Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Dubai World said it is in âconstructiveâ initial talks with banks for a restructuring process on about $26 billion of debt. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=at9iI__GZlek&pos=1 The logical consequence should be a worldwide equity market sell off.
1) $26-billion is "chump change"......unless the bad debt has been underreported. 2) The next big sell-off is scheduled for Monday, January 4th, 2010. Be there!
Early in November 2009, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also prime minister of the UAE, broke into English in a press conference to declare âI want to tell those people who nag about Dubai and Abu Dhabi to shut upâ. He also announced that he was proud of Dubai World and its âlong term commercial successâ, feeling that the worst was now over for its financial problems.
I think it was only around 35 hours, if these kind of problems can be fixed within hours I think there is a major problem for the entire financial market place in the future.
These'll be rather one sided credit talks. Dubai World is primarily invested in Dubai real estate. If credit talks fail the good Sheikh will just nationalize those assets and leave the creditors to fight for some of the crumbs that are left from Dubai World's foreign holdings. The debt isn't guaranteed because it's not the Sheikh's problem what happens to the debt since most of the brick and mortar that it bought is in his little Sheikhdom. On the other hand, if these credit talks fail HSBC will fail. So do the math.