST have been disposed of???? Wah..... new national policy. I wonder whether my company will adopt such stand also.

I want to give a standing ovation for such a response from the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Tags: MV Agusta, Credit Suisse Boston, BMW Motorrad International, Prime Minister of Malaysia

Another China Made Product Being Recalled

Yeah, seems that it's neverending with those Made in China stuff. Where are the quality controls? Who's supervising that? I would say those USA companies are partly liable for such happenings since the production of the toys were subcontracted to Chinese companies, the USA companies should have taken steps to verify the qualities of those goods.

You can't blame the Chinese companies directly. Putting the blame on them solely is so unfair even though they should have done their own quality controls.

Now, Toys "R" Us has to conduct this recall for their Imaginarium Wooden Coloring Cases where the printed ink on the packaging was said to be contaminated with excessive lead.

Excessive lead again? Not only that, even the black watercolor paints contained excessive lead.

How did it happen? Whom to blame? Who's involved? Who will bear the losses?

Let's see, Toys "R" Us has appointed Hong Kong based FPL Group, where their subsidiary Funtastic, had commissioned Danxiang International Trading based in Ningbo of China to do the production. Interesting!

Reading: Toys "R" Us Recalls Chinese Art Sets
Tags: Toys "R" Us, Imaginarium, Arts & Crafts, Made in China

Child's Guide to the Global Financial Crisis

This is a simple & funny illustration of the US sub-prime crisis.

You know dad is in trouble, and that mom is crying, and that the order for the Oyster 100 has had to be cancelled, and that the Bentley Arnage convertible is out, and that Graciela and Baby are on their way back to Manila and we're just left with Candy to help out, and that you probably aren't going to Choate after all, and it might be hard to figure everything out. But it's not.

Here's how it works. Think about gumdrops. They are no different than sub-prime home mortgages, and they illustrate how such a tiny segment of the housing market in the US could cause so much trouble for the world economy.

You used to be able to buy two gumdrops for a penny but now the price has gone up. They are a penny each. You want a gumdrop, but you don't have a penny. But I will loan you one because I know you want the gumdrop. I am not asking you if you have a way to pay off the gumdrop because I think you will pay it off, or I did before your dad got into trouble. I don't need to. But let's figure out if I can get some collateral. Collateral is a big word for something I can grab if you can't pay. That would be the gumdrop.

But collateral doesn't really matter. I know you signed a paper with your little six-year old hand that you would pay back the penny. Your father is rich, or was until the current unpleasantness, and I think you're good for it anyhow. So just like your father at the hedge fund, I have an IOU that represents the gumdrop. We can call it a mortgage.

But surprise. As soon as you gave me your little signature, I sold the paper to an 8th grader.

The kid who bought it from me has a great idea. He takes the gumdrop mortgage, and collects lots of them. Then he puts them into a fund that everybody can buy. A smart investment banker figured out in the 1980s that you could take lots of little IOUs, called mortgages, and bundle them together into bonds. These are called derivatives because they are financial instruments derived from the original mortgage. Then whoever buys them slices and dices them into different components.

The kid who bought your gumdrop IOU from me is like that. So what kind of derivatives can we derive from your gumdrop? Well, the kid who bought the gumdrop IOU split it into a whole bunch of new financial instruments. They are called collateralized debt obligations. He sells securities on the gelatine in the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the dye in the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the sugar for 1 cent. He sells securities in the aroma for 1 cent. He sells securities in the appearance of the gumdrop for 1 cent. He sells securities in the squeezability of the gumdrop for 1 cent. Your gumdrop, which you bought for one cent (although it's really only worth half a cent because of speculation and inflation) is now worth 6 cents.

But that's just the start. Each of the buyers of the gumdrop securities breaks them into component parts and sells them on to other kids. The kid who buys the gelatine security breaks it down into its separate chemical components and sells each of the chemical component securities for one cent each. That creates five new securities each worth a cent. The kid who buys the dye security takes a prism of the color and breaks it down into each of its component colors. The possibilities are nearly endless. Colors can be separated split into endless variations using color separators. Magenta and cyan are components of red. Yellow and cyan can produce green. Each one can represent a new security.

The kid who buys the sugar security got a great deal. Sugar is a disaccharide that breaks down into glucose and fructose. It breaks down after that into something called C12H22011, with the systemic name of D-fructofuranosyl or D-glucopyranoside. Each one of those is broken down again. Over and over. It's fun! Each of the people who breaks these down into individual securities says the security is backed by your one-cent gumdrop mortgage - the collateralized debt obligation.

In your dad's world, this is called "creating new financial instruments." By now, the total market value of the securities built on the value of your one-cent gumdrop is somewhere around 50 times that. But in a bull market, when everybody gets concerned that their snouts aren't deep enough into the money trough, they start to panic and buy more, forcing the price up even higher. So your half-cent gumdrop now represents maybe US$1.

Way down at the bottom is you. The whole thing is built on your gumdrop, but I remember that you haven't paid me the penny you owe me, maybe because you're scared to ask dad, who is very grouchy these days. So I'd like the gumdrop back. Unfortunately, you ate it.

There was another man who was a lot like that investment banker who figured out how to securitize mortgages. His name was Carlo Ponzi. But that's another story.

Related reading: Shrewd lenders spark US mortgage chaos
Tags: Sub Prime, Financial Crisis, Mortgage, , US Mortgage, Investment Banker, Financial Instruments, Bonds, Derivatives, Collaterised Debt, Securities, Carlo Ponzi

MV Agusta's Getting Better After Proton Era

Proton Holdings, a Malaysian company that has interest in the national car project - Proton, has disposed of its 57.57% interest in MV Agusta, a renowned motorcycle company to an unknown Italian company called Gevi Spa for a mere 1 Euro (incl. debts and working capital requirements totalling 139.44 million euros) way back during end 2005. I could have bought that company at a much higher price.

And lately, news came out that one of MV Agusta's motorcycle brand has been stripped of from its stable and sold of to BMW Motorrad International at an undisclosed price. The said brand being disposed of is Husqvarna Motorcycles, which is considered a renowned brand by BMW Motorrad and American Motorcyclist Association. I'm very about as BMW wouldn't have invested in a non-profitable business/brand.

It has been rumoured that MV Agusta managed to disposed the Husqvarna Motorcycles brand at a price of 93 million Euro. That was just for 1 brand.

The question goes back to Proton Holdings Berhad's management. Why did they dispose of MV Agusta for a paltry 1 Euro???? If people just brush it off by saying it's a management failure then I would say it's a total cover-up again or something fishy has happened. Who would in their right frame of mind dispose it at 1 Euro????

And then MV Agusta's new management managed to sell off a "renowned brand" for 93 million Euro. That sale would have met majority of the 139 million Euro required to cover debts/ working capital.

Not only that, after MV Agusta had freed itself from Proton, it managed to develop the following two events which I would say a brand building effort:-

* the joint-production of MV Agusta watches together with the renowned watchmaker, Jean Richard







* the development of the world's most exclusive and fastest production motorcycle on the planet, the MV Agusta F4CC at a price of 100,000 Euro, limited to 100 units only.

Me: Proton, what's your say in this?
Proton: We don't know.
Me: Ok, I had expected that answer as what else do you know.
Tags: MV Agusta, Proton Holdings Berhad, Proton, BMW, BMW Motorrad International, Husqvarna Motorcycles, MV Agusta Watches, Jean Richard, MV Agusta F4CC, F4CC, Motorcycles, American Motorcyclist Association

Brand Management Entails Cover-Up Operation

From what I understood, brand management is normally associated with the following:-
* brand promotion via good advertisement in the media
* exposure of one's brand to the mass public
* a company would get itself involved in various exhibitions to showcase its products/brands
* be a major sponsor in major events e.g. sports, seminar, forums

After reading on brand management which entailed the above, I believed at times, brand management must do some cover-up as well. What do I mean? Cover what?

Companies may have to cover their company's name or brand or logo so that their name won't be exposed in an unwanted situation. Sometimes lesser exposure is good too. Doesn't mean you have to be exposed at all times.

Take for example in the recent China Airlines' airplane that went up in smoke after landing in Naha Airport in Okinawa. Every single passengers and crew members managed to escape by the skin of their teeth. Days later, I think the China Airlines' management decided this .................... "go do some cover-up in the name of brand management". "Yes sir!" was the respond.

The name of China Airlines were painted over.

The wreckage that was 'toasted' to the ground due to a leakage at the fuel tankage. It seems that some bolts punctured the fuel tankage internally.


The China Airlines' logo at its tail-end was also covered-up.

So, is this part of brand management?

Maybe you will say...... ah this could be some safety issue or blah blah that required them do so .......








Just when you think that China Airlines was the only one, Garuda Air did the same when one of their airplanes crashed at Adisutjipto Airport in Yogyakarta way back in March 2007. That crash took the lives of 21 persons.

Garuda Air executed their brand management strategy too. "Cover-up wherever you can" was the instruction.

Learnt something new today. Brand Management entails cover-up operation too which means lesser exposure, totally opposite.
Tags: Brand Management, Brand, Logo, Cover-Up Operation, China Airlines, Garuda Air, Airplane, Airlines, Airport, Naha Airport, Okinawa, Adisutjipto Airport, Yogyakarta, Plane Crash