DH 25 April 2009

ESTE

CH NIQU

SURVIVAL

‘Wait-and-watch’ becomes panicPrivate bankers are not going awayMENA countries better off

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Vol. VI. No. 41 April 2009

K raveendran

editor’s note

Never a straight line

With the aftershocks of the global financial tsunami beginning to be felt one after the other, survival techniques would soon be

in full play. Every business, every institution and every individual needs to ready a plan so as to be able to come out of trouble as best as one can. The crisis is a fact of life, from which there is no easy escape for any one.

As far as Dubai goes, concerns of a deeper impact on various segments of its economy are becoming more pronounced with each passing day. Some efforts of inducing a stimulus have already been made, but any tangible effects of these moves are yet to be registered. On the contrary, businesses are bracing up for a more extended period of instability. That’s why survival techniques are so very important.

So, the short term scenarios are indeed going to be painful. The latest assessment is that Dubai’s population itself will shrink by over 15 per cent in the course of a year, which cannot but have a bearing on the overall growth prospects. One of the biggest strengths of Dubai, no doubt, has been its high-profile market, which means the effect of a contraction in size will be quite real.

But the positive side of the story is that one short term or a couple of seasons do not make up the life of a place. Life does not move in a straight line; it has to have its ups and downs if it has to sound true. It is a law of nature that those who enjoy the boom ride must also be prepared to face the other side of the curve. So, there is nothing ‘out of the world’ in the current situation.

april 20092

COVER STORY

CONTENTS

10 COVER STORIES

Where is all the money?

24 REAL ESTATE

Survival techniquesJob market players adopt measures to stay in contention

liquidity gap of dh110 billion continues to keep funding out of reach

28 Dubai population seen falling 17 per cent

‘Wait-and-watch’ becomes panicDubai property market outlook continues to be bleak as funding options evaporate

30 PRIVATE BANKSPrivate bankers are not going away‘Strategies of groups like Lombard Odier more relevant today’

34 RISK MANAGEMENT

Banks must do betterFinancial crisis has revealed the vulnerability of banks to severe market shocks

14

april 2009 3

41 INTERNATIONAL

The $2.5 trillion repair jobGeithner’s plan to fix the financial system is good; now he needs to execute

36 MARKETS

Concerns at banks’ asset qualityFrom a popular growth theme, Gulf markets turn to illiquid trade in a matter of weeks

44 TECHNOLOGY

Cyber criminals getting more innovativeTrendMicro report says underground economy flourishing in financial meltdown

37 ECONOMY

MENA countries better offWorld Bank update forecasts rapid deterioration in financial and economic conditions

APRIL 20094

Record $6.4 billion raised by PE managers in 2008

Middle East private equity fund managers raised a record $6.4 billion in 2008, up more than 10

per cent over 2007 and more than dou-ble the amount raised in 2005, accord-ing to Gulf Venture Capital Associa-tion’s (GVCA) 2008 report on Private Equity & Venture Capital in the Middle East.

Large size funds are primarily re-sponsible for this growth, with the average fund size in 2008 being $258 million, compared with $213 million in 2007 and just $177 million in 2006. This trend is driven by the need for more flexibility in structuring deals and the past success of large buyout transac-tions, according to the 2008 GVCA report, developed in cooperation with KPMG, and Zawya, and supported by Hawkamah.

Three regional funds have crossed the $1 billion mark, and as the report notes, the current economic downturn may make it more difficult for all but the most established fund managers to secure the successful closure of these larger funds.

Yet, there is also tremendous liquid-ity among regional funds, which are cash rich with $11 billion in capital un-der management yet to be deployed. The report notes that this ‘dry powder’, as it is called, gives private equity a strategic opportunity vis-à-vis target companies, given the limited scope of other fund-ing sources available in the current en-vironment. This liquidity results from both an increase in fundraising and a decrease in deals, with the number of private equity investments dropping by 22 per cent between 2007 and 2008, as

well as the total investment size, which fell by 31 per cent.

The report found that over the past four years, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the largest recipients of private equity funds, at 33 per cent, 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. The majority of funds are Middle East and North Africa (MENA) focused, with Turkey sometimes in-cluded as part of the region. Regional players are experiencing an increasing request for funds with a mandate that includes MENA, to expand and include South Asia, Southeast Asia and/or Af-rica.

The sectors of focus for portfolio acquisitions during 2008 were health-care, transport, power & utilities and construction. Healthcare likely would remain a top recipient of private equity funds in the next few years.

In terms of fund strategies, more and more funds are seeking controlling stakes. While in 2005, only 3 per cent of transactions were control buyouts, by 2008, some 26 per cent of transactions volume and half of transactions values were control buyouts.

The report is optimistic about the future of private equity in the region, noting that as an asset class, it does not have a short-term investment horizon and so is well placed to weather the cur-rent crisis.

According to Imad Ghandour, Chairman of the GVCA Information & Statistics committee, the economic fundamentals of the region remain strong and are supported by aggressive fiscal policies. Governments’ reserves will continue to trickle down to the rest of the economy – sustaining corporate

profits and public investments, he said. “A sober market will offer better

valuations, and hence better returns for private equity. Although the increased attention from international players that the region witnessed in 2007 may be disrupted, we expect the disruption to be temporary. As a matter of fact, we expect the robust economic perform-ance of the region to attract additional allocation from international institu-tional investors over the medium term,” he said.

Although fundraising in the region has been strong, when compared with the total value of announced fund siz-es, it is clear there have been delays in reaching target sizes. In fact, after ex-cluding one major fundraising, only 16 per cent of the total amount announced in 2008 was actually raised in the same year, compared with 65 per cent in 2005. Roughly half of the funds announced in 2006 have so far been raised, and ap-proximately $11.7 billion of announced funds in 2006-8 have yet to make a close. The report suggests that this is be-cause fund sizes are much larger, as well as recent constraints on liquidity.

While 2008 saw an increase in the to-tal value of sale activity, which reached $3 billion, most of this was due to one major exit of $2.5 billion; excluding this one-off transaction, sale activity de-creased by approximately 60 per cent, as did the number of exits, which dropped from 17 in 2007 to 11 in 2008. The report suggests that there will be fewer exits in the current economic climate, as funds won’t be able to achieve the returns traditionally targeted and exit options shrink, particularly with the sharp de-cline in regional IPOs. Trade sales were

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named as the most likely exit over the next couple years.

According to Ihsan Jawad, CEO of Zawya and board member of GVCA, private equity in the region is develop-ing in many ways that are unique in comparison to the developed world. Transparency remains a major barrier that hinders this mode of investment from becoming a strong component in the GCC financial system. More research efforts and collaboration is needed by all practitioners to elevate the current opacity of the private equity market, he said.

Of the 18 private equity fund man-agers interviewed for the report, most said they were established in the last five years. They expressed an expecta-

tion of consolidation in the industry, a decrease in investment, and lower portfolio company growth. This means portfolio companies will be held longer and fund managers will be increasingly active in managing their companies in order to add the maximum value.

Elaborating on the role of fund managers toward their portfolio com-panies given the current environment, Vikas Papriwal, Partner in KPMG’s Private Equity and Sovereign Wealth Funds practice, said, “With attractive exit options scarce at present, the focus for many private equity firms is now the workout of their existing portfo-lio – with operational improvements, debt restructuring and working capital management at the core. Discretionary

spending is being restricted, including expansionary capital expenditures, and business plan timelines are being reas-sessed, as entities look to weather the storm. However, no one doubts that op-portunities will exist once we are over the worst.”

The GVCA report compiles com-prehensive information and statistics about private equity funds and invest-ments across the Middle East, and con-tains nine articles on current topics in the industry. The 125-page report also provides a detailed survey of 18 private equity fund managers regarding their views looking back at 2008 and ahead to 2009. There also is a special section dedicated to sovereign wealth fund strategies and investments.

Globalization and techno-logical advances have made strategic alliances benefi-cial to companies looking

to work together. Recent international AT Kearney research has found that in-dustries which commonly use alliances as a means of collaboration for the good of all parties are: pharmaceuticals (18 per cent), high-tech (16 per cent) and energy (11 per cent). Other sectors with significant alliance activity include au-tomotive (seven percent), banking (six percent) and transportation and travel (six per cent).

An alliance can take several forms from a contractual agreement to col-laborate in any part of the value chain, to the shared ownership of a joint ven-ture with a specific purpose/mission. Regardless of the type of alliance it of-fers companies a way of reaping some of the potential benefits often sought in mergers. The decision of whether to work in a strategic alliance or a merger is based on careful analysis of the bene-fits and level of control sought through collaboration.

“Alliances, which are low-risk and

low-control, are just one option com-panies should consider. They are re-versible by their very nature and can take many different forms and serve a variety of purposes,” Dr Dirk Buchta, partner and managing director, A.T. Kearney, Middle East, said.

So far this region has already wit-nessed the first mergers in the real es-tate and banking sector. “We expect to see more strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions to occur in the Mid-dle East both within banking and other industries. The energy sector is one of the regional industries where we expect to see more alliances occurring either as a result of utilities companies aiming to achieve economies of scale, focusing on core business and outsourcing other areas into, for example joint ventures, or as an enabler to build up capabilities and knowhow,” said Dr Buchta.

The report from AT Kearney shows that alliances are very popular among companies in the same industry (60 per cent), with only 30 per cent of the surveyed alliances being between buy-ers and seller and even less so between players in non-related industries at just

10 per cent. “The reason for this is likely that

the value proposition is more straight-forward to all parties when in the same industry, such as co-development of a new drug component,” Dr Buchta said. “Whether it is a merger or a strategic al-liance the success will be determined by the quality of the preparation as well as execution.”

A good starting point for any stra-tegic alliance, merger or acquisition is to consider the benefits sought and then apply a unique set of criteria to evalu-ate the benefits from any close collabo-ration with another company, such as geographic footprint, access to skills and expertise, access to customers, economies of scale or scope as well as optimizing the risk portfolio.

“What distinguishes the winners from the losers of the current crisis will be the ability of companies to align their strategies to the new reality. This will, for any company, include consid-erations of how best to reap benefits from collaboration with other players, as well as the skills and capabilities to implement change,” Dr Buchta added.

Corporate alliances becoming popular

7APRIL 2009

The Dubai Tea Trading Centre (DTTC), a division of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), unveiled its new centralised tea storage, blending and value addition services as part of its ex-

pansion plans to accommodate the growing activities of the centre. The 23,731sqm facility in Jebel Ali Free Zone also includes office space

for regional and international tea companies. DTTC’s new facility offers services across the entire value chain of

the tea industry ranging from storage, tea tasting, blending, packaging as well as networking opportunities leading to increased trade. The new facility also provides dedicated individual storage space, free storage for a limited period of time, and temperature-controlled blending and pack-ing facilities for a wide range of teas under one roof.

“Tea is a truly global commodity – consumed among a wide array of peoples and cultures. It is fitting that Dubai, with its geographic advantage and world-class infrastructure, is perfectly placed to become an impor-tant hub for international tea trade,” said Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, DMCC. “DTTC has already made significant contribution to growing the tea trade. This new facility – a one-stop solution for the tea industry - will further boost tea traded through the emirate, contributing to the ongoing diversification of the emirate’s dynamic economy.”

DTTC’s success is demonstrated by Dubai’s encouraging tea growth, which is evident from the growing tea trade. In 2008, Dubai’s total tea trade reached 148.6 million kilos, compared to 144.6 million kilos in 2007. In the same period, 5.92 million kilos of multi-origin teas were transacted through the DTTC, representing an annual growth of 15 per cent.

Sanjay Sethi, Head of the DTTC, said the new facility is a milestone for the Centre as well as the global tea trade. As Dubai is neither a producer nor a significant consumer of tea, it is well positioned to offer integrated services across the tea industry. “We have already seen immense interest from international tea traders to avail these new facilities. We are con-fident that the new Centre will attract more tea traders and boost the volumes of tea traded through Dubai,” he added.

The new Centre has the capacity to store up to 5000 metric tonnes of bulk teas at any given time. In addition, up to 2400 metric tonnes of CTC teas and leaf teas can be blended per month. DTTC’s new facility also has the capacity to pack up to 250 metric tones of tea in tea bags every month and up to 900 metric tones of loose tea in retail format per month. These comprehensive services are expected to further help boost the volume of tea traded through Dubai.

In addition to providing market infrastructure, DTTC also enables tea traders to access finance through the services of the Global Multi Commodity Receipt (GMR).

The DTTC presently stocks teas from 13 producing countries, in-cluding Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Nepal, China and Iran. In keeping with its mandate to further increase the tea trade in and through Dubai, the DTTC also facilitates sales with buyers in the GCC countries, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the CIS countries and has plans to expand its services to other Middle East and European markets.

New blending facility adds to Dubai’s tea assets The global financial crisis has triggered a

deeper and more comprehensive scrutiny of banks by regulators working hard to

maintain the stability of their financial systems, according to Gulf Finance House (GFH).

Even in jurisdictions such as Bahrain, which have shown considerable resilience in the face of the current turmoil, financial institutions and the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) are working much more closely to monitor the effects of the crisis, which continues to unfold and evolve, said Dr Ala’a Al-Yousuf, Chief Economist at GFH.

“The Islamic finance industry, of which GFH is a prominent player, avoided the mess of the subprime crisis, thanks to its strong, asset-backed business models, which are rooted in Islamic principles,” said Dr Al-Yousuf during a session on ‘The supervision of Islamic banking and the role of the CBB’.

The ban on interest, speculation, trading debt and complex structured products prevented Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) from investing in the assets that turned toxic for conventional banks. The concept of sharing of risks and profits has also meant that IFIs were inherently more conservative than their conventional counterparts.

“What the current crisis has done is to test the Islamic financial system and reveal its strengths, which are inherent, as well as its vulnerabilities, which stem from its linkages with the global economy and conventional financial system,” said Dr Al-Yousuf.

However, banks based in Bahrain, including the GFH, have so far shown considerable resilience, he noted.

While regulators around the world have been injecting huge amounts of money to bail out some of the world’s largest banks, the CBB has not deemed it necessary to make a similar intervention, despite months of turmoil in the international financial markets.

“This speaks well of the fundamental strength of the banking system in Bahrain, for which some of the credit must go to the regulator for its effective oversight and supervision of its licensees as well as to the banks for implementing effective risk management practices,” said Dr Al-Yousuf.

While the ongoing financial crisis has shattered the light-touch regulation model, regulators around the world now need to develop a formula which strikes the right balance between regulatory oversight and corporate freedom, said Dr Al-Yousuf.

Crisis helps bring more regulatory coordination

8 APRIL 2009

Project Studio 1 Bed 2 Bed 3 Bed 4 Bed

Palm Jumeirah

100- 50 140- 60 185- 50 300-380 185-350 300-380

Dubai Marina

52 - 90 75- 00 85 - 150 140- 50 190- 50 140-250 190-250

The Greens 55 - 75 80 - 90 120 -140 170 -190 200 - 230 170-190 200-230

The Views 70 - 85 80 - 125 150 -160 175 - 210 175-210

JLT 50 - 75 65 - 120 80 - 150 130 -200 130-200

JBR 75 - 90 100 - 20 130 - 60 170-200 210 - 280 170-200 210-280

APARTMENTSLeasing Rates, March 2009

Source: Landmark Advisory

Changing market dynamics in the UAE’s real estate sector enabling Dubai’s residential

renters to upgrade their accommoda-tion or find larger homes at more at-tractive price points, according to Landmark Properties.

“What we are seeing now in Dubai is a shift benefitting and protecting the

rights of the tenant community. Ten-ants are having an easier time find-ing larger units for the same rate they currently pay, or choosing to move to more affluent areas. We’re also see-ing many pay the same rent, but with an increased number of cheques,” ex-plained Charles Neil, CEO, Landmark Advisory.

“Landmark Properties Consultants are now advising tenants on how to maximise their rental budgets through a variety of ways –from advising on ar-eas where rent is softening to helping reduce tenants commutes by finding properties closer to work. The Con-sultants are suggesting many ways to get more value for their clients’ given budget,” he added.

Rental property continues to come down in price, as landlords look to find stable, securely-employed tenants for their properties. According to Land-

mark Advisory, the research and anal-ysis division of Landmark Properties, forecasts for leasing rates are expected to fall 25 per cent on average for both villas and apartments from a peak in 2008.

Landmark Advisory published leasing price maps in March to guide tenants on approximately what they

on the Landmark Advisory website, www.landmark-advisory.com, as well as Landmark Properties website, www.landmark-dubai.com.

A studio in JLT that was going for Dh90,000 in the market last year, is now approximately Dh50-55,000 in today’s market. Looking at a Grade A one-bedroom apartment in Dubai Marina last year was about Dh150, 000, while today the same unit is going for around Dh100, 000. “We urge our clients to reference these maps as we have rates for both apartments and villas on our site,” says Neil. “Tenants have greater free-dom of choice and negotiating power than previously experienced in this market over the last 3-4 years. There are clear money-saving opportunities in the market and clients should lev-erage this chance to take advantage of the time.”

Building owners can also ben-efit from this rental flexibility, says Landmark Properties. Landlords can secure long-term rentals with guar-anteed income if both parties are mu-tually satisfied. Landmark Properties also recently announced their Prop-erty Management division, offering landlords direct services to maximise freehold returns.

Changing market dynamics in Dubai real estate

should be paying for rent in certain areas. These maps are accessible both

APRIL 2009 9

UAE Exchange’s Smart Pay, an industry-leading elec-tronic wage payment solu-tion seeking to improve the

salary disbursal system of companies in UAE, and complying with the directive of the UAE Ministry of Labour, is stead-ily gaining popularity.

Smart Pay is the first exchange house payroll solution product in the UAE mar-ket, which aims to empower the average salary earner through organized salary payments, bringing benefits of consist-ent, timely, secure, and convenient sal-ary pickup through the wide-networked branches of UAE Exchange.

Smart Pay attributes its increasing popularity to its inbuilt features, which benefit both the employer and the em-ployee, especially in the construction industry, where the workers are flung widely across the construction sites and labour camps, making the logistics man-agement difficult for the employer, and accessibility of payment centres difficult for the worker.

Smart Pay is a unique offering from UAE Exchange, the leading global remit-tance brand based in UAE with nearly

“Smart Pay is a niche product, which successfully addresses a critical area in the labour-oriented market of UAE. The product infuses greater reliability to payroll management, and has been a major success in UAE with many major companies forming part of our clientele. As yet another innovative product from UAE Exchange, Smart Pay has established itself as the leading payroll solution in the market.”

three decades of outstanding growth indices. UAE Exchange has operations spreading across five continents with a network of over 410 direct offices span-ning from N. America to the Pacific. It provides a wide range of products and services, positively influencing the lives of people through reliable and comprehensive remittance solutions. UAE Exchange has more than 6,000 per-sonnel deployed across the globe con-sisting of nearly 40 nationalities. It has a strong network in UAE with over 75 branches.

“Smart Pay is a niche product, which successfully addresses a critical area in the labour-oriented market of UAE. The product infuses greater reliability to payroll management, and has been a major success in UAE with many major companies forming part of our clientele. As yet another innovative product from UAE Exchange, Smart Pay has estab-lished itself as the leading payroll solu-tion in the market,” says Y. Sudhir Ku-mar Shetty, COO - Global Operations of UAE Exchange.

Company sources said the employer saves on man-hours, the huge paperwork

involved in the monthly salary disbursal, and logistics management by transfer-ring the onus to UAE Exchange which, by virtue of its network and technol-ogy strength, handles the volume effec-tively. Hi-tech in-house systems ensure prompt and accurate delivery. Specially trained multinational staff for disbur-sal of salaries at the wide-networked UAE Exchange branches and various camp sites ensure the convenience of the employees, they pointed out. Smart Pay benefits hundreds of thousands of work-ers and companies in UAE.

Smart Pay caters to the payroll manage-ment need of more than 1,000 corporates in the UAE market today, and disburses over 150,000 salaries every month across the country. Company sources indicated that the product plans to establish itself in other labour-oriented markets as well, based on the local market environment, and promises to transform into one of the frontrunners in the product portfolio of UAE Exchange. Further, Smart Pay Card, and cash dispensing machines are to be launched soon, which would elevate the product to a new level of convenience, they disclosed.

Secure salaries, easy payrollSmart Pay, the industry-leading electronic wage payment solution from UAE Exchange

Y. Sudhir Kumar Shetty, COO - Global Operations of UAE Exchange

PROPERTY

APRIL 200910

COVER STORY

WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY?Liquidity gap of Dh110 billion continues to keep funding out of reach

11APRIL 2009

The announcement about the UAE central bank subscrib-ing to $10 billion of the $20 billion Dubai bond sale plan

did create euphoria in the market, but as weeks pass without any qualitative change happening in the liquidity situ-ation, that excitement is surely waning.

The probability of bank loans being sanctioned, whether for personal pur-poses or for business needs, continues to be low as banks and financial institu-tions refuse to budge from their posi-tion that any new loan request turned down means another possible reason for discomfort avoided. Some of the Abu Dhabi banks, armed with fresh funding from the government, are seen to be more active with their loan offers, but most Dubai banks continue to be overcautious. The steeply hiked sal-ary levels required for qualifying for a loan have not been relaxed, and the new stringent criteria has played large segments of the population outside the banks’ loan business.

ADCB is leading the charge in this respect and is aggressively pursuing its loan business in Dubai, while the other Abu Dhabi banks are said to be concen-trating on employees of oil companies and other established businesses, which are relatively less exposed to the troubles brought by the financial meltdown. But no one is daring to touch the problem areas of real estate and financial sectors and the related services sectors.

Card marketing companies with multiple bank clients have undergone major downsizing as most Dubai banks have simply pulled out from the new is-suance market and restricted the opera-tions to the bare minimum. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to suffer as most banks shun any exposure to them in this troubled times. Small businesses are among the worst affected as the credit crunch impairs their opera-tions badly. “SMEs are getting squeezed from both sides,” acknowledges Marios Maratheftis, Regional Head of Research, Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan

of Standard Chartered Bank.Bankers are unanimous in their view

that the liquidity with their banks needs a sea of improvement. The Central Bank Governor has himself gone on record that there is a shortfall of about Dh110 billion in the required liquidity level in the UAE market. Loans with the banks currently exceed deposits by Dh110 bil-lion and this gap needs to be bridged, Sultan Nasser Al Suwaidi told reporters at a GCC banking conference in Bah-rain. According to central bank rules, banks are supposed to hold at least 100 per cent of their outstanding loans as deposits and their current lendings ex-ceed deposits by up to 13 per cent.

Although Suweidi indicated that an economic stimulus plan was on the drawing board, he did not disclose the details. “The current situation re-quires a stimulus plan for banks and the economy in view of this ‘gap’ which could be bridged in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance,” the governor was reported as saying. But he disclosed

Some of the Abu Dhabi banks, armed with fresh funding from the government, are seen to be getting more active with their loan offers, but most Dubai banks continue to be overcautious

that the government has not decided on buying up bank portfolios, although there will be “some arrangement” to help lenders.

“Buying up bank portfolios is still for the government to decide” not the cen-tral bank, he said. “There is not only one solution for the whole thing, it’s not only cash injection that you need to do, so you need to do maybe multiple things, like they did in the United States, in the UK,” he said.

Although it has been weeks since Du-bai announced the $10 billion subscrip-tion by the central bank, there has no further word on how this money is to be deployed. Nasser Bin Hassan al-Shaikh, Director General of the Department of Finance, who announced the central bank subscription, has only indicated that no decision has yet been taken on which companies were to be assisted with funding from the plan.

“There has been no disclosure or official mention of the specific compa-nies that will benefit from this funding. Such information will be made available once the funding structure has been ap-proved by the Department of Finance,” said a statement from the department. ‘‘The bond programme subscribed by the UAE Central Bank is targeted at supporting all affiliated entities, wheth-er fully or partially owned or affiliated in any capacity with the government of Dubai during this period of unprec-edented challenges to the global econo-my,’’ the statement added.

Market observers had suggested that the effectiveness of the $10 billion infu-sion would depend on how the money is deployed. Morgan Stanley, for instance, estimated that if the bond issue receipts were placed with the local banks, the gap

By K Raveendran

12 APRIL 2009

“We believe that 2010 would be recovery year for the UAE, GCC,

Asia and Africa, although it would take much longer for the UK, US and Eurozone to recover from the current global meltdown,” Standard Chartered officials told a media roundtable.

“It’s a global crisis, but it is not a crisis that has originated in Asia, Af-rica or the Middle East. Structurally, economy here is much stronger than most economies,” said Shayne Nel-son, Regional Chief Executive Officer, Middle East & North Africa, Standard Chartered Bank.

He said that the crisis in the Dubai real estate market could not be com-pared to the property market crash of Singapore, which took almost a decade to recover. The Dubai situation has aspects that are strong in the medium term, which should make a recovery

‘2010 would be the recovery year’

within a comparatively short period reasonable.

The fact that speculators are out of the market bodes well for Dubai property sector as it brings in the much-needed moderation, Nelson and Marios Maratheftis, Regional Head of Research, Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, pointed out.

They noted that the unprecedented property boom had all the resources being concentrated into real estate and related sectors, thus leading to the ne-glect of the real economy. Irrational growth rates are giving way to more sustainable levels and the importance of the quality of growth, rather than the quantity of growth, is being recog-nized.

The UAE is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and it should not just be looking at strong growth but at quality of growth, a sustain-able growth. After all, the UAE is a net lender to the world and the economy continues to be strong.

The Standard Chartered execu-tives observed that the region, with its strong fundamentals, would be quick to recover and at the same time should aim at a “good quality, sustain-able” growth instead of a high growth. Unlike last year, which saw growth in credit zoom to almost 50 per cent for the UAE in June, a growth of 10-15 per cent is desirable in the present situa-tion.

Maratheftis estimated that the

country’s 2009 inflation will be two-three per cent. “The key drivers of in-flation in 2008 – liquidity, cost of hous-ing and cost of food, are not expected to push it this year. I do not think in-flation would be the focus of attention. The risk of deflation, which we stand exposed to in case credit crunch gets severe and labour market deteriorates further, is there but it s unlikely to hap-pen,” he said.

“I think two-three per cent is a healthy inflation for economy to have. Now is an opportunity to reassess to ensure we have lower but sustainable rates of growth,” he pointed out.

He said the downside in the real es-tate is in fact positive for the economy as funds and human resources that were being directed to the real estate primarily can now be used for other productive sectors of the economy as well.

Shayne Nelson

Marios Maratheftis

13APRIL 2009

in loan-deposit ratio would come down from 13 per cent to 8 per cent.

“The effect on individual banks may be even more significant if these depos-its were to be placed exclusively within Dubai based financial institutions,” said Mohamed Jaber, GCC economist with Morgan Stanley. But he added that the potential systemic risk of depositing those funds in domestic banks may de-ter the government from doing so.

“Given the debt refinancing needs of Dubai’s public entities, it is highly probable that the government will need to withdraw the majority of these funds over the next 12 months. This may in-deed prove to be systemically risky if these funds were deposited within do-mestic financial institutions,” he said.

“Based on this, we believe that the funds will most likely be held outside domestic banks, with little net impact on domestic liquidity.”

Although the central bank had es-tablished a Dh50 billion emergency funding facility to help the banks tide over the liquidity crisis, this has not helped significantly as the banks did not find it a very attractive option. In the first place the facility was offered at a rate that the banks were not comfort-able with and on top of that the banks were reluctant to draw on the facility as they feared their rating would be ad-versely affected.

According to Shayne Nelson, Stand-ard Chartered bank’s Regional CEO, Middle East and North Africa, the banks were reluctant to use this option because of the worries that their credit rating would be negatively impacted. He said there was a mismatch between the nature of the liquidity available with the banks and the nature of the loan re-quirements.

“Short-term funds cannot serve the purpose as they bring in unhealthy li-quidity, which cannot be relied on for the long term,” Shayne Nelson pointed out. According to him, this can be over-come with the introduction of a perma-nent repo system.

If the Central Bank establishes a permanent mechanism for repo and reverse repo, banks can sell their bonds and securities to the Central Bank against their fund requirements and buy them back at a future date. This would offer banks a permanent plat-form for their liquidity needs, he said.

Though an auction system was in-troduced for certificates of deposit (CDs) in the last quarter of 2007, it is not active now.

By establishing a permanent repo system, banks will have access to fund-ing ‘on tap’ and if this can be run on different tenures of one, three or six months, banks will have a permanent arrangement on which to fall back for their liquidity needs, he pointed out.

Card marketing companies with multiple bank clients have undergone major downsizing as most Dubai banks have simply pulled out from the new issuance market and restricted the operations to the bare minimum

APRIL 200914

Conservative estimates put the number of residence visas being cancelled in Dubai as close to two thousand daily.

The figures for January this year were reportedly 86 per cent more than the same period in 2008- a stark reminder of Dubai’s fall from favour with expatriate jobseekers.

The Dubai Department of Interior Naturalization and Residency, however, clarifies that it is issuing more visas than it is cancelling. In fact, the number of visas issued outstripped the number of visas cancelled by more than 30,000 in the beginning of this year.

The increase in the number of cancel-lations of visas is a reminder of the ex-tent of the impact of the global economic

SURVIVAL TECHNIQUESJob market players adopt various measures to stay in contentionBy Ambily Vijaykumar

crisis on the regional market. Profes-sionals largely in the construction, real estate and banking sectors have been shown the door by companies trying to minimize the monetary impact of the financial tsunami that struck last year.

As the top boss at a leading recruit-ment agency in the Middle East puts it, organizations laying-off people are in many ways ‘shrinking to greatness’. That greatness is being achieved by ‘trimming’ the workforce, decelerating the hiring process and also by being very choosy when it comes to recruit-ing people.

If in 2008, both job-seekers and em-ployers rode the tide of a market boom, the same market has ebbed and has left many stranded now. So what will hap-

pen of them?Recruiters say that this crisis has in

fact given the market an opportunity to reassess itself. Both employers and employees will now look at long-term prospects. They are also unequivocal that with increased competition only the best will survive these times.

But how does one define ‘the best’? “A candidate who is very well qualified and can multi-task,” says Rabea Ataya, CEO of Bayt.com. That does not mean that there is an opportunity for each one of them. It is a shrinking market and so the competition is stiff.

In 2008 job seekers were flocking to Dubai and employers were blindly filling in the blanks without assessing requirements or capabilities. Both are

COVER STORY

15APRIL 2009

paying a price today. There are now re-ports that Dubai is fast losing favour as the preferred job destination.

Recruiters are split in their reaction to these reports. Some do not attach any credibility to them. “The amount of talent seeking to be in Dubai is higher than ever before, despite the crisis,” says Rabea. With Dubai being plugged into the global economy more than any other emirate, the impact of any global development is bound to be felt here more, they say.

Those who differ say that Dubai’s rhythm of growth will now be consid-erably curtailed. “Instead of going at 200 kmph, it will now come down to around 30 kmph,” says Dr Hussein Al Baidany of Gulf Human Resources De-

velopment in Abu Dhabi. For job-seekers though, the op-

tions have significantly narrowed. The share of the job market pie is getting smaller with leading recruiters regis-tering a doubling of applications they received this year in comparison to 2008. Recruiters however say that is not necessarily a reflection of large scale

unemployment, but of the prevailing uncertainty in the market. People who have jobs are also flocking to test the market.

In terms of the business for recruit-ers, being able to facilitate a growth in the job market this year has hence be-come more challenging and ambitious. The situation has been worsened by

Organizations are in many ways ‘shrinking to greatness’ by ‘trimming’ the workforce, decelerating hiring process and also by being very choosy when it comes to recruiting

16 APRIL 200916 APRIL 2009

Business Aid Centre (BAC), a lead-ing recruitment agency of the re-gion, has no expectations of an

unrealistic growth that was characterized by 2007 or 2008. The company is instead falling back on the ‘strong relationship’ it has cultivated with clients over the last 30 years to back the business this year.

The job market in general is ‘less buoy-ant’, says Siobhan O’Reilly, Recruitment Manager at BAC. “The market is experi-encing a correction after a period of ex-tremely rapid growth. This is a natural de-velopment but involves a difficult process of adjustment by companies as they look to reduce costs,” she adds. The adjustment has meant that there are larger redundan-cies in some sectors and fewer opportuni-ties in others.

Competition has heightened and with it the power of bargaining has shifted from the candidate to the client. The employer, who was until last year rolling out the red carpet to candidates, is calling the shots now. As a result the rapid wage inflation that had become a common feature in the market has been reigned in.

This is not to say that worthy can-didates are not being paid well, but the bargaining power of job-seekers has been greatly reduced. In the current economic climate, candidates will have to settle for lesser pay packages and more responsibil-ities in a new job. Those working will also have to settle for a cut if their company takes the step to scale down expenses. Re-

It’s a waiting game‘A correction after extremely rapid growth is natural’

cruiters in the UAE say that in times like these, it is better to accept a pay cut than lose the job.

Dubai’s breakneck growth over the last few years had made it vulnerable, say recruiters, because the growth was un-sustainable over a long period. The bubble had to crash, because it was largely built on real estate and construction sector. The market at the moment is experienc-ing a correction that was long due. This had led to job losses across the sector with the Dubai job market taking a severe hit.

“Dubai was experiencing the fastest growth rates, so the correction has been felt most acutely here. This will have an effect on the UAE as a whole, but the gen-eral picture in Abu Dhabi remains posi-tive,” says O’Reilly.

The other places in the Middle East that are faring better include Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Another reality staring the region in the face is the large number of people who are leaving. In Dubai this situation is more acute than in the rest of the UAE, because the emirate employed the largest number of its workforce in the construction and real estate sectors.

“This is not simply a local or a regional problem, but an extension of the global economic difficulties. The regional eco-nomic picture still looks more positive than the recessionary situation in the USA and Europe,” adds O’Reilly.

By a positive picture, the recruiter means that there is no total freeze on em-ployment opportunities. While organisa-tions might not be creating new posts by the day, they are hiring new staff or look-ing to replace employees who leave.

This has resulted in the onus shift-ing to the candidate to prove credentials. “Companies are going to be more selective regarding current and potential staff. In-dividuals who are highly productive and flexible will always be well-placed. Poten-tial employees will be required to really demonstrate the value they can bring to an organisation,” O’Reilly informs.

Companies are looking for value for

money when it comes to hiring talent. They will now be more judicious in se-lecting employees. Qualified candidates with a consistent track record will get preference over the rest. With cost-cut-ting being the order of the day, candi-dates who can multi-task will find them-selves in a better position to get a job or switch companies.

Candidates are also willing to change tracks. Certain sectors that have nar-rowed down recruitments to the bare minimum will force many candidates to look for other options. But BAC does not believe that this option will work well.

“It is much harder to switch profes-sions or industries when there is no skills shortage in that area. The current situation is therefore likely to make such a move more challenging,” O’Reilly ex-plains.

Despite the gloom in two of the larg-est sectors in the economy, BAC be-lieves there are sectors that offer scope for growth this year. This includes the FMCG, health and pharmaceuticals sectors. For the remaining sectors it is a matter of time before they start pick-ing up. By extension that means that the badly affected sectors will have to wait for the market to bounce back.

When will that happen? “It is very dif-ficult to say as there are so many factors to consider. The price of oil is obviously an important factor, but the general in-ternational financial climate will have an impact regionally. Another factor is when the real estate market improves and projects start moving again. The steep decline in construction costs will ultimately start to make some projects viable again,” argues O’Reilly.

Till then recruiters, candidates and employers will have to go through the waiting game. Recruiters are also hope-ful that once the market gets back on track, it will open up new sectors for growth and with it a definite possibility of the job market revival in the UAE.

Ambily Vijaykumar

Siobhan O’Reilly

17APRIL 2009

the severe beating several key sectors have taken in the financial turmoil and hence have virtually frozen further in-take of manpower.

Banks in the US and Europe that triggered the financial crisis, as also their counterparts in the rest of the world, are fighting for survival. Re-cruitments in the financial sector in Dubai that has had a more than com-fortable leaning towards the real estate sector have almost ground to a halt.

Development majors in the coun-try have been plagued by lay-offs, with several big budget projects being either cancelled or postponed. Recruiters also say that the cropping is happening on the lower and middle end of the job market. The top brass has been rela-tively left unharmed.

The logic behind that being in a situation like this, experience and consistency are most valued. This has, however, not stopped the many who have survived the axing from looking for greener pastures.

People are trying to ‘cover uncer-tainties’ by finding out what else is on offer in the market. So if it is their turn next, they are not caught unawares. Re-cruiters say they don’t encourage peo-ple to switch jobs unless they see the writing on the wall.

Many people in Dubai have a simi-lar story to tell. They have reached a dead end with commitments still on hand and are now running from pil-lar to post in search of an opportunity that could help them either repay an outstanding loan or pay for their rent or children’s education. So has the situ-ation now become a matter of survival for people in the region?

“One of the issues that is plagu-ing the Gulf is the high amount of in-debtedness people are going through, thanks to the practices of the boom days with regard to car loans, personal loans, credit cards and the likes,” says Boyden Middle East Managing Direc-tor Magdy El Zein. In several cases,

that is forcing people to even switch professions, and in many cases even to lower their salary expectations that do not justify either their qualification or experience.

Though recruiters say they are be-ing flooded with applications from candidates, employers have changed their recruitment strategies. In times

when everyone is trying to cut cost, prospective employers are opting to sift through applications available with various recruitment agencies and select a candidate rather than advertise for the post.

“A vast majority of my clients are us-ing the database search to look for a tal-ent pool,” says Rabea Ataya.

Bayt says there has been a decrease in employers advertising for positions. The reason being offered is that in the process of ‘rationalizing’ their staff, employers do not wish to advertise for a post that has been left vacant because someone has been laid off.

Moreover, employers felt that the database access is a far more confiden-tial way to assess what they want. This many recruiters believe has resulted in the balance of power shifting from the candidate to the client.

“The positive aspect to this change has been an end to the rapid wage in-flation that was prevalent in the region until recently,” says Cliff Single of re-cruitment agency BAC.

Till last year, candidates could bar-gain for very high wages since oppor-

Recruiters say that with Dubai being plugged into the global economy more than any other emirate, the impact of any global development to be felt here will also be more

18 APRIL 2009

tunities were abundant and clients were on the lookout to either poach from their competitors or to pay any price to retain talent. That has surely been cur-tailed now.

A large part of the employment still being generated is through the need to fill up vacant posts rather than new posts being created due to any company expansion. Companies are looking for ‘value for money’ and hence candidate requirements have also become very specific.

The question being asked now is ‘what can a potential employee bring to an organisation’ rather than ‘what an organisation can offer to an employee’, says Cliff Single of BAC.

Real estate, finance, construction, basically sectors that require huge capi-tal injection, are the ones that are not faring well currently, largely dimin-ishing the recruitment possibilities in these sectors. Alternatively recruiters are voting for the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), health and pharma-ceutical industry as well as insurance and some professional services like the legal sector and the debt collection

companies to do well in these times. “Trading, especially since in the Gulf

wealth is held by historically trading families, as well as manufacturing in countries like Saudi will continue to do well,” says Magdy El Zein of Boyden.

“The oil and natural gas sector rep-resents the most critical sector of the country. There have always been calcu-lated steps of expansion and production in this sector unlike the real estate and construction sector which registered a meteoric growth in the boom times. I can safely say that the oil and natural gas sector has so far not been as badly affected as the other sectors,” says Dr Al Baidany of GHRDC.

The shrinkage in the job market can be assessed by the fact that all recruiters say keeping up to their recruitment fig-ures of 2008 will be a challenge. Hence they are advocating flexibility and far greater commitment as the key traits for people to stay in the market.

Even relocating to another country if a good opportunity comes ones, way might not be a bad idea at this time, they say. Despite recession being a glo-bal phenomenon, recruiters say some

countries in the Middle East have been less affected by the sudden dip in the market since their exposure to the criti-cally affected sectors has been the least. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Lebanon, Qatar and Abu Dhabi get the recruiters’ votes in terms of job market performance this year.

Most recruiters are giving the mar-ket a couple more years to get back on track, but say the new market will be unlike the ‘boom years’ market of 2007-08. For Dubai in particular, they are unable to put a time-frame on when the present market will bottom. But with construction costs falling, they say it will be a matter of time before some projects become viable again for the emirate that has a huge stake in the real estate and construction sector that has seen massive retrenchment.

Interestingly none of the recruiters we spoke to said they have been hit by lay-offs. Their way of cutting cost has not been to reduce staff size but ex-penses. Anything that is not generating revenue is not required, they say; a prin-ciple that most companies are living by today.

19APRIL 2009

Recession is a time when you work hard and earn less. It is the time to manage expecta-

tions: a reality that Boyden Middle East, a recruiter that exclusively deals in executive level recruitment, is advo-cating all candidates to internalize.

The recruitment industry, Boyden says, is not as ‘dynamic’ as last year. But that is also a relative assessment. “Countries which have been affected severely by the downturn in certain in-dustry sectors are struggling as com-pared to other countries that were not advanced in developing that industry sector. So if you take countries like Ku-wait and Saudi, where there is a wide-spread growth range of industry sec-tors, they are less affected as compared to countries where there is a high amount of concentration on a couple of sectors such as the financial markets and property development,” says Man-aging Director Magdy El Zein.

Generally, the pace of recruitment is slow but it still exits. Considering that Boyden caters to a very small seg-ment of the talent pool, “the demand is still there”. Breakneck speed at which new construction projects were being launched all over the UAE en-sured that 2008 remained ‘buzzy’ for Boyden. Now things are back to the ‘normal ways’ where people are trying to manage what they already have.

With the construction and banking sectors being hit badly, recruitments in these fields have come to a naught. The demand is largely for techni-cal divisions and middle level posi-tions in firms that are still recruiting. Widespread uncertainty in the global market is also forcing people to take a more hands-on approach. People are playing it by the day. “If a given week is fine like the previous week, the coming week too will be good,” says Magdy.

Sectors that need a huge capital in-jection are lying low at the moment. These include financial services in in-

Time to manage expectations‘It is also a good time to be enterprising’

While several researchers have predicted that the market recovery will be on the lines of a ‘V’, Boyden says it will be a ‘U’ insteadvestment banking, automotives, and property development and even retail. Boyden predicts that when the upturn in the market happens there will be a demand for a completely different skill set as far as the financial industry is concerned.

“That will be a huge advantage, be-cause it will open the doors for more multi-faceted talent to enter the job market, since they will be entrusted with the responsibility of implement-ing the new financial services model,” says Madgy.

Predicting the exact time for the market to bounce back is the difficulty. While several researchers have pre-dicted that the market recovery will be on the lines of a ‘V’, Boyden says it will be a ‘U’ instead. “We are going to stay at the bottom for a while. Again this is the first time that we have a world-wide crisis of this proportion.

It is difficult to predict anything right now. You need a crystal ball to do that and nobody has that,” Magdy says. The picking up of the market, the recruiter says, will happen only in the first half of 2010 and that will be very slow.

On the contrary, trading, insur-ance, professional services like debt collection and the legal sector continue to flourish in the current market. But even the sectors that have not been badly hit will not be recruiting heavily.

The loss of jobs is happening in the lower rung of the hierarchy, claims Boyden. It is only in dire situations when a company is shutting down or when a senior manager is retiring or when the company feels that one ex-ecutive can do the job of two is the axe falling on the top management. This, however, is the ‘last resort,’ according to the recruiter.

Like most recruiters Boyden has seen a surge in the number of appli-cants over the last few months. They attribute it to ‘the need to cover uncer-tainty’ for candidates rather than a re-flection of massive retrenchment.

Magdy El Zein

20 APRIL 2009

Another interesting trend that the recruiter has noticed with regard to candidates is their willingness to switch professions. “People are doing that because they are in a desperate situation and when they know that within their sector and specialty, they are not going to find anything they will definitely switch and that is ag-gravated by the fact that in their home country, things are no better. In the past people used to go back home and do something, now they cannot do that either,” Madgy explains.

Has this desperate situation led to candidates compromising on packages and benefits to keep a job? According to Boyden, there are two aspects to this. Firstly, the quality of talent who were unwilling to move to the Middle East till a year back are making their way in now. Even with a predicted growth rate of only one or two per cent, the region has managed to attract a variety of job seekers. So in a scenario where people are faced with either a pay reduction or job loss, accepting the reduction is prudent in these times since the em-ployer has a large talent pool to choose from. The second aspect is employers are looking at more cost effective ways of running their organizations.

“Employers are going back and cut-ting down on benefits totally or par-tially. And that is what you do in the time of a recession. We have heard cases when they have reduced housing allowances and are not ready to pay al-lowances in advance,” says Magdy.

Is Boyden also engaged in large-scale cost-cutting?

“No we are not. We have instead decided not to spend unnecessarily. Anything that is not generating reve-nue is not required. If we have to spend some money attending a conference where we can build good contacts, then we make it a point to go there. We spend only when we are sure there is a good chance for us to grow,” Magdy elaborates.

A conservative approach is what

all businesses are also employing and this is also what is narrowing a candi-date’s options when it comes to decid-ing the nature of the job ones wants to do. Places like Abu Dhabi that have traditionally had a less aggressive ap-proach will take a cue from the Dubai crash and continue to be restrained in their approach. Those notwithstand-ing, governments in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have announced massive infrastructure projects. “Even if it is delayed by a few months, these projects will be on track,” says Magdy.

Infrastructure development hence offers ample room for recruitment this year. It will take more on the part of the candidates to sell themselves in the fiercely competitive market. Apart from being flexible and less demand-ing, people with jobs will have to learn to be happy with what they have. Can-didates need to live with no bonuses and less or no perks.

Boyden recommends that for those who have their finances in place and

can back themselves up for about a year or two, this is a very good time to be enterprising. Care needs to be given though to the fact that banks are not very willing to finance small ventures. “Pick and chose a good sector, a sector that is viable. Do you research properly and make sure that it is something that will work in the market now. And be ready to put twenty four hours of the day into it,” Magdy suggests.

Talking of business, Boyden had a ten per cent lower performance in 2008 as compared to 2007. But the company says that keeping up to last year’s performance would be ‘ambi-tious’ this year. The prediction is that oil prices that have fallen to the $40 a barrel mark will rationalize and scale to about $60 a barrel. This Boyden says will open up the possibility for Gulf states to be generous with their invest-ment spending; a situation that will trigger more opportunities in the job market.

Ambily Vijaykumar

21APRIL 2009

The CEO of Bayt.com, one of the largest recruiters in the Middle East, says that in the last four months, he has hired

four Stanford graduates. Despite graduating from the univer-

sity himself, he was unable to hire talent from there for a very long time: the rea-son being graduates from the university demanded sky-high salaries till recently. But that has changed: a scenario that he says is reflective of two aspects. Firstly, shrinking of the Europe and US job market and secondly, the emergence of the Middle East as a preferred job des-tination.

Talent that was not considering the region a year back is now lapping up op-portunities that the area is providing. Despite the crash in the real estate, con-struction and banking sectors, the UAE in general and Dubai in particular have become a hot favorite with aspirants, claims Rabea Ataya, CEO of the online job portal.

“The amount of global talent seeking to be in Dubai is higher than it has ever been, even now, despite the crisis. It is a global crisis and people still perceive Dubai as a land of opportunities. When you look at what is happening in other parts of the world, particularly those who are abroad are looking at Dubai and thinking that it is a good place to be in. Now whether or not there are enough jobs to absorb them remains to be seen,” says Rabea. The proof of the growth of interest in the Middle East as a job mar-ket is in the doubling of registrations on Bayt.com, he says. This doubling has happened in the last six months.

The flip side to the story is that there is massive retrenchment in the real estate, construction and banking sec-tors, which has lead to an increase in the number of people looking out for a

Talent still looks at Dubai as land of opportunitiesMore global talent seeking out the emirate, says Bayt.com CEO

Rabea Ataya

job. Bayt believes that for those who are on the lookout for great talent, this is a great time to be recruiting. But there is increased competition considering that there are limited opportunities and far greater talent vying for them. The exist-ing global scenario has left room only for talented individuals who are flexible and who employers believe will serve their long-term interests.

That is contrary to the picture a year back when both employers and job seek-ers were spoilt for choice. The result was that both of them were moving so quickly in an already speeding market, that none of them could be as selective as they would have wanted to be. So em-ployers ended up recruiting talent that did not serve their larger interest and candidates ended up skipping jobs for higher remuneration.

“Both have reassessed now. Candi-dates are far more interested in longer-term prospects and employers are also interested in far greater talent,” says Ataya. An attempt at finding that talent is the virtual job fair organized by the

portal every year. Into its fifth year this time, the event has already seen close to 100,000 job seekers using the platform to look for opportunities. The VJF this year organized in the last week of March assumed more significance in the light of increased global unemployment.

With an opportunity for employers to “reduce expenses by 50 per cent” by not having to organize their individual job fairs and a chance for job seekers to reach out to more companies, events like these have become a means to bridge the gap between demand and supply of tal-ent.

This talent, Ataya says, is still looking at Dubai as a land of opportunities. “One of the interesting things about this place is that it still has the lowest entry barriers for entrepreneurial ventures and these ventures while they might not automati-cally hire a great amount of people they are able to create real employment that is sustainable. And so it is no longer about a particular company hiring thousands of people, but I see more and more peo-ple coming in and opening smaller ven-tures across every industry and looking at Dubai as what it has always been, a place to service the rest of the region.”

Confidence in the emirate is also based on “the ability of its broad based economy to take a hit much more ef-fectively,” argues Ataya. Layoff numbers especially in the construction sector are, however, adding up every day. “That is because the sector employed the maxi-mum number of people. The numbers will obviously reflect that,” he adds. Dubai’s massive investments in the con-struction sector are also blamed for the severe hit the emirate’s job market has taken. Unlike the rest of the country, Dubai was never playing it safe.

Ataya comes to Dubai’s defense. “The driving engines of the UAE economy

22 APRIL 2009

have always been Dubai and Abu Dhabi in their own separate ways. Dubai tends to be the more internationalized of the two and obviously what happens inter-nationally is reflected more in Dubai than it is on Abu Dhabi. So if you have international organizations and they are having global layoffs, you are going to feel that locally too. That comes with being switched into a global economy. I think Dubai is part of the global econ-omy and so it will be affected as a part of it.”

There is a fear though that the cur-rent situation will lead to people shift-ing loyalties from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. Ataya disagrees with that argument. He believes Dubai has a unique selling point much like Abu Dhabi has its own. Du-bai’s USP is that it remains an easy place to do business and has attracted large number of people on that basis. Abu Dhabi for that matter with its huge oil wealth supports a different industry. So traditionally people who have remained loyal to the capital will continue to do that and those who have their loyalties towards Dubai will continue to come to the city and make it their base.

Dubai with its open economy has also made itself far more vulnerable to the global economic crisis than several of its counterparts in the Middle East. Economies that have remained closed or have been plagued by political un-rests and hence have lost out on foreign investment in the last two decades are not feeling the pinch at the moment. “What worked against you in the last two decades is now working for you in the sense that if you are out of the game, the game hasn’t affected you but if you were in the game, you are affected to the extent you were in the game,” ex-plains Ataya. Countries like Morocco and Lebanon have seen zero layoffs so far, he says.

Bayt believes that even if companies are laying off people, they are hiring more talent. The difference this time is that the power has shifted from the candidate to the employer, who is now

Even if companies are laying off people, they are hiring more talent and the difference this time is that the power has shifted from the candidate to the employer, who is now looking at upgrading the talent pool

looking at upgrading the talent pool. Most of Bayt’s clients are going the backdoor way. Instead of advertising for a vacancy, they are using the por-tal’s database of candidates to choose the most eligible ones. This has made the hiring process a more confidential one.

“We are seeing a decrease in em-ployers advertising for their positions and part of the reason for that is that if you have to rationalize your staff and you are letting people go, you don’t want to advertise the fact that you are recruiting for the post. That does not reflect well on people who have been asked to leave,” Ataya explains.

The quest now with all employers is for increased productivity. The irony of the situation is that in times when the market is undergoing dramatic

changes it is the recruiters who stand to gain even from this downtrend. “It has been a positive story so far for us,” says Ataya. “We feel we will be the benefactors of the downturn. But we remain the most cost-effective, quick and easy way to recruit. From the em-ployers’ point of view they can employ up to a thousand people for as low as a thousand dollars.”

Cost-effectiveness is also the tar-get of all companies adapting a new strategy of self-preservation. They are doing so in order to have the flexibil-ity to grow when the times improve.

Ensuring that they have enough cash on the books will help them to quickly hire people when there is an upswing in the market. Even for those who have not been a victim of the retrenchment drive that is on at the moment, looking for opportunities is what recruiters rec-ommend.

“The worst time to look for an op-portunity is when you are out of it. You become far more desperate, you com-promise much more and so it is worth at all times, knowing what is out there in the market and being proactive about your long-term career prospects. It is a very bad time to act as though nothing is happening,” he recommends.

That however does not mean that people should take their present jobs for granted. “It is important to be far more dedicated in current job even if you are

looking elsewhere because employers have far more choice than they ever had. So the commitment to a job while you are on it has to be far greater than there ever has been,” says Ataya.

As for the recruitment industry, Ataya feels innovation is the key to sur-vival. The internet offers a wide option to reach to a cross section of the work force and this is something Bayt is aim-ing to build on. In the past, several big and small recruiters have set up shop in the region to capitalise on the booming market.

Ambiy Vijaykumar

APRIL 200924

What started as a state of lower overall con-fidence and investors adopting a wait-and-

watch mentality in the Dubai property sector has developed into widespread negative sentiment and even panic in some cases. With properties continu-ing to remain prohibitive for the actual users in the near total absence of fi-nancing options, the outlook is indeed bleak.

According to the latest EFG-Hermes report on the UAE property market, speculative froth continues to exit the market with defaults occurring, partic-ularly on properties sold during 2008, and distress sales becoming more com-mon. EFG analysts say their previous concern that negative sentiment and the trickle of speculators walking away from deposits could turn into a flood now is becoming real.

The lack of liquidity remains a ma-jor concern as mortgage companies and banks have significantly curtailed lending for home purchases. The lack of funding has limited buying activity in the market although some lending does remain, solely on a case-by-case basis, with average loan to value ratios having dropped from 70-80 per cent to 55-60 per cent, thus making it largely prohibitive for new buyers. In terms of transactional activity, while the market had only started slowing in 4Q2008, anecdotal evidence suggests there is very limited buying activity, supported

‘Wait-and-watch’ becomes panicDubai property outlook continues to be bleak as funding options evaporate

by data from the Land Department.EFG-Hermes Residential Pricing

Index for Dubai points to a cumulative decline in prices since October 2008 of 13.5 per cent. While acknowledging that this index is a trailing indicator as it is based on list prices with actual transaction prices likely to be materi-ally lower, the analysts, however, point out that it serves as a useful directional guide to the market and in this case shows that prices are in a steady down-ward trend which they believe will continue.

A compilation of comparison be-tween peak prices and current trans-action prices through discussions and listings from brokers and industry professionals shows that since there are currently so few property trans-actions, it could be a possibility that the final price at which a transaction is completed may end up being lower, with the magnitude of the difference a function of bargaining power between buyer and seller and the associated lev-el of distress/urgency. The investment bank has a view on the new segmenta-tion of the market.Old Dubai: Observed price correc-tions in Old Dubai (estimated at 23 per cent) have been relatively muted due to limited supply. Albeit, newer off-plan products launched for sale in this area have, however, experienced larger price drops underlining the nature of speculative activity.Central Dubai: Developments lo-

REAL ESTATE

25APRIL 2009

Dubai property outlook continues to be bleak as funding options evaporate

amount from original prices, mostly due to funding constraints. While maintaining the negative impact of this speculation, they, however, believe that projects located in Central Dubai will continue to be exclusive, owing to the fact that this area is the downtown core of Dubai, is geographically constrained and new residential supply makes up just 10 per cent of total supply.New Dubai and Outer New Dubai: Both New Dubai and Outer New Dubai are areas where a significant amount of new development is expected to occur. Analysts always had doubts about the overall viability of these areas, given the scale and number of projects as well as the ‘if ’ factor, i.e., the ability of these outlying areas to become new hubs of activity and tourist spots. They note that the observed average price declines of 42 per cent and 36 per cent confirm this scepticism. Moreover, it also helps substantiate the view that the overall master plan of many projects in both these expansive geographic zones is likely to change. It is believed that while work will continue on projects that are currently under way or where the fund-ing has been secured, there may be some delays or amendments to future phas-es. There is a greater probability that projects which are at an earlier stage could be severely delayed or more likely cancelled.

Office marketThe commercial sector is also weak-ening, with prices estimated to have dropped 20 per cent on average from peak levels in 2008. The commercial sector had only recently started to gain traction, with businesses looking at the alternative of buying versus renting in a tight office market, as well on the expec-tation of high forward-looking yields.

With the UAE immersed in an envi-ronment of slower growth, cost-cutting initiatives, layoffs and expansion plans on hold, rental inflation has started to ease. EFG-Hermes estimates that in 4Q2008, rents in Dubai declined 3 per

cent on average and this decline has continued in 2009, with rents having cooled 9 per cent year to date. Moreo-ver, with property prices slumping, cash-rich investors that were previously more inclined towards holding onto units have now started releasing them in the hope of deriving rental income, with the release of this previously held-back supply helping to calm rents in some locations.

The analysts note that interestingly, rental rate inflation in Abu Dhabi is also abating, despite the paucity of new sup-ply and strong demand. In Abu Dhabi, landlords seem to be becoming more rational in terms of expectations, tak-ing into account weaker liquidity and exorbitant rental rates which were be-coming prohibitive. High rent levels are also driving some professional expatri-ates to live in Dubai but work in Abu Dhabi which is exerting some down-ward pressure on rents in the capital. EFG expects 2009 to be a year of overall rental stability in Abu Dhabi, stemming less from tight demand-supply esti-mates but more from a conscious effort to make living in the city bearable for residents.

It is believed that rental rates in Du-bai can decline in the 20-50 per cent range from peaks in 2009, depending on location and the scale of increase in local supply. However, the actual de-crease in rents will depend more on the quantity of demand, with the expecta-tion being that the population decreas-es as construction, real estate, financial services, tourism and retail (key con-tributors to Dubai’s GDP growth) note a decline in 2009. The analysts point out that such a view was also echoed by the CEO of RERA, during a recent press round-table conference where it was suggested a 50 per cent rental decline seemed likely in the light of weaker de-mand. One support factor, worthy of mention, which may result in a milder drop in Dubai rents, could be the po-tential re-migration of working profes-sionals from Sharjah and Ajman back

cated in this area noted an average 35 per cent drop. Analysts believe this is largely a result of high-priced product purchased speculatively during 2008, which has now been abandoned by buyers due to their inability to meet subsequent payments. High-priced primary market product set a new floor for the secondary market, with speculators buying into the possibility of flipping. With the turn in the mar-ket and limited opportunities available for re-selling properties, sellers are now willing to shave off a considerable

26 APRIL 2009

to Dubai (who had previously escaped to these low-rent havens to avoid pay-ing exorbitant Dubai rents).

EFG believes that the recent drop in commercial rents in Dubai is in keep-ing with slower demand but is also a worrying sign as it suggests that not only are businesses looking to trim existing operations, but also that new businesses are no longer flocking to Dubai. With other global financial cen-tres experiencing a marked slowdown and economic data pointing to a state of prolonged recession, office rents in all global markets have eased. Abu Dhabi office rents on the other hand continue to rise, reflective of tight sup-ply with respect to quality space and strong demand.

EFG’s previous assumptions for the Dubai market were for prices to start declining in second half of this year and registering a cumulative drop of 15-20 per cent by 2011. Worsening sen-timent in late 2008 suggested that this decline was likely to be more front-end loaded. Meanwhile, for Abu Dhabi, with no major new additions of resi-dential units expected before 2010, it is estimated that prices will grow 100 per cent for the whole of 2008, followed by a further 15-20 per cent rise in 2009. These ‘soft landing’ assumptions have now given way to a full scale ‘correc-tion’, given the worsening impact of the global financial crisis on the local economies

It is estimated that residential pric-es in Dubai have dropped 34 per cent on average since their observed peaks in 2008. The assumption is that there is further room to go, with an overall price decline of 50-60 per cent possible, suggesting that prices could drop on av-erage another 20-30 per cent before the market hits rock bottom. At these lev-els, prices would be closer to 2006 lev-els. Sentiment may improve in 2010 in tandem with better investor confidence and the availability of a wider variety of home finance options. Therefore, the analysts expect prices to stabilise

during the first half of next year, with prices starting to rise again in second half of next year or early 2011.

EFG has made a series of amend-ments to its assumptions for arriving at revised forecasts for demand and supply of housing units in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Its demand estimates reflect the required demand for hous-ing, based on population estimates, i.e. the incremental growth in the size of the population, as well as the assump-tion of household size which results in an estimate for the number of housing units required.

The analysts say that ideally, they would like to quantify demand as be-ing the number of housing units being purchased. In order to do this, there is need for better quality information such as official figures of population size, segmentation by income and oc-cupation etc, which is currently una-vailable.

In terms of supply, the estimates are based on housing units expected to be delivered, based on the announced project pipeline. The analysts say they have factored in reduced project scope and delays, given the current more con-strained liquidity environment. Again,

the supply estimates are based on units previously assumed to be sold and cur-rently being constructed, hence shall be delivered over time and does not include the impact of new inventory released for sale.

They expect new supply in Dubai to come on to the market at a slower pace. In addition, with the assumption of a negative population growth in 2009, it is believed that demand for housing will also be impacted. However, if demand remains weak, there is a possibility for pent-up demand from previous years to absorb supply that comes on stream. It is important to remember that housing units demanded is a function of both organic growth, from residents within Dubai (renters and buyers) as well as for-eign buyers, with both groups expected to contract significantly in 2009, hence underpinning the overall negative net unit demand estimate, EFG points out.

Two support factors for demand could be the continued mismatch be-tween type of supply being delivered and real demand and falling rents in Dubai, which would encourage professionals working in Dubai, but living in neigh-bouring emirates, to move to the emirate and avoid lengthy commutes.

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APRIL 200928

EFG-Hermes has forecast that Dubai’s population would decline by over 17 per cent this year, reflecting a change

in the emirate’s economic reality and further affecting the growth perform-ance. The sharp fall is expected to bring down the total UAE population by as much as 5.5 per cent, the investment bank says.

“We believe the impact of the glo-bal financial crisis will be particularly harsh in Dubai, compared to the other emirates and the rest of the region. This is because of both the highly leveraged and externally facing nature of the Du-bai economy. We will see a slowdown or contraction in a number of economic sectors, most notably in real estate and construction as projects are cancelled or put on hold. We are forecasting that the construction population of Dubai will fall 30 per cent in 2009e. The fall in population will further result in weak-er demand for housing,” EFH analysts said in a report.

The cancellation of projects and the sharp correction in property prices will also lead to weakness in other sectors related to property, outside construc-tion. There have been announcements of substantial job losses in real estate and property development companies.

Dubai population seen falling 17% Decline to affect overall economic growth performance

A number of other sectors also driven by real estate, such as advertising and marketing, will see a contraction in numbers. Outside of property, many other sectors, such as financial, will also see job losses due to the global slowdown, the analysts said.

They have forecast a 13 per cent decline in Dubai’s non-construction population. Looking ahead, they be-

lieve that Dubai’s construction worker population will further decline in 2010 by 5 per cent as more projects are com-pleted, while the non-construction ex-patriate population will remain steady. The expatriate population of the other emirates is also expected to contract as projects are cancelled or put on hold, al-beit not to the same degree as Dubai

But Abu Dhabi’s population will

REAL ESTATE

29APRIL 2009

the contraction in Dubai’s population, the analysts point out.

The report points out that the UAE’s robust population growth since the be-ginning of the decade reflects the strong economic activity of that period but also has been an important factor driving the economic expansion. Population growth was predominantly driven by the large influx of expatriates, which boosted private consumption as num-bers increased but also as they spent to establish homes. Moreover, the robust population growth also resulted in an increase in planned real estate projects and investment as housing supply could not keep up with demand. The supply/demand mismatch in housing also re-sulted in a sharp increase in rents, push-ing up inflation.

UAE’s population surged in 2001-2008, growing by a compound annual growth rate of 7.0 per cent based on of-ficial figures and estimates. Much of the population growth was initially driven by Dubai as a result of the implementa-tion of its investment programme and the strong performance of its wider economic base. The number of residents grew by a CAGR of 9.5 per cent during the same timeframe.

Sharjah also realised robust popula-tion growth, although this was mostly spillover from Dubai owing to the lat-ter’s housing supply constraints and rising rental costs. EFG believes that the UAE population growth accelerated in 2007 and 2008 as Dubai increased its investment programme, the expansion of investment programmes by other emirates (most notably Abu Dhabi) and the strong performance of in the non-oil sector (such as finance, real estate, tourism, etc) resulted in the expansion of their labour force. The population growth is believed to have accelerated to 7.7 per cent in 2007 and 8.8 per cent in 2008.

In addition to the influx of expatri-ates, the growth of the national popu-lation is also estimated to have been strong. UAE nationals account for 20.1

per cent of the population, according to data from the 2005 census. Given Dubai’s strong population growth, it is believed that the expatriate popula-tion would make up a larger portion of the population in Dubai than the wider UAE.

The report says that the fall in the UAE’s population will further add to the downward pressure on the econo-my and will have a marked impact on domestic demand. Given the level of uncertainty regarding the macroeco-nomic environment, those with jobs will have a greater propensity to save. Moreover, with the correction in the real estate sector, the level of wealth de-struction will be greater than in other GCC countries. Consumption will be further suppressed with the fall in tour-ism numbers and spending.

As a result of the deteriorating outlook in the non-oil sector and sub-sequent fall in population levels, EFG analysts have increased the forecast con-traction in the UAE economy to 1.7 per cent in 2009, from a minor contraction of 0.04 per cent when the growth fore-cast was revised in January 2009. It is now forecast that private consumption will fall by over 13 per cent in nominal terms in 2009, with the outflow of non-construction expatriate workers having a far greater impact on the economy. Also forecast is a greater deceleration in investment growth as a significant number of projects, especially resi-dential property, are being cancelled. The main factor for the contraction in nominal and real GDP will still remain net exports, owing to the lower oil price and production.

“In a more negative case scenario, if we assume that all the estimated gains in population that were realised in 2008 were eroded in 2009 and that we went back to 2007e population levels, we be-lieve real GDP growth would contract by 1.9-2.1 per cent. This would assume a further deterioration in both the in-vestment and private consumption out-looks,” the analysts concluded.

grow with the continued implementa-tion and expansion of its investment plan, albeit at a slower rate than in 2008, EFG said. Growth in construc-tion workers is seen slowing to 7 per cent in 2009, from 15 per cent in 2008.

According to the report, there will also be a deceleration in non-construc-tion expatriate population growth to 5 per cent in 2009 from an estimated 10 per cent in the previous year. Further-more, it is estimated that the national population will continue to grow at more than 3 per cent on an annual ba-sis. No deceleration is seen on this front. These factors will help to limit the over-all fall in UAE population in 2009, but will not be sufficient to compensate for

Abu Dhabi’s population will grow with the continued implementation and expansion of its investment plan, albeit at a slower rate than in 2008

APRIL 200930

With the US Administra-tion prevailing upon the Swiss authorities to lift banking secrecy

laws to help track US citizens’ ill-gotten money stashed in Swiss bank accounts, and public opinion in many countries, particularly India, putting pressure on their respective governments to pursue similar action, the Swiss private bank-ing business has come into the spot-light.

Swiss bank secrecy laws made neu-tral Switzerland a popular destination for capital during World War II, and for generations the confidentiality of bank customers has been a hallmark of the country’s banking business. But bow-ing to pressure from the US adminis-tration, Switzerland recently agreed to ease its rules and promised to cooperate with other countries on cases of tax eva-sion and said it would no longer protect wealthy foreigners accused of stashing billions of dollars in secret bank vaults.

The well-entrenched and most fa-voured private bank destination has been threatened with blacklisting by the G-20, which is keeping the issue red-hot. BBR spoke to Pasha Bakhtiar, Managing Director at the Dubai Rep-resentative Office of Lombard Odier Darier Henstch, described as the oldest firm of private bankers in Geneva and one of the largest in Europe.

Private bankers are not going awayStrategies of groups like Lombard Odier more relevant today, says Regional MD Pasha Bakhtiar

The group has an active presence in the world’s leading financial centers with 23 offices in 17 countries world-wide. With 111 billion euro under man-agement, the Group has a headcount of 1,800 and offers its clients a broad range of asset management advice, fi-nancial products and specialized serv-ices. The representative office in Dubai was set up in 2007, but the group has

been active in the Middle East, offering its suite of private banking services and solutions for over 50 years.

Pasha Bakhtiar does agree that the private bank business is going through one of its worst periods, as any investing business is, due to the financial melt-down, which has been further clouded by perceptions about the US investiga-tions rather than realities. In the current

PRIVATE BANKS

31APRIL 2009

situation, no asset class can be totally risk-free and investors concerns in this respect are fully justified. But the most important task now is how best to ne-gotiate the choppy waters and take the boat to safety, which he says his group is strongly placed to achieve on account of its conservationist strategies.

As for the negative publicity brought in by the US move and the demand for similar action by other governments in various parts of the world, Bakhtiar clarifies that the US action does not cover the whole private bank business of Switzerland and information has been sought on specific cases involving specific entities and the authorities have provided all the required information. According to him, this course of action is open to any government, desirous of tracking down offensive money.

But the Swiss private banker is quick to point out that this does not mean that all the money lying with Swiss banks originate from questionable sources. “In fact, contrary to popular belief, it is not easy to open an account with a Swiss bank. There are specialized teams in each bank, rigorously checking each ap-plication, questioning the source of the funds and safeguarding against misuse of the system. The banks don’t accept an account unless its investigators are convinced that all the filtering has been gone through satisfactorily,” he asserts.

The term ‘private banker’ is pro-tected by a collective trademark regis-tered with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property by the Swiss Pri-vate Bankers Association (SPBA) and the trademark can be used only by the members of the SPBA and other banks which fulfill all the criteria.

Pasha Bakhtiar joined Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch in 2003. As a member of the special affairs team, he spearheaded key projects within the bank and formulated its business plan for the Middle East, which culminated in the launch of the representative office in Dubai. The operation is licensed by the UAE central bank and not the Du-

bai Financial Services Authority.Bakhtiar says he is very optimistic

about the Middle East, which according to him, continues to have an impressive growth story. And as for his group, its investment philosophy is to preserve and grow capital and this strategy has once again been proved right as invest-ment ideas based on reckless risk-tak-ing has led to the undoing of all other themes.

“We have a long-run investment ap-proach, which excludes any focus on tactical investments, toxic structured products, nor areas where it has no understanding of the markets. In re-maining committed to this philosophy Lombard Odier has steered through 200 years of existence and weathered the many financial storms along the way”.

The second feature of Lombard Odier’s success is unlimited liability – the partners that own the bank run the bank. “They are investing their own money in the bank. The unlimited li-ability over 7 generations of partner-ship has instilled a great responsibility in them. How they manage the money of others is how they manage their own money,” he said.

“We benefit from the long-term ori-entation of our investment philosophy, as well as from the fact that our cor-porate culture places clients’ interests above those of individuals or the Firm. As this has been the case for over two

centuries, clients turn to us in view of the security we offer.”

No wonder, unlike other private banks and investment banks, Lombard Odier has not been affected to any sig-nificant degree by the current crisis in the banking industry, he pointed out. The group claims it has no exposure to toxic investments, Madoff or the credit crunch.

Founded in 1796, Lombard Odi-er Darier Hentsch & Cie offers its pri-vate and institutional clients a wide range of advisory services in wealth management, financial products, and specialized areas. Its offices include Ge-neva, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bermuda, Brussels, Dubai, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Jersey, Lausanne, London, Lugano, Madrid, Montreal, Nassau, Paris, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Tokyo, Vevey and Zurich.

Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie is directed by nine Managing Part-ners, who represent the seventh genera-tion of private bankers in charge of the company. They are both owners and managers, as much involved in strategy and management as in serving clients.

The group says its portfolio manag-ers enjoy the privilege of sharing their clients’ confidence. “Together they build up a relationship of trust, based on con-tinuity and the greatest respect for per-sonal privacy. By listening attentively to their clients’ needs, they are able to take a global approach to each financial situ-ation and come up with tailor-made so-lutions meeting the highest professional, ethical and quality standards.”

According to the group, since the partners are both owners and managing directors, they are as concerned as their clients to see their business succeed. Be-cause they are not subject to shareholder pressure, the constraints of operating in a large group and inherent conflicts of interest, the partners are also able to maintain a long-term vision and to develop mutual trust with their clients, the cornerstone of any relationship, it says.

Pasha Bakhtiar

APRIL 200932

PROPERTYRISK MANAGEMENT

The difficulties in the financial markets have continued to an extent that nobody fore-saw, or arguably could have

foreseen. Governments and monetary authorities globally have taken critical action to try to prevent the collapse of their financial systems.

The quality of the governance in many firms has been questionable. Regulators are considering the actions that they will need to take to create an environment where confidence may be

Banks must do betterThe financial crisis has revealed all too starkly the vulnerability of banks to severe market shocksBy Simon Baker

restored. More intrusive regulation is the inevitable repercussion of this.

While the current crisis is unprec-edented in modern times, it is true that many banks might have been better prepared had they subjected their busi-ness models to severe stress and sce-nario testing. While some may claim that this was indeed the case, it would be interesting to know whether there were any who felt that they would have to raise more capital as a consequence.

This article focuses on the key areas

of stress and scenario testing, on which the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) published a Consultation Paper (CP08/24) in December 2008.

The concept of stress and scenario testing is not new. Some banks have indeed recognised the benefits of bet-ter understanding the resilience of their business. This has been reinforced by regulators through the need to stress test their portfolios as part of the Inter-nal Capital Adequacy Assessment Proc-ess (ICAAP). However, the FSA has

33APRIL 2009

concluded that in its experience “...for many firms, stress and scenario testing is not as robust, nor as embedded in senior management decision-making, as we would like.”

Stress and scenario testing is the an-alytical process involved in subjecting a bank’s portfolios to a series of tests in order to assess their potential vul-nerability to exceptional yet plausible

events. They are intended to establish whether a bank has enough capital to absorb losses in a recession. They enable banks to obtain a better understanding of portfolio risk and make potential losses clear. Stress testing is an effective and necessary tool that complements statistical models for quantifying and monitoring risk and capital adequacy. So what forms can stress testing can take?

Real world scenarios from past ex-perience are sometimes better to use, since buy-in can be more easily achieved from business leaders, who may more readily regard them as plausible. This risks, however, underestimating the impact of potential future crises as has been the experience recently. Equally, scenarios are rarely exactly repeated, since controls will have usually been

implemented to attempt to prevent re-currence.

Single factor tests are intended to show how portfolios react to changes in relevant economic variables (e.g. interest rate changes) or risk param-eters. They can be performed rapidly and provide senior management with a ‘quick and dirty’ idea of the impact of a change in a financial variable.

Scenario tests should be designed

The quality of governance in many firms has been questionable; so regulators are considering actions that they need to take to create an environment where confidence may be restored

to consider the resilience of firms and the financial system to exceptional but plausible scenarios. They assess how the selected events might impact on the rel-evant risk factors in a firm’s portfolio. Scenarios can be either event or portfo-lio driven.

Event-driven approaches identify •risk sources that will cause changes in financial markets followed by an

assessment of the extent to which risk parameters may change should such an event occur.Portfolio-driven approaches start •with an assessment of which pa-rameter changes might result in a portfolio loss and assess what kind of events might bring about these changes.Historical scenarios rely on signifi-

cant past events and are based on actual data. They therefore tend to be more fully articulated and require less judg-mental input. One drawback is that they may be less suited to the actual risk pro-file of the firm and may not adequately take account of recent advances in risk

34 APRIL 2009

taking.Hypothetical scenarios will be based

upon market events or macro-econom-ic scenarios that have not yet occurred. They will be labour-intensive to con-struct, require judgment and specialist expertise. While historic data may be used to help devise the scenario, such an approach may lack support from the business due to the perceived artificial nature of the exercise. Arguably, how-ever, the more widespread and effective use of hypothetical scenarios ahead of

the current chaos may have prepared firms better to face the ensuing im-pacts.

Hybrid scenarios have become more commonplace. They use histori-cal market moves as inputs, but do not necessarily link to a specific historical crisis. They need to strike a balance be-tween realism and comprehensibility to gain the serious engagement of the business in considering the potential impacts and mitigating action needed.

Contagion takes into account the

transmission of shocks from individual exposures or portfolios across a finan-cial services group as a whole and po-tentially across the financial system. This is an area that financial institu-tions have often found difficult to assess in the past, but it is a risk that has crys-tallized alarmingly during the current market turbulence.

Designing scenarios that will prove useful to the business is not as straight-forward as it may seem. While firms have clearly undertaken exercises as a result largely of regulatory necessity, there has been too often a reluctance to entertain scenarios that might upset the status quo. This is changing due to present circumstances and as a conse-quence of supervisory insistence. Not-withstanding this, the construction of scenarios can often ignore some poten-tially key elements such as:

Time horizon - the near term is •used most often while a longer time horizon may be more appropriate as some macro-economic impacts may take more than a year to filter through.Unexpected illiquidity - many crises •are characterized by an abrupt lack of liquidity in the markets. This ele-ment was not adequately addressed previously, but is now a key aspect of any meaningful test.Lack of hedges - hedging instru-•ments may be rendered invalid dur-ing stress events. Reliance on these in a time of crisis will probably project an over optimistic outcome.Aggregation - the aggregation of the •effects of stress tests performed at a risk type level raises issues regarding diversification benefits.Correlation - levels that prevail in •ordinary conditions may cease to exist under exceptional events.

Stress tests should be all encompassing and cover primarily credit risk, market risk and operational risk. Firms should also consider changes to portfolio con-centration levels, reputational impact, and the effect on the availability of li-

Under reverse stress testing firms will be required to identify and assess the scenarios most likely to cause their current business plan to become unviable

35APRIL 2009

quidity sources.

Observations of the FSA Paper

Rules and guidance on stress and sce-nario testing will be tightened and clar-ified. The main aspects are:

A ‘reverse stress test’ will be intro-•duced. This is designed to consider scenarios most likely to cause banks’ business models to become unvi-able.Firms have been too optimistic in •assessing the severity and impacts of adverse scenarios. In too many cases, this has been a simple desktop exercise designed to meet a regula-tory requirement, which has osten-sibly shown that existing capital lev-els were adequate.Capital planning generally has been •poor. There needs to be a more rigor-ous assessment of material risks and mitigating management actions.Firms will be expected to review •their stress and scenario testing ar-rangements immediately, and they should expect supervisors to chal-lenge them.Group risk will become a core Pillar •2 risk, which must be considered in the context of the ICAAP.

The key new elements are the reverse stress test and inclusion of group risk.

Under reverse stress testing firms will be required to identify and assess the scenarios most likely to cause their current business plan to become unvi-able. The firm’s plan should be consid-ered to have reached this stage at the point where materialising risks cause the market to lose confidence in it. Re-cent experience suggests that this may be reached well before regulatory capi-tal is exhausted. An underlying objec-tive is to try to ensure that a firm may continue long enough to either restruc-ture its business, or allow a more or-derly wind-down or transfer. Recently there have been cases where there has been insufficient time for measured

courses of action to be followed.This requirement is intended to be •holistic, so firms should consider li-quidity risks as well as risks to their capital positions.The likelihood or remoteness of •such risks arising in practice should be assessed.Firms are already expected to project •their capital resources over three to five years and to estimate the finan-cial resources needed to survive the impact of a cyclical downturn. Such a downturn may address a firm’s predominant risks where the ma-jority of its business is composed of non-trading book activities. Howev-er, firms are additionally expected to hold capital to withstand specified yield curve shifts where they are ex-posed to banking book interest rate risk, and more sudden, severe mar-ket events that may be particularly pertinent to trading book risks.Senior management must be effec-•tively engaged in the process, the outputs of which should assist in the formulation of business strategy, risk tolerances, capital and liquidity planning, risk mitigation strategies and contingency planning.Reverse stress testing will need to •be documented, and signed off by the Board. It may be reviewed by supervisors alongside the ICAAP as part of the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP).

Deficiencies were evident across the

market, although it is fair to say that the extreme nature of what has oc-curred was probably not anticipated by anybody. The Institute of International Finance (IIF) has also made recommen-dations for stress testing which the FSA has supported. There is willingness on the part of all stakeholders to address the shortcomings and to start the long and arduous task of starting to restore confidence to a system whose credibility has been shattered.

Simon Baker is deputy head of consul-tancy at Quadrant Risk Management (International) where he is actively en-gaged in governance, risk and compli-ance consulting. Credit: gtnews.com

Contagion takes into account the transmission of shocks from individual exposures or portfolios across a financial services group as a whole and potentially across the financial system

APRIL 200936

PROPERTYMARKETS

The Gulf markets are very cheap, but the asset quality of banks, particularly in the UAE, is a cause of concern,

despite government support to the fi-nancial sector through fiscal stimulus packages, Merrill Lynch has said in a report on the prospects for Frontier Markets, which groups many of the Middle East and the GCC markets.

Frontier markets were an outper-forming, uncorrelated asset until the credit crunch went global with the bankruptcy of Lehman. Asset price correlations thereafter soared and vi-cious contagion caused an increasingly popular, secular growth theme to be-come a lonely and illiquid trade. East-ern Europe was hit by a credit crunch while the Middle East was badly affect-

Concern at banks’ asset quality

From a popular growth theme, Gulf markets turn to illiquid trade in a matter of weeks

ed by the collapse in oil prices.According to Merrill Lynch, be-

tween 2000 and 2008, the Frontier market index had a low 32 per cent cor-relation with the S&P 500, compared with 78 per cent or Emerging Markets (EM) and 86 per cent for Developed Markets. But between January 2000 and August 2008, annualized returns from Frontier Markets were 19 per cent versus 8 per cent from Emerging Mar-kets as the perceived risks from Fron-tier markets were falling thanks to pol-icy improvements – external debt as a share of GDP fell in almost all regions.

But the collapse of Lehman Broth-ers caused a banking crisis, the onset of a global recession and a massive deleveraging of investor positions in every secular growth theme. So, Fron-

tier went from being an increasingly popular growth theme to a lonely and illiquid trade in a matter of weeks. Cor-relations with the S&P 500 spiked from a 32 per cent o a very high 90 per cent, in line with EM and DM, Merrill Lynch points out.

Simultaneously the two key drivers of the asset class, bull markets in com-modities and risk collapsed, causing emerging markets to depreciate and levels of CDS to soar. Frontier Markets plunged, with countries that had relied on foreign borrowings for growth par-ticular hard hit, the report notes.

Merrill Lynch feels that the Frontier markets, which were the last to go into the de-leveraging vortex, are unlikely to be first out. “In other words, secular bulls on the asset class will need to be

37APRIL 2009

patient”. Global investors in 2009 are ex-

tremely concerned with liquidity and the potential for capital controls or other protectionist measures to com-mit fresh capital to relatively illiquid Frontier markets. Outflows from Fron-tier markets such as the Middle East have moderated in recent weeks. But for the Frontier bear market to come to an early end, two cyclical catalysts are needed, the report suggests. And these are higher oil prices, preferably in ex-cess of $60 per barrel, and a recovery in global risk appetite.

But the asset management company feels that neither is immediately likely. And recoveries in both are unlikely to be dramatic without a successful infla-tionary solution to the broken balance sheets of the G7 economies. Merrill Lynch forecasts higher oil prices in 2010 but global bank stocks are not sug-gestive of global re-leveraging anytime

spreads decline sharply and verify im-provements in banks’ balance sheets,” they point out.

At the same time, the analysts argue that although the secular argument for Frontier has been wounded by global recession, it is not fatal. The asset class remains undercapitalized, under-owned with strong growth potential.

The report points out that poor countries tend to grow faster than rich ones. GDP per capita in frontier mar-kets averages $4,000 versus $6,000 in EM and $40,000 in DM. Strong urban-ization trends, particularly in Africa and Asia, should support the secular growth theme in FM, it suggests.

Emerging Markets have had 13 bear markets in the past 20 years, yet the as-set class still grew from 1 per cent to 10 per cent of global market cap. Today Frontier markets represent less than 1 per cent of world market capitalization and, as a share of their own GDP, have plenty of room to catch up with the norms of both developed and emerg-ing markets.

The analysts suggest that Frontier investors must have long horizons and high risk tolerance. The key risks remain poor corporate transparency; challenging trading and settlement, poor liquidity and dependency on commodity export revenue.

The frontier markets index is likely to get two additions: Pakistan and Argentina as the two are being de-classified from the emerging markets index. Pakistan’s downgrade is due to the fact that while Karachi Stock Ex-change has returned to normal trading conditions, the index no longer meets the size requirements set for the MSCI Emerging Markets index, while in the case of Argentina, it is in view of the continued restrictions to inflows and outflows of capital in the Argentinean equity market.

soon.According to the report, Qatar is

Merrill’s top pick in the Gulf on a rela-tive basis as the country is expected to post a 5 per cent GDP growth in ’09, the strongest in the region according to analysts. CDS spreads are the lowest among GCC ex Saudi countries.

Merrill equity analysts say one big unpredictable catalyst is the possible inclusion of Saudi Arabia, by far and away the largest regional market, in the MSCI Frontier index. At 9.6x earnings Saudi Arabia is the most expensive market in the Gulf, but the growth po-tential is huge, analysts point out.

The analysts are extremely cautious on Eastern Europe as high external debt burdens make credit markets a key equity driver in coming months. “IMF-led bailouts to Latvia, Serbia, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia may act as a floor to stock prices. But for an end to the bear market we need to see CDS

Between January 2000 and August 2008, annualized returns from Frontier Markets were 19 per cent versus 8 per cent from Emerging Markets as the perceived risks from Frontier markets were falling thanks to policy improvements

APRIL 200938

PROPERTYECONOMY

Countries in the Middle East and North African region are comparatively among the least affected by the glo-

bal economic crisis so far, according to a World Bank update of its projections for the Global Economic Prospects re-port.

Growth for 2009 drops just 0.3 points from earlier projections to 3.3 per cent, but the shift from MENA’s strong 2008 performance is more pronounced, the review points out. Reduced oil revenues and cuts in oil output will restrain GDP among oil exporters to 2.9 per cent from 4.5 per cent in 2008; while recession in the EU, reduced tourism arrivals and remit-tance flows are likely to yield an easing in growth among non-oil economies to 3.6 per cent in 2009 from 6.5 per cent in the preceding year.

MENA countries better offWorld Bank update forecasts rapid deterioration in financial and economic conditions world over

East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) is likely to be most affected by the fal-loff in global investment and trade, crimping industrial production and fostering declines in capital spending. Investment stood at 36.3 per cent of GDP in 2008, contrasted with 26.5 per cent for developing countries exclud-ing EAP, and contraction in capital outlays is likely to carry proportion-ately larger effects on regional growth. Regional exports shift from gains of 15 and 10 per cent in 2007 and 2008 re-spectively, to decline of 1 per cent in 2009. Against this background, GDP eases to 5.3 per cent in 2009, as growth in China slumps to 6.5 per cent, and several ASEAN members, including Thailand fall to recession.

South Asia (SAR) has been marked down to 3.7 per cent growth for 2009 from 5.4 per cent anticipated earlier—

and down from 5.6 per cent registered in 2008. Though terms of trade have moved in favour of the region with the falloff in oil prices, weakening de-mand in export markets (including burgeoning Indo-Sino trade) is being felt sharply, as is a tempering of services exports from India’s high-tech cent-ers, as capital spending wanes globally. Remittances are anticipated to ease as conditions in host countries falter, al-beit with some lag. Capital inflows have diminished, contributing to falloff in investment growth, notably in India. Fiscal support for slowing economies may face constraints in already quite high budget deficits.

The review points out that what began six months ago with a massive de-leveraging in financial markets has turned into one of the sharpest global economic contractions in modern his-

39APRIL 2009

tory. As investors repatriated over-seas assets and credit conditions were tightened, firms around the world had to scale-back production and postpone capital spending plans. Faced with un-precedented loss of wealth and rapidly weakening labor markets, consumers reined-in spending, especially for du-rable goods.

This update reflects the rapid de-terioration in financial and economic conditions—and the increasingly neg-ative interaction between weakening economies and fragile financial sys-tems—that have come to the fore since late 2008 for virtually every country in the world.

Global GDP is expected to contract •by 1.7 per cent in 2009, which would be the first decline in world output on record. This marks as substantial 2.6 point deterioration from earlier GEP forecasts. High-income countries are in deep •recession this year, with OECD economies likely to contract 3 per cent and other high-income coun-tries 2 per cent. GDP among developing economies •should ease from an advance of 5.8 in 2008 to 2.1 per cent (contrasted with earlier projections for 4.4 percent growth). Two developing regions, Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Carib-bean will witness GDP decline in the year. Volumes of world trade in goods •and services are expected to drop 6.1 per cent in 2009, with a signifi-cantly sharper contraction in trade volumes of manufactured prod-ucts. Oil prices are expected to remain •more-than 50 per cent below 2008 levels, averaging $47 per barrel for the year, while the decline in non-oil commodity prices is forecast to remain in excess of 30 per cent.

The report points out that the global character of the recession has carried a dramatic impact on economic per-

formance among high-income coun-tries. Until mid-2008 the slowing of OECD domestic demand was partially offset by continued strong growth in exports of capital- and higher-tech products, supplying the investment that underpinned fast growth in the developing countries. Conditions have now reversed, as the collapse of high-income exports is reinforcing con-traction in domestic demand in high-income countries. The tight global links between trade in manufactured products and the capital expenditures needed to support economic activity have now transformed into a vicious circle.

Economies specialized in capital goods production—among them Ja-pan, Germany, Taiwan, China, and the United States—have been most adversely affected by the downturn in investment spending. The declines are especially dramatic in Asia. For exam-ple, the volume of goods exports from Japan had in January declined 40 per cent from a year earlier. The size of the contraction in Taiwan, China was 30 per cent and in Singapore 25 per cent. The fall in industrial production was of

similar magnitude in those countries. Consistent with that picture, GDP in Japan dropped 12.1 per cent at an an-nualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2008, at 21 per cent in Korea and 25 per cent in Taiwan, China.

The Japanese economy is now ex-pected to shrink 5.3 per cent (a mark-down of 5.2 points since November), roughly twice the contraction in Eu-rope and the United States. GDP in all high-income countries together is anticipated to decline 2.9 per cent in

2009—a step-down from GEP projec-tions of 2.8 percentage points.

The deceleration in economic growth in low-and middle income countries as a group is expected to match the decel-eration in high-income countries. The developing world is anticipated to see growth fall from 5.8 per cent in 2008 to 2.1 in 2009, a drop of 3.7 percentage points, similar to the falloff in high-in-come economies. This highly synchro-nous growth collapse cannot be solely explained by trade linkages, but illus-trates also that developing countries have been directly hit in their domes-tic economies by the financial crisis. The reversal of capital flows, collapse in stock markets, and in general the deterioration in financing conditions have brought investment growth in the developing countries to a halt, and in many developing countries investment is sharply declining.

The report says that the present re-cession is spreading pervasive effects throughout the global economy that go well beyond substantial declines in GDP, production and trade. Commod-ity prices have halved, triggering sizable shifts in terms of trade and current ac-

count positions, while rapidly lowering domestic inflation across the world. Fis-cal pressures are mounting swiftly, even for governments that enjoyed budget surplus at the start of the crisis. And large financing gaps on balance of pay-ments are emerging for a large number of countries, which are increasingly likely to require large-scale support from official sources to prevent harsh market-driven corrections.

The commodity price boom that began in 2003 came to an end in July

What began six months ago with a massive de-leveraging in financial markets has turned into one of the sharpest global economic contractions in modern history

40 APRIL 2009

2008. Apart from strong demand, a number of factors drove prices higher, including a weak dollar, low pre-boom investment in extractive industries, supply disruptions, biofuel mandates, investment fund activity, and govern-ment policies such as export taxes and bans on several food commodities. Many of these factors reversed at mid-year 2008, as the incipient slowdown in economic activity and fallout from the financial crisis induced massive price declines across all commodity sectors.

By December 2008, crude oil prices dropped to $41per barrel —down near-ly 70 per cent from July peaks—while non-energy prices fell nearly 40 per cent. Demand for most commodities slowed or declined—including import demand in China—particularly for oil and metals. Against this background, current projections call for crude oil to average near $47/bbl in 2009, some $27 per barrel below earlier expectations, with non-oil commodities falling 32 per cent. As most of these declines have already been realized for the year, the remainder of 2009 should be charac-terized by little overall change in price levels, though volatility is apt to remain elevated. As demand is not expected to recover meaningfully until 2010 or thereafter, prices should remain low in part due to idle capacity that could be reactivated in the case of metals and oil, and spare agriculture capacity.

CPI inflation across the G-7 coun-tries as well as developing economies is slated to slow substantially into 2009-10, with the former easing to 0.4 per cent from 2.9 per cent in 2008 as commodity prices retrench and weak demand and continued rise in unem-ployment keep price pressures at bay. Central bank fears of deflation will likely be offset by continued additions of liquidity to economies though stim-ulus programs and financial support measures. For developing countries, the median personal consumption de-flator is viewed to fall from 8.5 per cent in 2007-08 to 5 per cent by 2010. Even

if prices temporarily fall in some devel-oping countries, the risk of widespread deflation is still small, as the fall in commodity prices is expected to be a one-time event, and core inflation was till recently on an upward trend, in re-sponse to the surge in food prices dur-ing 2008. Moreover, many countries may experience further weakening of their currencies, which would curb disinflationary pressures.

All developing countries now face the prospect of substantial deteriora-tion in fiscal balances, as tax revenues fall (a good proportion related to in-ternational trade and the collapse in the manufacturing sectors), borrow-ing costs skyrocket and transfers to maintain social safety nets burgeon. Stimulus packages and other measures to mitigate mounting stress in the pri-vate sector are bound to lead to further deterioration in fiscal positions in the coming years. The most substantial widening in fiscal shortfall is expect-ed in developing Europe and Central Asia, where contraction in trade and production is severe, the private sector is highly vulnerable, and social safety nets have broad coverage.

External financing requirements for developing countries as a group are anticipated to increase to $1.3 trillion in 2009, comprised of current account deficits ($330 billion) and principal re-payments on private debt coming due ($970 billion). With a decline in capital flows to developing countries under-way, this would generate an estimated financing gap of between $270-$700 billion, depending on the size of roll-over risks and the magnitude of capital flight. Regions with the largest fund-ing gaps are Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Af-rica. In the current projections, 84 of 109 developing countries would face fi-nancing gaps, in most cases too large to cover by drawing down reserves alone. This suggests that in the absence of suf-ficient international support, countries could be forced into generating a sharp

reversal in current account balance, implying further decline in domestic demand and imports.

The report refers to the debates re-garding the possible ‘shape’ of recovery from the current downturn continue, but says there is little question that the outlook for 2010 in particular, is sur-rounded by extreme uncertainty across a wide array of policy- and other vari-ables that will eventually bring about a revival in economic activity. The pro-nounced cycle in worldwide investment could have sufficient dynamic to carry global growth back to positive terri-tory by 2010, as the pace of decline in investment moderates, and postponed demand for durable consumer goods begins to catch up. Together with the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus this results in the modest global recov-ery in the baseline forecast presented here.

However, continued banking prob-lems or even new waves of tension in financial markets could lead to stagna-tion in global GDP or even to another year of decline in 2010. In all cases, the estimated output gap would increase in 2010 because (in the baseline as well), growth falls well short of potential. This implies that unemployment and fiscal deficits will increase further into 2010, in high-income and developing coun-tries alike, while disinflationary condi-tions could persist well into the year.

The present recession is spreading pervasive effects throughout the global economy that go well beyond substantial declines in GDP, production and trade

APRIL 2009 41

INTERNATIONAL

Moments after US Treasury Secre-tary Timothy Geithner unveiled the Obama administration’s much-antici-pated. Financial Stability Plan (FSP) on Feb. 10, the stock market began sink-ing. Curiously enough, the credit mar-kets barely budged—a sign, perhaps, that the fixed income players were willing to give the $2.5 trillion plan a chance.

In our view, the FSP has the fea-tures needed to get bank lending and

The $2.5 trillion repair job

Geithner’s plan to fix the financial system is a good one; now he needs to execute

By Jeff Applegate and Charles Reinhard

securitized markets functioning in a more normal fashion. Now Geithner needs to put it to work, which is what we—and the markets, somewhat more tentatively— expect to see in the weeks ahead.ST RESS TEST: The first element of the FSP is a comprehensive regulatory stress test for major banks. The aims of this test are to make sure the banks could still lend even if they suffer fur-ther losses and to recapitalize banks

that fall short.The exam looks at a bank under

worsening economic conditions—a 3.3 per cent contraction in GDP in 2009, an average 10.3 per cent unemployment rate in 2010 and another 25 per cent de-cline in home prices.

After the review, banks needing more capital will be encouraged to seek private sources. Still, the US Treasury, Federal Reserve and other agencies are committed to making sure banks have

42 APRIL 2009

the capital and liquidity necessary to make credit available.

A vital aspect of the first piece of the FSP is that the government will provide a temporary capital buffer to recapital-ize banks that need it and take convert-ible preferred shares in exchange. The budget released Feb. 26 includes $750 billion for the financial rescue plan as needed to be carried on the books as a $250 billion loss. What if the banks need more? That will depend on the extent of further losses, which the next part of the

FSP, the Public-Private Investment Fund, is designed to address.

This investment fund, which is to acquire bad assets from banks, is cru-cial. The government will lend money to private investors such as hedge funds to buy these assets, thereby letting the market set the price. The difference between that price and whatever val-ues banks are carrying on their books would have to be absorbed as addition-al bank losses. Since the private-sector cost of borrowing will be low and the loan is nonrecourse, demand for these assets could be quite robust; by exten-sion, potential bank write-downs and additional recapitalization needs will be commensurately lower.LEVE RAGING UP: The third part of the FSP is the expansion, up to $1 tril-lion, of the Federal Reserve’s previously announced Term Asset-Backed Secu-rities Loan Facility (TALF). The plan calls for using $100 billion of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, and then leveraging them by a factor of 10. In es-sence, this is a further extension of the Fed’s credit easing, as the central bank will now become a market maker in securitized credit card, auto, student, commercial and residential loans. The Fed’s initial foray into credit easing in the commercial paper market last au-tumn succeeded in getting that mar-ket working again with lower absolute yields and spreads. The subsequent ven-ture into the mortgage market achieved positive results as well.

We think the TALF will work, too. This should also mean the Federal Re-serve’s balance sheet, which had recent-ly dropped back below $2 trillion as some of its commercial paper holdings matured, will rise again—potentially to $3 trillion—as the TALF ramps up.

While the FSP may fall short of what ultimately will be required, in our view it is an innovative initiative. Combined with the $787 billion stimulus package signed by President Obama on Feb. 17 and the $275 billion Homeowner Af-fordability and Stability Plan intro-

The plan calls for using $100 billion of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, and then leveraging them by a factor of 10. In essence, this is a further extension of the Fed’s credit easing, as the central bank will now become a market maker in securitized credit card, auto, student, commercial and residential loans

43APRIL 2009

duced by the president on Feb. 18, the FSP is another element that should lead to a recovery in economic growth in the second half of 2009. This recov-ery should be anticipated first in US and global equity markets. Moreover, this steady flow of initiatives from the Obama White House confirms our view that this administration will be much more activist than its predecessor.BEYOND THE US: Developed-country central banks, such as those in the UK, Japan and Canada, are moving toward a Fed-type ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) or deploying credit easing to keep local credit markets functioning.

Unfortunately, the European Cen-tral Bank hasn’t been aggressive enough on rates, though we expect that it will move closer to ZIRP this summer. De-veloping-country central banks, such as those of China and Brazil, continue to reduce interest rates—albeit from much higher levels—to stimulate their local economies.

Finally, global fiscal policy stimulus is at work, too. Including the US, our economists estimate fiscal stimulus will be more than 5 per cent of global GDP across 2009 and 2010.

As long as an adequate global policy response is forthcoming, the US and global financial markets and economy should complete its bottoming process. Almost across the board, that policy mix seems appropriate, in our view.

However, there remain concerns over the risk of protectionism. The ‘Buy American’ provision in the US fiscal stimulus package is one example; fortunately, it was mostly gutted after the White House opposed it.PROTE CTIONIST RISKS: In some circles, it’s considered ‘financial pro-tectionism’ when global banks reduce lending or sell assets outside their markets. In our view, such actions are more a corporate response to the downturn. Similarly, we disagree that backing US automakers is ‘industrial protectionism’Canada and Germany, for example, have been supportive of

American auto companies in those nations just as the US has been. So, while protectionism remains a risk to markets, it is a fairly low-level threat, given the globalization of labor and capital extant today.ROUND TRIP: US and global equi-ties have round-tripped back to their November lows, as consensus earn-ings estimates and valuation reflect the deeper recession. US and global

expected earnings for 2009 are now $64 and $17, respectively, versus $87 and $24 in November, while forward price/earnings ratios are 12 and 11, re-spectively, versus nine and eight previ-ously.

Historically, prospective equity re-turns have depended quite a bit on the characteristics defining the starting point. Currently, P/E ratios are below their long-term historical averages.

Earnings are also below trend. As a result, equities would stand to ben-efit if markets move toward more-nor-malized valuations in the months and quarters ahead. In addition, market

recoveries usually take place in a fa-vourable liquidity environment—and that liquidity is in place. Moreover, while the credit markets have not re-turned to normal, they are moving in that direction—and borrowing costs are low.REAL YIELD: The US equity market also looks promising in terms of real yield, or the yield on risk-free Treas-ury bonds less the inflation rate. In the

1950 through 2008 period, any time real yields were below 3 per cent, as they are now, stocks were up an average of 13.5 per cent in the next 12 months. That is significantly greater than the 5.1 per cent afforded to Treasury bonds or 3.1 per cent to cash in the same en-vironment. That history is yet another reason for investors to stay resolute through these difficult times.

Jeff Applegate is Chief Investment Offic-er and Charles Reinhard Senior Invest-ment Strategist with Citi Global Wealth Management

As adequate global policy response is forthcoming, the US and global financial markets and economy should complete its bottoming process

APRIL 200944

PROPERTYTECHNOLOGY

Criminals are using more so-phisticated techniques than ever before to steal and sell victims’ personal informa-

tion including email logins, credit card numbers, social security numbers, ac-count passwords, PIN numbers, and gaming passwords, the TrendMicro Annual Threat Report has concluded.

Trend Micro says researchers ob-served the continuation of a pattern established in 2007 in which cyber-criminals employ an increasingly pro-fessional approach toward creating schemes and using malware to make a profit in the ‘Underground Economy’. Unlike the suffering, real world econ-omy, the Underground Economy con-tinues to thrive and prosper, the report points out.

Stolen information is big business for today’s cybercriminals. Prices vary based on type of data, time of year sold, valuation of currency, account balanc-

TrendMicro report says underground economy flourishing in financial meltdown

es, credit limits, and other complicated criteria. According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, some estimate the global cyber-crime business to be gen-erating $100 billion-a-year in profits.

Motivation is simple—online crime pays. For example, the average salary for a Russian professional is approxi-mately $640 per month yet cyber-crime gangs are offering computer program-ming graduates from Moscow’s techni-cal universities up to $5,000 to $7,000 a month. As in the past, Russia continues

to be a hotspot for cyber crime. Russian malware is bought and sold for as much as $15,000 and rogue Russian Internet service providers charge $1,000 a month for bulletproof server access.

According to a recent article in The Independent, off-the shelf malware is sold for $50 to $3,500, depending upon its sophistication, its ability to target vic-tims, the kind of information it steals, and how well it evades security software. Criminals can even subscribe to a serv-ice to monitor antivirus developments

The average salary for a Russian professional is approximately $640 per month yet cyber-crime gangs are offering computer programming graduates from Moscow’s technical universities up to $5,000 to $7,000 a month

Cyber criminals getting more innovative

45APRIL 2009

and tweak malware accordingly for $25 to $60 per month, or can purchase a ‘premium service’ to avoid detection. Additionally, the article reports that a basic list of unqualified email addresses costs about 1/10th of a cent per address, while botnet services cost about $10 for a million emails. Botnets can also be rented and used for spamming, hack-ing, and denial of service attacks. An hour of usage on a network of 8,000 to 10,000 computers costs approximately $200.

Credit card details are the most common item bought and sold in the underground. Criminals either use the numbers on their own to exploit victims or sell the numbers on a black market online forum for two to five per cent of their remaining balances. For exam-ple, if the average card on the list had remaining credit of $1,000, each set of details would be worth approximately $25.

Geography also influences crimi-nal booty. For example in Asia, online gaming passwords are all-the-rage and command top dollar. When the Inter-net Explorer zero-day vulnerability was identified in December, Chinese hack-ers used the security hole to steal login credentials to online gaming platforms and then sell them online for profit. In addition, virtual gaming is so popular in China that people have actually been murdered for their virtual goods. In Eastern Europe, hackers use the same vulnerabilities for different purposes—usually to steal online banking logins and credit card information. PayPal and eBay accounts are also being bought and traded online. Criminals locate users with high reputation ratings then steal their login data and leverage victims’ high ratings to scam consumers.

The methods employed to make money in the underground are growing more sophisticated, actually mimick-ing the real world. An entire industry of malware software programmers ex-ists, for example, who sell code online

just like any real-world software devel-opment firm. In addition, cyber crooks employ a small army of work-at-home employees who receive payment for ac-cepting funds from Western Union, for example, or for receiving then resending shipments of stolen goods—essentially money-laundering operations. FBI offi-cials are reportedly tracking the correla-tion between rising unemployment and an increase in web-related schemes that promise large paychecks for a few hours of work per week from home.

Fake mortgage refinance schemes are also being used to bilk money from already hard-hit homeowners. The spam campaigns promise a better mort-gage rate if recipients send money for an appraisal then the criminal makes off with the fake appraisal fee. One of the reasons for the growing prevalence and profit of cyber crime is the ease with which criminals can launch operations.

Free tools abound to create a vari-ety of nasty web threats—from free, pre-made phishing kits to free spam

templates that exactly replicate the ap-pearance of popular banking web sites. In March, a slew of phishing kits were discovered built to target top Web 2.0 sites for social networking, video shar-ing, free email service providers, banks, and popular e-commerce sites.

Many of the kits originated from ‘Mr Brain’—a group of Moroccan fraudsters who launched a dedicated web site that advertises free, easy-to-use phishing kits. Mr Brain kits have been used to target several well-known banks and other organizations, including Bank of America, Chase, eBay, HSBC, PayPal, Wachovia, Western Union, and many others.

The underground economy will con-tinue to prosper as long as cybercrimi-nals develop increasingly sophisticated malware tools and as long as consum-ers and businesses lack the proper pro-tections. According to the 2008 breach report from Identity Theft Resource Center, 35 million data records were compromised last year in 656 admitted

46 APRIL 2009

incidents, compared to the 446 data loss cases reported in 2007.

Computer malware, hacking, and insider theft made up 29.6 per cent of overall recorded breaches, while data losses due to human error accounted for 35.2 per cent. Businesses and consum-ers alike will continue to suffer from data leaks, financial losses, identity theft, and damaged reputations in 2009, creating a security environment that is ripe for change.

As cybercriminals employ increas-ingly complex and distributed methods of attack, defense methods require a wider security net. Understanding the inner workings of single pieces of new malware code is insufficient for creat-ing adequate protection. Just as criti-cal is solving the puzzle of interactions among the malicious piece-parts of ma-licious spam, compromised web sites, and downloaded malware files.

The evolution of threats from mere files transferred through floppy disks to the sophisticated, blended web threats of today poses a unique challenge for the content security industry. New threats are now composed of multi-ple components, some of which may be non-malicious on their own. These threats are hard to detect since they re-quire catching the malicious aspects of each and every component, TrendMi-cro points out.

While malicious spam attachments have been infecting users for years, 2008

saw a huge increase in spam that em-ployed social engineering techniques. In January and February, for example, several targeted attacks occurred using Trojanized Microsoft Word files em-bedded with malicious code. The files (in reality, Trojan downloaders) were sent as attachments with related spam that supported the Tibetan govern-ment in exile. The file names were lifted from actual press releases and news headlines, such as ‘Free Tibet Olym-pics Protest on Mount Everest.doc’ and ‘CHINA’S OLYMPIC TORCH OUT OF TIBET 1.doc.’ The technique is familiar, dredging up memories of WORM_NU-WAR and leveraging headline-grabbing events to facilitate propagation.

In the middle of the year and to-ward the end, .ZIP files were spam-mers’ malicious attachments of choice, used to evade text-based spam filtering technologies. Examples included bo-gus UPS and FedEx email notifications containing a tracking number (to make the message appear authentic) with a message body informing recipients of a package delivery problem and a mes-sage urging the recipient to print the at-tached ‘invoice’ to claim the ‘package’. The attachment was the same file type as those seen in previous spam runs. The .ZIP file contained an information-stealer detected by Trend Micro as TSPY_ZBOT.MCS. ZBOT spyware—infamous keyloggers known to steal confidential information, such as those

related to online banking credentials.The increase in malicious attach-

ments may be attributed to the ease they provide cybercriminals in altering tactics, such as attachments that lever-age social engineering tactics and the ease with which payloads are delivered in the form of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. A a huge spike in malicious attachments occurred in September and October 2008.

SpamSpam has consistently risen over the years and the US continues to be the ‘most spammed’country, receiving 22.5 per cent of all spam, while Europe is the most spammed continent. China’s percentages have been increasing lately, showing 7.7 per cent of spam volume in 2008, compared to Russia at 5.23 per-cent, then Brazil, the Republic of Ko-rea, and others. Spam is predominantly written in English—at 93 per cent of all spam tracked by TrendLabs. The next highest spam language is Russian at 3 percent and after that, several languages attribute1 percent to spam, including Japanese, German, Chinese, and others.

Although still the spam leader in volume, English is slowly decreasing as a percentage of overall spam. Spam was in the news in April when ‘backscatter spam’ reinvented itself. ‘Backscatter’ is a term coined to refer to the intended ef-fect of sending spam using forged sender addresses.

Spammers who send email messages with different sender names in the From field are in fact counting on certain types of mail transfer agent (MTA) programs that return the entire text or message to the forged sender (as in Message Send-ing Failure messages or bounced email notifications) instead of truncating the messages. MTAs that are configured like this inadvertently cause a spam run, be-cause they “send back” message to users who did not send these messages in the first place. Similar to malware attacks that reuse old exploits, this recycled technique is as effective today as when it

When the Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability was identified in December, Chinese hackers used the security hole to steal login credentials to online gaming platforms and then sell them online for profit

47APRIL 2009

first appeared, as long as the conditions that allow it persist.

Another spam trend is the increas-ing use of malicious URLs embedded in spam to snag victims. Over 30 per cent of domains named in spam were reg-istered in the past 60 days— implying their shady nature—with 10.8 per cent registered in the five days prior.

In November, a group of security researchers blew the whistle on San Jose-based McColo Corporation—one of the world’s most disreputable hosting providers and one of the world’s largest sources of spam. With suspected links to the Russian Business Network (RBN) in St. Petersburg, McColo was believed to have hosted some of the command and control (C&C) infrastructure for several of the world’s largest identified botnets, including Srizbi, Rustock, Mega-D, and Cutwail. These botnets were controlling hundreds of thousands of zombie PCs involved in email spam, spamvertising, malware, child porn, credit card theft, fraud, and get-rich-quick scams.

As a ‘bulletproof’hosting provider, McColo was known to be unresponsive to complaints about its hosted sites, col-lecting a premium from criminal opera-tors for turning a blind eye when noti-fied of infractions. McColo was finally disconnected from the Internet after

years of investigation culminated in a complete shutdown, eliminating an un-believable 50 to 75 per cent of the world’s junk email in a single day. Unfortunate-ly, the spam reprieve was temporary and spam counts are again inching back up. In particular, Srizbi—one of the largest known botnets with links to McColo—appears to be regaining strength. The McColo shutdown indicates that bot-nets have been and will continue to be the biggest spam producers. Continued vigilance within the security, law en-forcement, and business communities will be critical in spam control in the years ahead.

In 2008, phishers became even more adept at using social engineering tech-niques to fool victims into falling for phishing schemes. In addition to target-ing financial institutions and banks, a new twist on phishing was discovered in November involving a fake McDonald’s Member Satisfaction Survey that prom-ised a $75 credit for completing the sur-vey. After completion, users were asked for full name, email address, credit card number, and electronic signature.

Bogus surveys related to Wal-Mart, American Airlines, and U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama were used in sev-eral phishing attacks this year to collect personal information from potential

victims. The surveys usually promise some form of reward to participants, clearly demonstrating that cybercrimi-nals are leveraging users’ increasing need to save money this past year.

With the increase in malware has come a dramatic rise in Internet crime. According to a study by the Organiza-tion for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) into online crime released last summer, an estimated one-in-four US computers is infected with malware.2 In addition to the stagger-ing number, many threat types have morphed into targeted, combined at-tacks, rendering sample collection al-most impossible.

Unlike the old days when hackers created viruses to be mischievous and to “show they could,” modern-day malware authors create threats primarily to make a profit. As the Underground Economy has grown and flourished into a multi-billion dollar industry, cybercriminals have developed new methods for trick-ing PC users.

In 2008, a series of mass compromis-es showcased the dangerous potential of today’s criminals to launch wide-scale attacks that affect a range of innocent-looking sites. Gone are the days when users could simply refuse to open at-tachments from unknown senders to avoid infection. The majority of today’s infections arrive via the web—hiding on legitimate-looking web pages, lurking behind convincing warnings for fake antivirus software, hidden under fake digital certificates that once indicated sites were safe.

Dramatic and daring exploits were revealed in 2008, such as DNS changing malware that exploits a recently revealed vulnerability that can literally route any machine to any other site. The zeroday bug found in Microsoft Internet Explor-er in December was similarly shocking in its scope. The identified vulnerability affects almost all versions of Internet Ex-plorer and Microsoft security research-ers estimated that as many as one in 500

48 APRIL 2009

Internet Explorer users could have been exposed to malware attempting to ex-ploit the flaw.

Ransomware also made a splash in 2008, with a Trojan that encrypts files, making them inaccessible without an encryption key. Experts predict more ransomware in the future, capitalizing on small to medium-sized businesses that lack the IT resources to combat such threats, particularly in a down economy.

In 2008, removable, physical drives became a popular threat vector, espe-cially in Asia. Autorun malware, which infect removable drives, was also on the rise last year. In addition, a rash of incidents involving infected USB sticks are causing companies throughout the world to create new, more stringent pol-icies about the kinds of devices allowed to access the corporate network. Not all threats were new last year, however. The Master Boot Record (MBR) rootkit made a spectacular comeback, with new technology that helps prevent detection. Another oldie— backscatter spam—al-so reappeared as a recycled threat that became newly effective in 2008.

Predictions for 2009 call for more of the same threats that plagued both home users and businesses in 2008, with new events and occurrences in the New Year that will shape the social en-gineering techniques that make today’s spam so believable.

In an effort to help customers pre-pare for the newest threats, Trend Micro provides the following Annual Threat Roundup and Forecast to showcase the malware that made headlines in 2008 and to deliver predictions for 2009. Knowledge of the threat landscape is the most important layer of defense—both for home and business networks. This report serves as a roadmap for all users to better understand both new and existing threats with helpful tips to protect against tomorrow’s new mal-ware attacks.

For security-minded IT network managers and individual computer us-

ers alike, the digital threat landscape is undergoing radical change. Simply stated, the sheer volume of new threats is overwhelming traditional protection methods. At the same time, the source or direction from which threats attack computers is predominantly via the In-ternet. By the end of 2008, less than 10 percent of all malicious attacks arrived by threat vectors other than the web.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators of dig-ital threats have become increasingly well organized. The underlying crimes carried out by digital threats are part of larger mass criminal enterprises that rely on quiet, continued operation on a huge scale. Gone are the days when the threat landscape was defined by the oc-currences of high impact, single event outbreaks.

Not only are the individual crimes associated with digital threats part of larger criminal operations, an increas-ing fraction of digital threats them-selves are merely piece-parts in com-posite threat mechanisms that utilize several stealth techniques together to overcome threat protection.

Historically, cybercriminals have continued to advance their malware development skills, and the security industry has responded with new tech-

up with the increasing volume of new threats, eventually it becomes logisti-cally overwhelming to deploy updated protection throughout the world.

Conventional malware protection involves gathering samples of malware, developing pattern file fixes, and then quickly distributing these pattern files to protect users. Because many Web threats are targeted, combined attacks, collecting samples is becoming almost impossible. Also, the huge and growing number of variants uses multiple deliv-ery vehicles (i.e., spam, instant messag-ing, and websites), rendering standard sample collection, pattern creation, and deployment insufficient. Traditional virus detection processes are also chal-lenged by a fundamental difference be-tween viruses and evolving web threats. Viruses were originally designed to spread as quickly

as possible and were therefore easy to spot. With the advent of web threats, malware has evolved from an outbreak model to stealthy ‘sleeper’infections that are more difficult to detect using con-ventional protection techniques.

Cybercriminals realize they can over-whelm content protection efforts with the sheer volume of new threats. The volume of new threats is easily increased

nologies to combat threats. Most re-cently, however, cybercriminals have exploited an inherent weakness in the traditional approach to protection. As content security companies discover new threats and develop countermeas-ures, this newly acquired threat knowl-edge must be deployed to all protected computers and networks. Even if the threat discovery process could keep

because of variants—i.e., the same Tro-jan can change hourly or daily in an attempt to fool security scanners. This means that millions of unique malware can, in fact, represent variants of the same piece of malware. Cybercriminals are also fully aware of the difficulty in issuing updates, and they use this fact to their advantage, creating new malware en masse and as quickly as possible.

Businesses and consumers alike are expected to continue to suffer from data leaks, financial losses, identity theft, and damaged reputations in 2009, creating a security environment that is ripe for change

49APRIL 2009

ABN AMRO Bank

Head Office: The Netherlands Dubai Branch, Regional Hub for UAE and Middle East Tel: 04 3512200 P.O.Box: 2567, Khalid bin Waleed Street, Dubai, UAE. Fax: 04 3511555 Non-stop banking service: 04 3080000 (Toll free)

Dubai Branch:Colin Macdonald Country Executive 04 5062601Burhan Khan Head of Consumer Banking 04 5062801 Hassan EI Nahas Head of Private Clients 04 5062301Vishnu Deuskar Head of Global Market 04 5062551Padmanabh Mishra Head Commercial Client Coverage 04 5062701

Abu Dhabi Tel: 02 6963000Corner of Hamdan and Salam Streets Fax: 02 6963001P.O. Box: 2720, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Sharjah Tel: 06 5594900Abdul Aziz Al Majid Building, King Faisal Street Fax: 06 5591009P.O. Box: 1971, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

Head Office: Abu Dhabi Mall P.O. Box 939, Abu Dhabi Tel: 02 6962144 Fax: 02 6450384

Branches Al SalamOmar S. Al Tamimi Manager 02 6962486, 02 6666311Khalidiya 02 6669910Al BayahKhaled Al Mannaei Manager 02 8721300Al DhafraYaqoob Al Dosari (Edgar Ruaya / GM in charge) 02 5851030Al MuroorRamzi Al Rimawi Manager 02 4444216Al ShahamaHazim Al Suwadi Manager 02 5633424GHQEssam Husain Al Habshi Manager 02 4415626Tourist Club AreaHadia Dalloul Manager 02 6725178HamdanAbdalla Al Jaberi Manager 02 6335820Sh. Rashed RoadMohamed Al Dosari Manager 02 6213237

CornicheGhassan Kandalaft Manager 02 6275111 MussafahFiras Al Eid Manager 02 5544272Baniyas Town Manager Hamad Salem Rashid Al Junaibi Manager 02 5821550Ruwais Mohammad Ismail Manager 02 8775015Zayed TownDhababa Rashed Obaid Al Mansouri Manager 02 8846180GayathiHaraba Al Mazroui Manager 02 8742155Al BayaOttakath C Mohamed Kutty Manager 02 8721300Al Ghuaifat Pay OfficeOttakath C Mohamed Kutty Manager 02 8723499Al Ain Main BranchMohd. Al Darmaki Manager 03 7543413Al Ain Khalifa StreetSalim Al Darmaki 03 7511322Sinaeyah (Indust. Area)Salem Ahmed Manager 03 7210064Al WaganNayla Al Ameri Manager 03 7352100Al YaharKhamis Sulum Abdun Khamis Manager 03 7815600Al HayerKhalid Omar Eissa Manager 03 7322557RiggahMudhi Al Haj Manager 04 2956969KaramaOmran Abbas Taimour Manager 04 4055135MinaHosam Al Refay Manager 04 3984444Naif Ms. Seema Mohd. Malk Manager 04 6024110Al EttihadSalem Ali Khammas Jammahi Manager 04 3615151 ext. (202)Al QusaisFahd. M. Baroudi Manager Manager 04 2634244Sharjah MainMs. Wissam Moaded Manager 06 5737737Farah Al Ulama Manager 06 5566169Abdulla Al Shamsi Manager 06 5433300Abdullah Fayez Al Shamsi Manager 06 5432006Ajman

50 APRIL 2009

Yasmeen Alabid Manager 06 7442111RAKAisha Ahmed Ghareib Manager 07 2335500FujairahMohdAli Hassan Mohd Al Bloushi Manager 09 2224324 DibbaRania Yousef Manager 09-2446700Contact CentreAhmed Abdo Manager 800-2030

Eissa Al Suwaidi Chairman Eirvin Knox CEO Ala’a Eraiqat Deputy Chief Executive OfficerThirry Bardury Head Operations & ITDeepak Khullar Chief Financial OfficerSeumas Gallacher Head - Investment BankingZaki Hamadani Head - legal & Special AssetsSultan Al Mahmoud Head - Human ResourcesAbdirizak Ali Head - Internal AuditAlok Kakar Head - Corporate Finance DivisionRobert Price Head - CreditWalter Pompliano Head - Financial Institution & Intl. DivisionHoward Gaunt Head - Business BankingJasim Al Darmaki Head - Government RelationsArup Mukhopadhyay Head - Retail BankingAhmed Barakat Head - Wealth ManagementYaser Mansour Head - Corporate Communications, Director of Chairman’s Executive Office & Senior Vice PresidentSimon Copleston General Counsel & Board Secretary

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

Head Office: Abu Dhabi Najda Street, P.O. Box 313, Abu Dhabi UAE Tel 02 6343000Email: customerservice@adib.ae Fax 02 6342222Website : www.e-adib.com

Established on 20th May 1997 as a Public Joint Stock Company through the Amiri Decree No. 9 of 1997. The bank commenced commercial operations on 11th November 1998, and was formally inaugurated by His Highness Sheikh Abdulla Bin Zayed Ak Nahyan, UAE Minister of Information and Culture on 18th April 1999. All contracts, operations and transactions are carried out in accordance with Islamic Shari’a principles. Branches

Abu Dhabi Main 02 6168118Aref Ismail Al Khouri Manager Mushref 02 4455177Ezzeldin Nagdy Manager Madinat Zayed 02 6100821 Mohamed Yousef ManagerKhalidiya Ladies Abu Baker Omar Manager Sheikha Al Suwaidi Manager Khalifa Street 02 6100590Omar Aqel Manager

Al AinSinaiya 03 7211777Omar M. Basheer ManagerClock Tower Branch 03 7076444Ali Abdullah Al Manager Dhaheri Al Jimi Mall Branch 03 7633500Ahmed Abdullah Manager Al Boloshi

DubaiAl Twar 04 2611116Ibrahim Alqasser ManagerOpposite Deira City Center 04 3973333Hashim Al Zarooni Manager Shk. Zayed Rd. Mohamed Hussein Zainal Manager 04 4033400

FujairahFujairah 09 2222711Fahad Al Shaer Manager Dibba 02 6100920Ali Mohammed Manager Ras Al Khaimah 07 2284448Saif Hamdan Alkeem ManagerSharjah 06 5075100Ali Essa Alshaqoosh Manager

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait - Dubai

Head Office: KuwaitRegional Head Office: Dubai Tel 04 2681118Opposite Hamarain Centre, Deira Fax 04 2684445P.O.Box 1719, Dubai, E-mail: infodubai@ahlibank.aeWebsite: www.ahlibank.ae Management & Senior Personnel:Vikram Pradhan General Manager, UAE Vijay Shah Head of Trade Finance & Operations Hiranand Motwani Manager Treasury Krishna Kumar Manager Retail Operations

American Express Bank Ltd

Representative Office, Suite 509 Tel: 04 3975000; Fax: 04 3976986The Business Centre, Khalid Bin Al Waleed Street, Bur DubaiP.O. Box 3304, Dubai.Prabir A. Biswas Director & Chief RepresentativeSumit.K.Roy Director-financial institution groupJohn A. Smetanka Head-wealth management-subcontinent and global NRI

Arab African International Bank

Head Office: Cairo, Egypt.Regional Head Office Dubai Tel: 04 3937773ART Tower, Al Mina Street, Opp. Ports & Customs Bldg., Bur DubaiP.O. Box 1049, Dubai Fax: 04 3937774Swift ARAIAEAD, E-mail: aaibdxb@emirates.net.aeWeb: www.aaib.comHistory: Established 1964 as the first Arab joint venture bankHemant Jethwani General Manager UAE Dubai Branch: Key ExecutiveAlaa Sobhy Head of syndication and assert tradeAbu Dhabi Tel: 02 6323400; Fax: 02-6216009Arab Monetary Fund Bldg, Corniche Street, P.O. Box 928, Abu DhabiKey ExecutiveHani Hassan Branch Manager

Arab Bank

Head Office Jordan – Amman Tel: 04 2950845; Fax: 04 2024369P.O.Box 950544, 950545Amman 11195 Website: www.arabbank.aeHistory: The Arab Bank Group is one of the principal financial institutions in the Arab world and ranks among the leading international banks in terms of equity, earnings and assets. Established in 1930 in Jerusalem. The Arab Bank Group is

51APRIL 2009

owned by about 4,000 shareholders from all over the world, mainly Arab countires. The Group has a diversified network of over 350 branches worldwide. Abdul Majeed Shoman ChairmanAbdel Hamid Shoman Deputy Chairman & Chief Executive OfficerU.A.E Area Management Mohammad A . Azab Senior Vice President - DubaiSaed Jarallah Senior Vice President – Abu DhabiAladin Al-Khatib Treasury HeadHatem Kurdieh Corporate Banking HeadTareq HajHasan Retail Banking HeadMohammad Mattar Central Operations Unit ManagerHani Hirzallah Regional Manager Human Resources /Gulf RegionTareq Ibrahim Head of Human ResourcesAmmar Al Khayyat Financial ControllarGhassan Nimer IT Center Regional ManagerJihad Ghoury Legal CounselSanjay Malhotra Global Head of Marketing & Product DeveleopmentNasser Maghtheh Senior AuditorAnan Al Khatib Premises & Pruchasing Officer (Engineer)Suleiman Malhas U.A.E Branches Audit Centre Manager

Dubai Al Ittihad Street 04 2950845

Mohammed Azab Branch Manager

Deira 04 2221231Mohammed Elayyan Branch Manager

Abu Dhabi Al Naser Street 02 6392225 Nasser Serries Branch Manager

Al Ain 03 7641328Colock Tower roundabout, Al Ain StreetMaen Jarrar Branch Manager Sharjah Al Arooba Street 06 5618999Maher Al Debis Branch Manager

Ajman 06 7422431Rashid Bin Humaid Street Modhar Kherfan Branch Manager

Ras Al Khaimah 07 2288437Oman Street, Al Nakheel Ali Zatar Branch Manager

Fujairah Sheik Zayed Street 09 2222050Abdel Hamid Qamhieyah Branch Manager Call Centre Within UAE 800 40 43Outside UAE 009714 2953889

Arab Bank for Investment and Foreign Trade

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6721900Regional Head Office, Sh. Hamdan Street, Tourist Club Area Fax 02 6785271P.O. Box 46733, Abu Dhabi Telex 22455 ARBIFT EMEmail: arbiftho@emirates.net.aeWebsite: www.arbift.comHistory: Established in 1976 in Abu Dhabi Registered as a Puvlic Joint Stock CompanyManagement & PersonnelIbrahim N. R. Lootah General Manager 02 6952286Hassan S. Kishko Head of Finance 02 6721299M.A. Majid Siddiqui Head of HR & Admin 02 6728785Khalid Mohammed Bin Amir Head of Operations 02 6776109Najib Taleb Nasser Head of Commercial Banking Ahmed Majid Lootah Head of Retail Banking 02 6743801M. Santosh Babu Senior Manager IT 02 6722975Izzeldin Al Siddiq Salem Mgr - Inspection & Internal Audit 02 6780592Osman Hamid Suliman Mgr - Banking Relations Dept 02 6787380

Mir Asif Ali Mgr - Treasury Dept 02 6721600Saidi Zoubir Head of Business Dev. Dept. 02 6723763Tareq S’adi Al Darras Mgr - Credit Risk Management 02 6720886Issam Abugisseisa Legal Advisor 02-6791642Abu Dhabi Main, Sh. Hamdan Street 02 6721900Noora Ebrahim Manager -Sales & Services 02 6780423Souk Branch 02 6269500Al Masaood Building - Khalifa Street, Abu DhabiNasser Rashed Al Ali Manager 02 6275087

Al Ain 03 7655133Mohd. Sultan Al-Darmaki Bldg., 1st Floor, Old Passport Office Road.Hussain Marzouqul Manager 03 7656482

Dubai 04 2220151Arbift Tower, Baniyas Street, DeiraAdel Mohd. Khalfan Manager 04 2282071Al Bagh

Sharjah King Faisal Street 06 5744888Fatima Al Muani Manager 06 5747766

Arab Banking Corporation

Abu Dhabi Office 02 6447666Office, 10th Floor, Abu Dhabi Trade Centre, Abu Dhabi MallP.O.Box 6689, Abu Dhabi Fax 02 6444429Mohamed El Calamawy Chief Representative

Arab Emirates Investment Bank PJSC

Head Office: Cairo Egypt Tel: 04 3937773Regional Office: Dubai Fax: 04 3937774ART Tower, Al Mina Road, Opposite Maritime City, Bur DubaiP.O Box 1049 DubaiSWIFT: ARAIAEADE-mail: aaibdxb@eim.aeWeb: www.aaib.com

Management-UAEHemant Jethwani General ManagerAlaa Sobhy Head of Syndication and Asset TradeMahendran Raman Head of Operations and LiabilitiesAbu Dhabi Branch Tel: 02 6323400 Fax: 02 6216009Arab Monetary Fund Bldg., CornicheP.O Box 928, Abu Dhabi

BLOM Bank France SA

Dubai Tel 04 2284655Al Maktoum Street, Deira Dubai, P.O. Box 4370 Fax 04 2236260email: info@blomfrance.aewww: www.blombank.aeBassem Ariss Regional Manager 04 2222355Samir Hobeika Branch Manager 04 2214648Michel Germanof Manager Corporate Credit UAE 04 2242067 Mohammad M Ansari Treasurer 04 2224812

Sharjah

PO Box 5803, Al Buheira Tower, Al Buheira Corniche Tel 06 5736100 Fax 06 5736080 Mokhtar Kassem Branch Manager

52 APRIL 2009

Bank Muscat

Dubai Representative Office Dubai Creek Tower, Baniyas Road, Deira Tel 04 2222267P.O. Box 29969, Dubai Fax 04 2210115Lawrence P. Monteiro Chief Representative

BBK BSC

Dubai-Representative Office 04 2210560Dubai Creek Tower Office 18A, Baniyas Road, DeiraPO Box 31115 Tel 04 2210560 / 70 Fax 04 2210260 Website www.bbkonline.comHistory: Established on 16th March, 1971

Murad Ali Murad ChairmanKarim Bucheery CEO & GMSh. Rashed Al Khalifa Deputy General Manager

Dubai ReP-Office: CK Jaidev Head of Representative Office Rajiv Kapoor Relationship Manager & Loan Syndications Wafa Al-Alwan Relationship Manager & Loan Syndications

Bank of Baroda

Dubai Zonal Office: Sheikh Rashid Bldg.Ali Bin Abu Talib Street, Bur Dubai,P.O.Box 3162, Dubai Tel: 04 3531628E-mail: cc.gcc@bankofbaroda-uae.ae Fax: 04 3530839UAE Website: www.bankofbarodauae.aeHistory: Established in 1908, July 20Nationalized on July 19, 1969

Senior Management & Personnel – Baroda Corporate Centre, Mumbai, India.Dr. A.K. Khandelwal Chairman & Managing Director Mr. V. Santhanavanam Executive DirectorMr. S.C. Gupta Executive Director

Zonal Office, Dubai:Ashok K. Gupta Chief Executive, (GCC operations) 04 3538093L.J. Asthana Senior Manager (Credit) 04 3531628J.K.Jais Senior Manager (Inspection) 04 3531628P.M. Bondarde Senior Manager (Credit) 04 3531628Sujeet Bhale Senior Manager (Syndication) 04 3531628Rajesh Jain Senior Manager (Internal Auditor) 04 3531517

Abu Dhabi:Al Halami Centre, Sheikh Hamdan Street 02 6330244/ 6322000K. Venkateshwarlu Chief Manager 02 6344302K.Shridhar Senior Manager (Credit) R.G. Shanker Senior Manager (Operations)

Al Ain: Clock Tower, Round about, Planning Street 03 7519880Sarabjeet Singh Senior Branch Manager 03 7659554Vijay Kumar Goel Senior Manager (Operations)

Dubai: Sheikh Rashid Bldg.Ali Bin Abu Talib Street,

Bur Dubai, 04 3531955Vinod Malhotra Asst. General Manager 04 3534516Shekhar Tripathi Senior Manager (Operations) 04 3530166M.K. Patel Senior Manager (Credit) 04 3534080Beena Desai Manager (India Desk) 04 3537586Retail banking Shoppe, DubaiMr. Saravana kumar 04 3534390Mr Ketan Dave 04 3540041Mr Vinay Rathi 04 3540340

Deira Kuwaiti Bldg., Al Rigga, Baniyas Street, Deira 042287949Rajiv K. Garg Chief Manager 04 2286516Yuvraj Singh Senior Manager (Operations) 04 2286216P.K. Gambhir Senior Manager (Credit) 04 2292181R.K. Madaan Manager 04 2292181

Ras Al Khaimah:Al Qasimi Bldg, Oman Street, Al Nakheel 07 2229293P.K.Bhargav Senior Branch Manager 07 2229293

SharjahAl Mina Road 06 5684231/ 5686232M.S. Chouhan Asst. General Manager 06 5683273D. Pathania Senior Manager (Credit) 06 5684231D. Guha Senior Manager (Operations) 06 5686232

Bank of New YorkRepresentative office Tel 02 6263008Suite 402, The Blue Tower, Sh. Khalifa Bin Zayed Street Fax 02 6263308P.O.Box 727, Abu DhabiHani Kablawi Managing Director

Bank of Sharjah

Sharjah Head Office – Al Hosn Avenue Tel 06 5694411 P.O. Box 1394, Sharjah Fax 06 5694422E-mail: bankshj@emirates.net.aeHistory: Established on 22nd December 1973 with Banque Paribas, Paris

Ahmed Abdulla Al Noman ChairmanVarouj Nerguizian General ManagerMario Tohme Deputy General ManagerFadi Ghosn Deputy General ManagerAli Burheimah Commercial ManagerMohammed Asghar Senior Operations ManagerFares Saade Senior ManagerMichel Germanos Risk ManagerJayakumar Menon Finance ManagerBerj Tossounian Credit Manager - SharjahWahide Assaad IT ManagerJihad Aoun Investment ManagerSamer Hamed Audit & Control Manager Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6795555Al Mina Street, P.O.Box 27391 Fax 02 6795843Ramzi Saba Senior ManagerMazen El Attar Operations Manager- Abu DhabAnni Barsoum Credit Manager - Abu DhabiDubai Tel 04 2827278Al Gharoud Street, PO Box 27141 Fax 04 2827270Nadim Melki Senior ManagerToufic Youakim Credit Manager - DubaiFadi Haddad Operations Manager - DubaiAl Ain 03 7517171Khalifa Street, PO Box 84287 Fax 03 75170770George Dib Branch ManagerRida Higazi Deputy Branch Manager

53APRIL 2009

Bank Saderat Iran

Dubai Tel 04-6035555Regional Office, Al Maktoum Street, P.O. Box 4182 Fax 04 2229951

Dr.Hamid Borhani Regional ManagerAbdul Reza Shabahangi Assistant Regional ManagerMohammad Yousefi Peyhani Assistant Regional ManagerMajid Tavasoli H.R. & Organization Dept. ManagerGholamreza Joulaie Credit Facility Dept. ManagerRahim Erfan Moghaddam Account Dept. ManagerMehran Arzhang Letter of Credit Dept. Manager Majid Mirnasiri Recovery Dept. ManagerHamdi Reza Khalajzadeh Dealing Dept. ManagerHojatollah Malek Mohammadi IT Dept. ManagerMansoor Sedaghat Motlagh Service Dept. Manager Mohsen Hossein Hosseinpour Manager of Al Maktoum BranchGholamreza Ebadi Fard Manager of Murshid Bazar Branch Saeed Mirzaian Tafti Manager of Sheikh Zayed Rd. Branch Ferdos Zolfagharian Manager of Bur Dubai Branch Seifollah Farzan Mehr Manager of Sharjah Branch Jalil Vosooghi Manager of Ajman Branch Ali Abasteh Manager of Abu Dhabi Branch Peyman Sabri Manager of Al Ain Branch

Banque Du Caire

Abu Dhabi Regional Head Office (02) 6225880P.O. Box 533, Abu Dhabi Telefax 02-6225881History: Established on 8th May, 1952 On July 1, 1960 the Amman Branch became independent under the title of Cairo Amman Bank. In July, 1961 the Bank was na-tionalized. On November 2, 1962 the Lebanese branches were absorbed by Banque Misr-Liban S.A.L On October 1, 1979 fo3rmer branches in Saudi Arabia have been saudized and a new bank was formed under the name of Saudi Cairo Bank.

Mohamed kamal Al Deen Barakat Chairman Ahmad Sherif Rehab Regional Manager Abu Dhabi - UAE PO Box 533 Tel: 02-6272525Abu Dhabi Branch Mohamad Kamal Farid (Acting Manager) Tel: 02-6273000Dubai Branch Labib Abdul Ghaffar Tel: 04-2715175Sharjah Branch Tareq Hafez Tel: 06-5739379Ras Al Khaima Mohamad Abdul Ghani (Acting Manager) Tel: 07-2332245Al Ain Abdul Hamid Saeed Tel: 03-7511104

Barclays Bank PLC

Dubai Tel: 04 3626888Emaar Business Park, Building No. 4, Sheikh Zayed Road Fax: 04 3663133P.O. Box: 1891, DubaiWebsite www.barclays.com

Saleem Sheikh Regional Managing Director, Middle East & North AfricaMark Petchell Group Country Managing DirectorAmin Habib Director - Corporate BankingFaizen Mitha Regional TreasurerFarrukh Zain Head of Trade SalesFlorence Goodman Head of Corporate Afffairs & Public RelationsDavid Inglesfield Location Manager - International & Premier Bank-ing Callum Watts-Reham Director, Market Manager, Gulf - Barclays Private Clients

Barclays CapitalDubai International Financial Centre, Level 9, West Wing, The Gate Building, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai Nicholas Hegarthy Managing Director, Head of Middle East & North Africa

BLC Bank (France) S.A.

Head Office17-19 Avenue Montaigne Tel 33 1 56 52 11 0075008 Paris, France Fax 33 1 56 52 11 11Mr. Andre Tyan General Manager

Regional Office Dubai Al Maidan Tower, Al Maktoum St. Tel 04 2222291P.O. Box 4207, Dubai Fax 04 2283935E-mail: blcdxbrm@emirates.net.ae Melhem Dagher Administration & Operations Manager

DubaiAl Maidan Tower, Al Maktoum St. Tel 04 2222291P.O. Box 4207, Dubai Fax 04 2279861 Hamze Abdul Sater Branch Manager

Abu DhabiMohd. Joan Al Badi Bldg., Hamdan St. Tel 02 6220055P.O. Box 3771 Fax 02 6222055Ghassan Haddad Acting Regional ManagerSamir Rached Acting Branch Manager

Sharjah Al Salam Bldg., Al Mina St. Tel 06 5724561P.O. Box 854 Fax 06 5727843Victor Khoriaty Branch Manager

Ras-Al-KhaimahSheikh Ahmad Bin Saker Al Quasimi Bldg., Al Montaser St. Tel 07 2286222P.O. Box 771 Fax 07 2275067Abd El Hajj Branch Manager

BNP Paribas

Abd Ahmad Al Hajj Branch ManagerAbu Dhabi Tel 02 6130400Khalifa Street, P.O. Box, 2742, Abu Dhabi Fax 02 6268638Marc Checri General Manager

Central Bank of the U.A.E

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6652220/6915555Head Office, Al Bateen Area, Bainoona Street Fax 02 6668483/6668621P.O.Box: 854, Abu Dhabi, www.cbuae.gov.aeE-mail: sultan_rashid@cbuae.gov.aeSwift: CBAU AE AAReuters dealing code: CBEMHistory Established in 1980 as a central bank of the United Arab Emirates by a federal decree. Central bank took over the activity of the United Arab Emirates currency board which was established in 1973.Management & PersonnelH.E. Sultan Bin Nasser Al-Suwaidi Governor H.E. Mohd. Ali Bin Zayed Al Falasi Deputy Governor

Board of DirectorsH.E. Mohd. Eid M. Jasim Al-Meraikhi ChairmanH.E. Jumaa Al-Majid Vice Chairman

54 APRIL 2009

H.E. Sultan Bin Nasser Al-Suwaidi Governor

MembersAli Al-Sayed Abdulla, Jamal Nasser Lootah, Khalifa Nasser Bin Huwaileel, Saeed Rashid Al Yateem Al Muhairy

Executive DirectorsSaeed Abdulla Al Hamiz Executive Director-Banking Supervision & Exami-nation Dept.Rashid Mohamed Al Fandi Executive Director - Banking Operations Dept.Saif Hadef Al Shamesi Executive Director - Treasury DepartmentSalem Ahmed Al-Hammadi Executive Director - Research & Statistics DepartmentAbdulla Hamad Al-Zaabi Executive Director - Internal Audit DepartmentJamal Ebrahim Al Mutawaa Executive Director - Administration Department

Economic AdvisorsAbed Alla Osama Malki, Mohammed Zeitouni Bechri

Portfolio ManagersMohammed Abdulla Mohammed, Brian Gardner

Anti-Money Laundering & Suspicious Cases UnitAbdul Rahim Mohamed Al Awadi Asst. Executive Director

General Secretariat & Legal Affairs DivisionSalem Said Al Kubaisi Senior Manager

Financial Control DepartmentHassan Ibrahim Al Hamar Senior Manager

Personnel DivisionAli Ghurair Al Romaithi Senior Manager

Correspondent Banking DivisionSultan Rashed Al-Sakeb Senior Manager

Public Relations DivisionAbdul Raheem Abdullah Manager

Information Technology Division/ UAE Switch DivisionKhalifa Al Dhaheri Senior Manager

Dubai Tel: 04 3939777P.O. Box 448 Fax: 04 3937802Omar Al Qaizi Manager-in-Charge

Sharjah Tel: 06 5592592Old Airport Road, Opp. Immigration Bldg., P.O. Box 645, Sharjah Fax: 06 5593977Zakaria Abdul Aziz Al Suwaidi Senior Manager

Ras Al Khaimah Tel: 07 2284444Al Nakheel, Oman Street, P.O. Box 5000 Fax: 07 2284646Salem Jasem Al Baker Asst. Executive Director

Fujairah Tel: 09 2224040P.O. Box 768, Fujairah Fax: 09 2226805Ali Mubarak Saeed Abbad Senior Manager

Al Ain Tel: 03 656656Ali Ibn Abee Taleb Street, Oud Al Touba Fax: 03 664777P.O. Box 1414Ajlan Ahmed Al Qubaisi Asst. Executive Director

Citibank N.A (UAE Branches)

Date of Establishment 1964Nationality USALegal Status

Commercial Banking Services (F)Regional Head Office Oud Metha TowersP.O Box 749, Dubai – UAETel: 04- 3245000Telex: 023 6738736Cable: CITIBAEMSwift: CITIAEADReuters: N/AEmail: karim.seifeddine@citi.comWebsite: www.citibank.aeAuditors: KPMGDomestic Branches: Al Wasl Road Branch (Main Branch) Tel: 04 3245000Oud Metha Road, P.O Box 749 Dubai Branch (Next to Burjuman) Tel: Abu Dhabi Branch Tel: 02 6982206Al Salam Street, Next to Lulu Center Fax: 02 6726381P.O Box 999, Abu DhabiSharjah Branch Tel: 06 5072101Beside Sharjah Emigration, Fax: 06 5723378Opposite Civil Court. Sharjah Al Ain Branch Tel: 03 7641090Sh. Zayed Street Fax: 03 7663887Broad of Directors: N/AGeneral Management: Mohammed E. Al- Shroogi, MD for the Middle East and Chief Executive Officer, UAE Sanjoy Sen, Country Business Manager Global Consumer Group - U.A.EMohammed Azab, Chief Officer, UAE Offices, Citi Private Bank

Clearstream Banking

Dubai Tel 04 3310644City Tower 2, Sheikh Zayed Road Fax 04 3316973Website: www.clearstream.comRobert Tabet Vice President Middle East & North Africa

Commercial Bank International

Dubai Tel 04 2275265Head OfficeDubai Al Riqqa Street Deira , P.O Box 4449 Tel : 04 2275265 Website : www.cbiuae.com Fax : 04 2279038 Hamad Al Mutawaa Chairman H.E. Humaid Al Qatami Deputy Chairman Abdulla Rashid Omran Managing Director and Board Member 04 2242104

Mohammed Saadeh Head of GBG 04 2126500 Abdulla Amer Jasem Head of HR & Admin 04 2126466 Hesham Abdulla Head of Branches & Services 04 6020615 Ahmed Mustafa Tahoun Head of Internal Audit & compliance Division 04 2126603 Ramanthan Murgappan Senior Manpower planning & Recruitment Manager 04 2126444 Zainab Nour Aldin Employee Relations Manager 04 2126 442 Yousef Haddad Planning & Development Manager 04 2126190 Bashir Haji Mohd Chief Dealer 04 2126214 A.D.Abooty Head Of Operations & Finance 04 2126291 K.E Mammoo Accounts Manager 04 2126215 Faris Saddi Chief information Officer 04 2060700 Yousef Al Marshoudi Dubai Branch Manager 04-2275265 Tariq Selaij Bur Dubai Manager 04-3559577 Ameena Bin Kaali Sheikh Zayed Branch Manager 04 3405555 Ahmed Al Junaibi Abu Dhabi Branch Manager 02-6913111 Abdulla Ali Almadhani Al Ain Branch Manager 03 7669994 Mohammed Ishaq RAK Branch Manager (AL Manar Mall) 07 2274777 Ahmed Darwish RAK Branch Manager (Nakhel Branch) 07 2227555

55APRIL 2009

Alyia Al Mulla Sharjah Branch Manager 06 512100 Ahmed Bin Masood Fujairah Branch Manager 09 2011777

Dubai Main Branch (Al Riqqa Street)Yousef Al Marshaudi Branch manager 04 2126101Bur DubaiTariq Sulaij Branch manager 04 3555511Sheikh Zayed RoadAmeena Mhd. Bin Kaadi Branch manager 04 3405555Abu Dhabi Ahmed Sulaim Al Junaibi Branch Manager 02 6264400AL AINAbdulla Ali Branch manager 03 7669994Ras Al KhaimahKhaled Al Mannai Branch Manager (Manar Mall) 07 2274777Ahmed Yousef A. Darwish Branch Manager (Nakeel Branch) 07 2227555SharjahAliya Al Mulla Branch manager 06 5687666

Commercial Bank of Dubai

Main Branch , Al Ittihad Street, Port Saeed, DubaiIbrahim Salama Branch Manager 04 212 1000Dubai Branch, Mankhool Street, DubaiAmer Al Shamali Branch Manager 04 352 3355AL Maktoum Branch, Abu Baker Al Siddique StreetAhmed Al Aboodi Branch Manager 04 268 3555Deira Branch, Baniyas Street Mohammad Al-Sayed Al-Hashemi Branch Manager 04 225 3222Baniyas Square Branch, Al Maktoum Hospital StreetMohd. Al Lawati Branch Manager 04 228 9000Jebel Ali Branch, Jebel Ali Free ZoneMohammed Abdulla Mardood Branch Manager 04 881 8882Jumeirah Branch, Jumeirah Beach RoadAreffa Al Hashimi Branch Manager 04 344 1438Sheikh Zayed Road Branch, Ghaya Towers, Sheikh Zayed RoadMaher Marzouqi Branch Manager 04 334 777Al Garhoud Branch, Al Haj Saleh Bin Lahej Building,Al Garhoud Street-DeiraAli Salman Branch Manager 04 282 6444Al Qusais Branch ,Al Nahda StreetAbdullah Lootah Branch Manager 04 261 5000Souq Al Wasl Branch, Souq Al Wasl StreetTaher Mohammed Branch Manager 04 227 6111Al Aweer Branch, Central Fruit and Vegetable Market, Al AweerIbrahim Al Ramsi Branch Manager 04 320 1222Naturalization and Residence , Administration – Dubai BranchAdel Abdul Aziz Branch Manager 04 398 5000Mr. Jamal Saleh Assistant General Manager, Head of Risk ManagementAbu Dhabi Branch, Corniche Street Wael Ahmed Mahfouz Branch Manager 02 626 8400Musaffah Branch , Al Firdoos Building, Mussaffah Area M/3Zahir M. Suaiman Branch Manager 02 555 5510Khalidiya Branch, Khalidiya streetSultan Ali Al Assiry Branch Manager 02 667 9929 AL Ain Branch, Al Takhtit Street, Clock TowerKhalid Abdel Hadi Branch Manager 03 766 7800Sharjah Branch, Immigration RoadAbdul Aziz AL Ansari Branch Manager 06 574 0666Ajman Branch, Shk.Humaid Abdul Aziz StreetMarwan Ebrahim Mohammed Branch Manager 06 745 6668 Ras Al Khaimah Branch, Al Nakheel Area, Oman StreetEbrahim Ahmed Al Zaabi Branch Manager 07 228 6266Fujairah Branch , Al Gurfa Road, Near Al Mibkhar RoundaboutAbdullah Al Suwaidi Branch Manager 09 222 5111H.E. Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer ChairmanH.E. Saeed Ahmed Ghobash Deputy Chairman

H.E. Saeed Mohd Al Ghandi Deputy ChairmanMr. Abdul Wahed Al Rostamani DirectorMr. Abdul Rehman Saif Al Ghurair DirectorMr. Saeed Mohd Al Mulla DirectorMr. Khaled Juma Al Majid DirectorMr. Omar Abdulla Al Futtaim DirectorMr. Peter Baltussen Chief ExecutiveMr. Yaqoob Yousuf Hassan Deputy Chief ExecutiveMr. Ibrahim Abdulla General Manager, Administration & FinanceMr. Mahmoud Hadi General Manager, Central OperationsMr. Faisal Galadari General Manager, Business groupMr. Ahmed Shaheen General Manager, Credit GroupMr. Abdul Rahim Al Nimer General Manager, Financial ServicesMr. Stephen Davies Deputy General Manager, Corporate Banking Mr. Moukarram Att asi Deputy General Manager, Asset ManagementMr. Thomas Smith Deputy General Manager, Head of RetailMr. John Tuke Deputy General Manager, Treasury & ALMMr. V.P Bhatia Assistant General Manager, TreasuryMr. Masood Azhar Assistant General Manager, SPDMr. Amir Afzal Assistant General Manager, ITMr. Adel Al Sammak Assistant General Manager, Corporate Banking Mr. Kanan Iyer Assistant General Manager – Internal AuditMr. Clive Harrison Assistant General Manager – HRMr. Alan Kerr Assistant General Manager, Corporate BankingMr. Alan Hill Assistant General Manager, Treasury & Investment

Coutts & Co.

Representative Office - Dubai Tel 04 2217007Twin Towers, Baniyas Street, Deira Fax 04 2217006P.O. Box 42220Sarah Deaves CEOSandra Shaw General Manager Martin Bond Private Banker

Calyon Corporate & Investment Bank (Previously Crédit Agricole Indosuez & Crédit Lyonnais) DubaiWorld Trade Centre, Level 32 Tel: 04 3314211P.O.Box: 9256 Fax: 04 3313201Website: www.calyon.comAmr Alkabbani Regional Manager – Gulf 04 3317316Ludovic Bernard-Maissa Regional COO Eric Fromaget Head of Private Banking 04 3321300Sebastian Van der List Head of Corporate Banking – UAE 04 3315836Naeem Khan Trade Finance 04 3291055Albert Mondjian Head of Investment Banking – MEA 04 4284803 Abu DhabiAl Muhairy Centre, Level 5 Tel: 02 6351100Block C, Sheikh Zayed the First Street Fax: 02 6344995P.O.Box: 4725Ghazi Abdul Fattah Branch Manager 02 6351991

Credit Suisse

Abu Dhabi Dhabi Tower, 4th floor, Sheikh Hamdan Street Tel 02 6275048P.O.Box 47060 Fax 02 6274109Jean-Marc Suter Director

Dubai P.O. Box 33660 04 3620000

56 APRIL 2009

The Gate bldg, 9th Floor Fax 04 3620001Dubai International Finance Centre ( DIFC), Dubai Head of Regional Office Beat Naegell

Deutsche Bank A G

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6333122P.O.Box 52333 Fax 02 6322044E-mail: jens.moeller@db.comJens Moeller Representative

Dubai P.O. Box: 50490Emirates Towers, Level 27b Fax 04 3199560Karl French Director Tel : 04 3199514 Private Wealth Management - AsiaNadeem Masud Director Tel : 04 3199524 Global MarketsHarris Irfan Vice President Tel : 04 3199520 Global Equities & DerivativesRohit Johri Vice President Tel : 04 3199522 Private Wealth Management - Asia

Dresdner Bank AG

Dubai Representative OfficeBurjuman Business Towers, 10th Floor, Office 1011 Bur Dubai, P.O. Box: 25654 Tel 04 3596444 Fax 04 3596116E-mail: RepDubai@Dresdner-Bank.com

Bashar A. Barakat Chief Representative Regional Head GCC & Yemen

Dubai Bank

Main Office Sheikh Zayed Road, Near Dubai World Trade Centre Tel 04 3328989P.O. Box 65555, Dubai Fax 04 3290071E-mail: info@dubaibank.ae Website: www.dubaibank.ae

History: Established in September 2002

Ziad Makkawi Chief Executive Officer

Dubai Islamic Bank

Head OfficeAl Maktoum Street, Dubai Tel 04 2953000 P.O. Box 1080, Dubai Fax 04 2954111Website: www.alislami.co.aeHistory: Established March 12, 1975Dr. Mohammed Khalfan Bin- Kharbash Chairman Butti Khalifah Bin DarishAl- Falasi CEOSaad Mohammed Abdul Razzaq Deputy CEOMohd. Saeed Al Sharif Executive Vice President-FinanceArif Ahmed Al Koheji Executive Vice President-Investment BankingAbdullah Ali Al Hamli Executive Vice President - Business ServicesAhmed Mohammed Fadel Legal Consultant and Board Secretary

Branches

Deira Main Branch 04 2959999Al Souk 04 2233300Sheikh Zayed Rd 04-3437777Nad Al Shiba 04 3907777Bur Dubai 04 3971717Jumeirah Ladies Branch 04 3429955Al Barsha 04 3406000Ajman 06 7466555Sharjah 06 5726444Wasit Road 06 5584455Al Dhaid 06 8826682Khorfakan 09 2370080Abu Dhabi 02 6346600Khalidiah Ladies Branch 02 6677119Al Salam 02 6450555Bani Yas 02 5825511Al Ain 03 7644111Al Ain Mall 03 7515155Ras Al Kheimah 07 2284888Fujairah 09 2221550

El Nilein Bank

Abu Dhabi P.O.Box 46013 Tel 02 6269995 Fax 02 6275551Abdulla Mahmoud Awad Manager Tel 02 6720934Mohamed Osman Salih Deputy Manager 02 6761916Murlidhar G. Ramchandani Chief Accountant & Dealer 02-6729300Ahmed Hillali Ahmed Head Investment Dept. & Credit 02-6729300

Emirates Bank International

DubaiMain Branch, Baniyas Road, Deira Tel 04 2256900P.O. Box 2923, Dubai Fax 04 2267718

BranchesAbu Dhabi 02 6455151Hameed Sheikh ManagerAl Ain 03 7510055/77Ghanim Al Hajeri Manager Al Maktoum Ali Malallah ManagerAl Quoz Mohd. Abdulla Manager Baniyas Square Sherif Al Ulama ManagerBander Talib Fareed Aquilli ManagerDubai Main Branch Amal Al Qamzi ManagerFujairah 09 2222114/110 Yousif Al Marshoudi ManagerInternet City 04 3910840/1 Balakrishnan Nair ManagerGalleria Farida Al Balooshi Manager IBN Gardens 04 8844689Hamdan Mohd. Abdulla Manager Jebel Ali Free Zone 04 8815551Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Manager Karama Muna Al Falahi Manager

57APRIL 2009

Karama Shopping Complex Nawal Al Khader ManagerMankhool Abdul Rahim Abdulla ManagerQiyadah Fatima Al Midfa ManagerGhusais Fatima Al Midfa ManagerRamoul Ibrahim Hassan ManagerRas Al Khaimah 07 2272333 Khalifa Bin Kalban ManagerSatwaMohamed Bilal ManagerSharjah Industrial Area 06 5345577Mohamed Al Shouq ManagerSharjah 06 5733300Mahmoud Saif Manager Souk Samia Al Aqady ManagerUmm Suqueim Nazia Kalban ManagerTower Saif Al Mansoori ManagerWorld Trade Centre Abdulla Sulaij Al Falasi ManagerNajdah 02 6771919 Butti Al Assiri Manager

Emirates Industrial Bank

Abu Dhabi - Head Office Tel 02 6339700P.O. Box 2722, Abu Dhabi Fax 02 6319191/6326397E-mail: indbank@emirates.net.aeDubai Tel 04 2211300Arbift Tower, Deira P.O. Box 5454, Dubai Fax 04 2232320E-mail: eibdubai@emirates.net.aeWebsite: www.emiratesindustrialbank.netSenior Management Personnel/Branch ManagerMohamed Abdulbaki Mohamed General ManagerAhmed Mohamed Bakhit Khalfan Deputy General ManagerAbdullah Rashed Omran Dubai Branch ManagerKhalifa Al Falasi Acting Projects Division ManagerAli Ahmed Al Essa Development Services Division ManagerNasser Haji Malek Administration ManagerEssa A. Bu Al Rougha Internal Audit ManagerMohamed Moneir Makled Finance ManagerSalem Abu Baker Salem Acting Loans Division Manager

Emirates Islamic Bank

P.O. Box: 6564, 2nd & 3rd Floor, Al Gurg Tower 1 Tel: 04 3160330Plot 372 - Riggat Al Buteen, Deira, Dubai. Fax: 04 2272172www.emiratesislamicbank.aeEbrahim Fayez Al Shamsi CEO 04 3160330Abdulla Showaiter (General manager – corporate and investment banking) Faisal Aqil General manager – retail banking Ahmed Fayez Alshamsi chief financial officer Syed Imran Bashir Head of marketing and product development Samih Mohd Qadri Awadalla head of branches Nasir Ahmed Khan head of consumer finance Zahir Mulla head of operations

IMB (Main Branch) P.O. Box: 6564, Al Gurg Tower 2, Riggat Al Buteen, Dubai.BUD (Bur Dubai) P.O. Box: 6564, Khalid Bin Walid Road, Dubai.DFR (Diyafa) P.O. Box: 6564, Diyafa Road, Dubai.RIQ (Riqqa) P.O. Box: 6564, Omar Bin Al Khattab Street, Dubai.ADC (Abu Dhabi) P.O. Box: 46077, Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dbahi.ROS (Ras Al-Khaima) P.O. Box: 5198, 191 Oman Street, Al Nakeel, Ras Al Khaima.Fuj (Fujairah) P.O. Box: 1472, Sheikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Street, Fujairah.AJS (Al Ain) P.O. Box: 15095, Jawazat Street, Al Ain.QFS (Umm Al-Qaiwain) P.O. Box: 315, King Faisal Road, Umm Al Qaiwain.SBA (Sharjah) P.O. Box: 5169, Al Arooba Bank Street, Sharjah.

Finance House P.J.S.C.

Mr. Mohammed Abdullah Jumaa Al Qubaisi Chairman

Mr. Abdul Hamid Umer Taylor General Manager 02 6194998Mr. T.K. Raman Chief Operating Officer 02 6194889Mr. Mohammed Wassim Khayata Executive VP – Strategic Planning 02 6194445Mr. Ramesh S. Mahalingam Chief Investments & Financial Officer 02 6194601Mrs. Shagufta Farid Khan Head of Internal Audit 02 6194223Ms. Lina Abdul Hamid I. El Araj Manager – General Services 02 6194702Mr. Tarek Soubra Vice President – Central Operations 02 6194362

Ms. Maha Al Jamal Senior Manager – Marketing 02 6194893

First Gulf Bank

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6816666 Head Office, Sh. Zayed Second Street, Khalidiya P.O. Box 6316, Abu DhabiWebsite: www.fbg.aeHistory: Established in 1979Shareholder Equity of over AED 10 billionSenior ManagementAbdulhamid Mohammed Saeed Managing Director 02 6920502Andre’ Sayegh Chief Executive Officer 02 6920506Amit Wanchoo Head of Retail Banking GroupArif Shaikh Chief Credit & Risk OfficerGeorge Abraham Head of Corporate BankingGopi Krishna Madhavan Head of Human ResourcesHana Al Rostamani Strategic Planning HeadKarim Karoui Head of Business Planning & Financial ControlNadeem A. Siddiqui Head of International BusinessShafiqur Rehman Adhami SR. VP, CB FI\SYN\MNC\OIL & Energy SectorZafar Habib Khan Chief Investment OfficerZulfiquar Ali Sulaiman Business Support Director

Habib Bank A.G. Zurich

Head Office: Zurich, SwitzerlandZonal Office: Dubai Tel 04 2214535Baniyas Square Deira, P.O. Box 3306 Fax 04 2284211E-mail: hbzcad@habibbank.comWebsite: www.habibbank.comHistory: Established in 1967Reza S. Habib Joint President Arif Lakhani Chief Executive Vice President 04 2229985Asad Habib Senior EVPAfzal Memon Senior EVP Shariq Ali Senior EVPDeira Mains 04 2214535Najibullah Khan Branch Manager Farrukh Iqbal Deputy Branch Manager Corporate 04 3513777 Awais Hasan Branch ManagerSharjeel Vijdani Deputy Branch Manager Al Fahidi Street 04 3534545

58 APRIL 2009

Zain Ghazali Branch ManagerAbdul Basheer Deputy Branch Manager Jebel Ali 04 8812828Nisar Chowdhary Branch Manager Ifthikhar Memon Deputy Branch ManagerSh.Zayed Branch 04 3313999Zia Abbas Mirza Branch ManagerKashif Aijaz Dodhy Deputy Branch Manager

Abu Dhabi Sh. Hamdan 02 6346888Imamat Naqvi Area Manager Farhan Bakhshy Branch Manager Al Falah 02 6422600Syed Akhtar Hussain Branch Manager Raid Saleem Ansari Deputy Branch Manager Sharjah 06 5730004Al Boorj Avenue Younus Warsi Area Manager Kausarullah Khan Branch Manager

Habib Bank limited

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6224688Main Branch, Corniche Road, P.O.Box 897, Abu Dhabi Fax 02 6225620E-mail: hbl2003m@emirates.net.aeHistory: Established on August 25, 1941Nationalised on January 1, 1974 On June 1974 absorbed Habib Bank Ltd. On June 30, 1975 absorbed Standard Bank Ltd., KarachiAman Aziz Siddiqi EVP/RGM 04 3597753Mohammad Tanvir HR. Manager 04 3592292Fouad Farrukh GRM 04 3592214Sh. Abdul Basit AVP/CAD Manager 04 3592539M. Amin Usman AVP/Treasury 04 3591893Ahmed Faraz Faruqi VP/Head ICU 04 3592517Nadeem Zia VP/Head FINCON 04 3592292Syed Ali Gohar VP/IT/Head 04 3592820Abdul Shahid Khan VP/Head Cops 04 3591874Abu DhabiSh. Zayed Road, 2nd Street Mushtaq H. Shah Service Manager 02 6344557Abu DhabiMain Branch M. Saadat Cheema VP/Chief Manager 02 6224655Al Ain 03 7642555Abdul Jalil Al Fahim Bldg.Adbul Hameed Khan AVP/Senior Manager 03 7642555Dubai Regional Office Sahibzada M. Taimur SVP/Corporate Manager 04 3596922Sameera Mohammad Service Manager 04 3592016Sheikh Zayed Road, Kalantar Tower Khalid Bin Shaheen SVP/Director 04 3431421Mahdi Hassan Business Development Manager 04 3438081Isar-Ul-Haq Service Manager 04 3438081Deira Branch, Creek Road Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhatti Service Manager 04 2253292Sharjah 06 5682552 / 5683473Al Boorj AvenueAssad Ali Shaikh AVP/Branch Manager 06 5695122Dhaid & Dibba 06 8822249Near Al Dhaid Police Station 06 8822249Abdul Sattar Badi Service Manager 06 8822249

HDFC Bank

Representative Office: Dubai Tel 04 3966991

Juma Al Majid Bldg., Opp Bur Juman Centre Fax 04 3967010P O Box 64546, Email: hdfcbank@emirates.net.aeFaisal Saeed Cheif Representative Tel 04 3966991

HSBC Bank Middle East Ltd

Head Office: Jersey, Channel IslandMiddle East Management Office, Dubai Internet City Tel: 04 3904722 Fax: 04 3906607HSBC Bldg., Dubai Internet City, P.O. Box: 66, Dubai, UAE Web: www.hsbc.aeUAE Web: www.uae.hsbc.com

Youssef Nasr ChairmanDavid Hodgkinson DirectorKen Matheson Regional Chief Operating OfficerAbu Dhabi 02 6332200/6152215Al Ain 03 7641812Dubai 04 3535000Deira 04 2227161Fujeirah 09 2222221Jebel Ali 04 8846133Ras Al Khaimah 07 2333544Sharjah 06 5537222

IndusInd Bank

Dubai Representative Office Tel 04 3978803203, Safa Commercial Bldg. Fax 04 3978805Opp. Bur Juman Centre, P.O. Box: 111873, Dubai.E-mail: ibldubai@indusind.aePradeep Gupta Vice President & Chief Representative 04 3978804

ING Asia Private Bank Ltd

Dubai Representative Office Tel 04 4277100602, Level 6, Building 4 Fax 04 4257801Burj Dubai SquareSheikh Zayed RoadP.O Box 4296, Dubai – UAE Suresh Nanda Managing Director & HeadEric Lorentz Managing DirectorVarun Bukshi Executive DirectorMelwyn Dias Executive Director

B.R. Subramanian DirectorP.G. Bhaskar DirectorRanjit Paul DirectorPiyush Bhandari DirectorNitin Bhatnagar DirectorRishi Chauhan DirectorAsad Dadarkar DirectorAshraf Al Yamani Director

InvestBank

Sharjah Tel 06 5694440Al Boorj Avenue, P.O. Box 1885 Fax 06-5694442E-mail: sharjah@invest-bank.comWebsite: www.invest-bank.comHistory: Established on 2nd February 1975 as Investment Bank for Trade & Finance On July 1, 1995 name changed to Investbank.Sami Farhat General Manager

59APRIL 2009

Qasim Kazmi AGM. Operations & Treasury Taleb Zaarour Senior Manager-ADM & LegalAthar Anis Manager, Credit Risk Bassam Hollmerus Chief DealerSajjad H. Holimerus Trade FinanceMadhu Pilakazhi Financial Controller Ghassan Accari Personnel Manager Vinay Gupta IT ManagerDubai 04 3213131Sheikh Zayed RoadDubai 04 2285551Al Maktoum StreetAl Ain 03 7644446Al Ghaba StreetAbu Dhabi 02 6794594Sh. Khalifa streetAbu Dhabi 02 5555336Mussaffa Area Sharjah 06 5420333Industrial Area

Janata Bank Abu DhabiObied Sayah Al-Mansuri Building Tel No 02-6331400Electra Road, Post Box No. 2630 Fax : 02-6348749Email jbadas@emirates.net.aeMr. Md. Masuduzzaman Chief Executive 02-6344543Mr. Md. Chaynul Haque IT Manager/SPO 02-6340881Mr. Md. Ramjan Bahar System Administrator/PO 02-6340881 Abu DhabiMr. Mohamudul Hoque Manager 0 2-6344542DubaiMr. Md. Abdul Awal Manager Mohammad Saleh Al-Gurg Building 0 4-2281442Al-Borj Street, P.O. Box 3342Mr. Md. Mizanur Rahman ManagerSharjah Saqer Bin Rashid Al Quassim BuildingAl Suwaiheen Street, P.O. Box- 5303 0 6-5687032Mr. Md. Mizanur Rahman ManagerAl Ain Branch Mr. Md Shahadat Hossain ManagerSk. Khalifa Bin Mohd. Al-Nahyan Building, Main Market Centre, Main Street,P.O. Box- 1107 0 3-7513425

Lloyds TSB Bank plc

Dubai Main BranchAl Wasl Road, Opp. Safa Park Tel 04 3422000P.O. Box: 3766, Dubai, UAE Fax 04 3422660E-mail: information@lloydstsb.ae Website: www.lloydstsb.aeVivek Vohra Head of Corporate OriginationGiles Cunningham Regional Manager, UAE & Gulf States 04 3023267Bert de Ruiter Managing Director 04 3023267Steve Williams Consumer Banking Director 04 3023267 Jon Mortell Head of Corporate Banking 04 3023266Suresh Jadhwani Treasury Manager 04 3023256Tim Goddard Head of Operations and IT 04 3023250Derek Vaz Head of Finance and Planning 04 3023330Caroline Ridley HR Manager 04 3023270Steve Snowdon Head of Middle OfficeAlex de Melo Head of Treasury Trading Edson Suppo Head of Treasury Strategy & Risk Claire Thomas Head of Human Resources

Dubai Customer Service CentresCommunity Centre at Arabian Ranches, Dubai Tel 04 3023318 Fax 04 3618035Dubai Healthcare City (Behind Wafi City) Tel 04 3023349 Fax 04 3624805

Man Investments Middle East Limited

Representative Office Dubai Tel 04 3604999Level 5, West Wing, The Gate, Dubai Internaional Financial Centre Fax 04 3604900P.O. Box: 73221, DubaiWebsite: www.maninvestments.comE-mail: ManDubai@maninvestments.comPatrik Merville Chief Executive OfficerKamlesh Bhatia Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Mashreqbank

Dubai Tel 04 2223333Head Office, Omar Bin Al Khatab Street, Deira Fax 04 2226061P.O. Box 1250, Dubai History: Established on 1st May, 1967 as Bank of Oman Limited. On October 1st 1993 name was changed to MashreqBank PSC.bdullah Al Ghurair President and ChairmanAbdul Aziz Al Ghurair CEOAli Raza Khan Head of Corporate AffairsDouglas Beckett Head of Retail BankingOmar Bouhadiba Head of Investment and Corporate BankingNabeel Waheed Head of Treasury and Capital MarketsNigel Morgan Head of Audit Review & ComplianceMajid Husain Head of Financial InstitutionsSomnath Menon Head of Operations & TechnologyKantic DasGupta Head of Risk ManagementAlexander Sinclair Head of Technology Mubashar Khokhar CEO of Badr Al IslamiEbrahim Kazi Head of Marketing and Corporate CommunicationsSaad Hakim Events and Public Relations ManagerAl Khaleej Street, Deira 04 2717771Souq Al Kabir Branch 04 2264176Hor Al Anz, Deira 04 2623100Jumeirah Branch 04 3441600Jebel Ali 04 8815355Khor Branch 04 3534000Bur Juman Centre 04 3527103Al Riqa, Deira 04 2229131Al Aweer 04 3333727Abu Dhabi 02 6274300Main Branch, Khalifa StreetMusaffa 02 5555051Zayed the 2nd Street 02 6334021Al Salam Street 02 6786500Al Mushrif 02 4432424Baniyas 02 5821100Muroor 02 4481858Khalidiya 02 6665757Al Ain 03 7667700Al Ain Main Street Ali Ibn Abi Tailb St. 03 7669968 Ajman 06 7422440Shk Humaid Bin Abdul Aziz Street, Near Ajman MuseumFujairah 09 2221100 Sh. Hamad StreetRas Al Khaimah 07 2361644King Faisal Street.

60 APRIL 2009

Al Nakheel RAK 07 2281695Sharjah Main 06 5684366Bank Street, RollaKing Abdul Aziz Street 06 5730883Dhaid 06 8822899Main Street, Sh. Arsan Hameed Bldg., DhaidDibba 09 2444230Kalba 09 2777430Kalba CityKhorfakkan 09 2385295Umm Al Quwain 06 7666948 King Faisal Street, Next to New Souk

Merill Lynch International & Co.C.V

Representative Office Dubai (04) 3975555Business Center Building, Khalid Bin Walid StreetP.O. Box 3911, DubaiTelefax 04-3975252Executive Director Mones Bazzy

NATIXIS

Dubai Branch Tel 04 7026777DIFC Gate Village Fax 04 7026820Building No. 8, 5th FloorP.O Box 33770Email: natixis@emirates.net.aeWebsite: www.natixis.frPhilippe Petitgas CEO

National Bank of Abu Dhabi

Head Office: Abu Dhabi 02 - 6111111One NBAD Tower, Khalifa St., P.O. Box 4, Abu DhabiTelex 22266/7 MASRIP EMHistory: Established in 1968H.E. KHALIFA MOHAMED AL KINDI ChairmanH.E. DR. JAUAN SALEM AL DHAHIRI Deputy ChairmanMICHAEL H. TOMALIN Chief ExecutiveABDULLA MOHAMMED SALEH ABDULRAHEEM GM & Chief Operating OfficerSAIF ALI MOHAMED MUNAKHAS AL SHEHHI GM Domestic Banking DivisionQAMBER ALI AL MULLA GM International Banking DivisionABHIJIT CHOUDHURY GM & Chief Risk OfficerJOHN GARRETT GM & Chief Audit & Compliance Officer

Abu DhabiMain Branch 02 - 6111111Khalidiya 02 - 6666800Dept. of Social Services & Commercial Buildings 02 - 6346673ADCO 02 - 6672642ADMA 02 - 6263225ADNOC 02 - 6669143Abu Dhabi Municipality 02 - 6744749NPCC 02 - 5549282 ZADCO 02 - 6768821HILTON 02 - 6812280Abu Dhabi International Airport 02 - 5757303Sheikh Rashed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum Road 02 - 6419800Abu Dhabi Mall 02 - 6452200Arabian Gulf Road 02 - 4478878Baniyas 02 - 5831625Bateen 02 - 6658332Between The Two Bridges Area 02 - 5589446Corniche 02 - 6220300

Dalma Island 02 - 8781240TAMM 02 - 8945528Das Island 02 - 8731099Liwa 02 - 8822388Madinat Zayed 02 - 8846146Government Complex 02 - 8945428Al Mirfaa 02 - 8836506Al Ruwais 02 - 8776343Al Muroor 02 - 4481918Mussafah 02 - 5553357Dept. of Social Services & Commercial Buildings (Mussafah) 02 - 5520681Mussafah Municipality 02 - 5540300Industrial City of Abu Dhabi 02 - 5501125Al Salam St. 02 - 6442900Al Shahama 02 - 5632411New Al Shahama 02 - 5635695Abu Dhabi Municipality-Shahama 02 - 5631385Sweihan 03 - 7347919Marina Mall 02 - 6816002Al Etihad 02 - 6111111Emirates Palace 02 - 6908900National Exhibition Centre 02 - 4494996Mina Road 02 - 6767665

Al AlinAl Ain Clock Tower 03 - 7642400Al Ain 03 - 7516900Al Ain Cement Factory 03 - 7828060Al Ain International Airport 03 - 7855511Al Ain Defence 03 - 7688824Al Sanaiya 03 - 7213222Al Hayer 02 - 7322400Al Ain Mall 03 - 7519900

AjmanAjman 06 - 7422996

DubaiDeira 04 - 2226141Dubai Side 04 - 3599111Jebel Ali 04 - 8815655Sh. Zayed Road 04 - 3433311 Al Qusais 04 - 2674176Jumeirah 04 - 3499001Mall of the Emirates 04 - 3413888

FujairahFujairah 09 - 2222458Dibba 09 - 2444223

Ras Al KhaimahAl Nakheel 07 - 2281753 Ras Al Khaimah 07 - 2334333

SharjahAl Bourj Avenue 06 - 5695500Sharjah 06 - 5721111Al Falah Camp Office 06 - 5385969Al Dhaid 06 - 8822929Khorfakkan 09 - 2385250Kalba 09 - 2772112

Umm Al QuwainUmm Al Quwain 06 - 7660033

61APRIL 2009

National Bank of Bahrain

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6335288Khalaf Bin Ahmed Al Otaiba Building, Sh. Hamdan Street Fax 02 6333783P.O.Box 46080Email: nbbbr96@emirates.net.aeWebsite: www.nbbonline.com

Farouk Khalaf UAE Country Manager 02 6335299Ingersoll Ramalingam Manager Credit 02 6311248

National Bank of Dubai

Dubai Tel 04 2222111Head Office Baniyas Street, Deira Fax 04 2283000P.O. Box 777 Email: contactus@nbd.co.aeWebsite: www.nbd.comHistory: Established in1963 as National Bank of Dubai Limited. In 1994 name was changed to National Bank of Dubai.

R. Douglas Dowie CEOJoyshil Mitter CFOAlex Richardson COOLeslic Rice CROAbdul Shakoor Tahlak CM - Intl.Ghanim Bin Zaal CM - Business DevelopmentAli Al Najjar CM - LiabilitySuvo Sarkar Head of RetailRajesh Thaper Head Of CorporateFaranak Foroughi Head of TPOHusam Al Sayad Head of HRG. Krishnamoorthy TreasurerSue Evans Head of IS&TAlan M. Smith Head of Group AuditA. Chandran Head of BPQMWalid El Masri Head of Corp CommRashmi Malik Head of StrategyAbdul Fattah Sharaf GM NFSMohamed Al Neaimi GM AqaratAli Kaitoob Head of Dist. RetailP.S. Sastry SM CEO’s OfficeHesham Qassimi Divisional Manager Corporate Banking

Abu Dhabi P.O. Box: 386 Tel : 02 6394555 Fax : 02 6346767Ajman P.O. Box: 712 Tel : 06 7456555 Fax : 06 7456060Ajman Archives Tel : 06 7444606 Fax : 06 7425883Al Mizhar Tel : 04 2641221 Fax : 04 2640569Al Ain P.O. Box: 16122 Tel : 03 7644345 Fax : 03 7668515Burjuman Centre Tel : 04 3555222 Fax : 04 3554455Bullion Tel : 04 2284757 Fax : 04 2289090Convention Centre Branch Tel : 04 3320808 Fax : 04 3320908Dubai Central Fruit & Vgtbl. Mkt Branch Al Awir Tel : 04 3333880 Fax : 04 3333870Dubai International Airport Tel : 04 2200404 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai International Airport Pay Office Tel : 04 2164946 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Internation Airport Tel : 04 2162450 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Internation Airport Tel : 04 2166995 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Internation Airport Tel : 04 2162452 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Internation Airport Tel : 04 2162434 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Internation Airport Tel : 04 2162740 Fax : 04 2244614Dubai Media City Pay Office Tel : 04 3902007 Fax : 04 3908855Deira City Centre Tel : 04 2951555 Fax : 04 2951525Dubai Airline Centre Tel : 04 2952555 Fax : 04 2955655

Dubai Airport Free Zone Tel : 04 2995550 Fax : 04 2995557Dubai Courts Tel : 04 3366702 Fax : 04 3353906Dubai Media City Pay Office Tel : 04 3030400 Fax : 04 3908855Emirates Tower Tel : 04 3300133 Fax : 04 3300155Fahidi Tel : 04 3535575 Fax : 04 3535575 Emirates Tower Tel : 04 3530308 Fax : 04 3534601Emirates Tower Tel : 04 2823400 Fax : 04 2823640Fahidi Direct Banking Tel : 04 3532840 Fax : 04 3531443Fujairah Branch P.O. Box: 1744 Tel : 09 2233335 Fax : 09 2233336Hamriya Tel : 04 2663189 Fax : 04 2690103Hatta Tel : 04 8523183 Fax : 04 8521051Ibn Battuta Mall Branch Tel : 04 3685499 Fax : 04 3685501Ittihad Road Tel : 04 2955600 Fax : 04 2955611Jumeirah Branch Tel : 04 3420202 Fax : 04 3421112Jebel Ali Tel : 04 8816087 Fax : 04 8816961Main Office Tel : 04 2222111 Fax : 04 2283000Maktoom Branch Tel : 04 2281141 Fax : 04 2235456Malleq Emirates Branch Tel : 04 3410777 Fax : 04 3410707Muhaissnah Branch Tel : 04 2544545 Fax : 04 2544646Nadd Al Shiba Tel : 04 3363939 Fax : 04 3363788Oud Metha Branch (Ex-Gulf Tower Branch) Tel : 04 3370222 Fax : 04 3366145Ras Al Kaimah P.O. Box : 1932 Tel : 07 2279888 Fax : 07 2279889Rashidiya Tel : 04 2859523 Fax : 04 2854847Souk Madinat Jumeirah Branch Tel : 04 3686130 Fax : 04 3686195Sh. Zayed Road (Saeed Tower) Tel : 04 3313183 Fax : 04 3310629Sharjah P.O. Box : 21850 Tel : 06 5738888 Fax : 06 5733000Umm Al Quwain P.O. Box : 22 Tel : 06 7656154 Fax : 06 7655151Emirates Tower Tel : 06 7656152 Fax : 04 3300155Umm Suqeim Tel : 04 3485222 Fax : 04 3482535

National Bank of Oman

Abu Dhabi Bin Sagar Towers, Najda Street Tel 02 6348111 / 6323456P.O. Box 3822 Fax 02 6325027Ravi S. Khot Country Manager 02 6393028Salim Al Khanjri Manager - Operations 02 6392535Minhajuddin Niazi Manager - Consumer Banking & Business Development 02 6326560K.K. Gambhir Manager - Corporate Banking 02 6394922

National Bank of Umm Al Qaiwain

History: Established in 198224/7 Call Centre Number: 600 56 56 56 E-mail: nbuq@nbq.ae Website: www.nbq.aeSh. Nasser Bin Rashid Al-Moalla Managing Director Mohamed Abdel Rahim Al Mulla General Manager

Umm Al Qaiwain Branch Tel: 06 7066666NBQ Building, King Faisal Street Fax: 06 706 6677P.O.Box 800, Umm Al QaiwainFalaj Al Mualla Branch Tel: 06 8824447NBQ Building, Shaikh Zayed Street Fax: 06 8824445P.O.Box 11074 Falaj Al MuallaDubai Branches Tel: 04 3976655NBQ Building, Khalid Bin Al Waleed Street Fax: 04 3975382P.O. Box 9715 Dubai Deira Branch Tel: 04 2651222Opposite Dubai Police Head Quaiter Fax: 04 2651333Al Ittihad Street, P.O. Box 8898 Deira, Abu Dhabi BranchHamdan Bin Mohammed Street (# 5) Tel: 02 6775100P.O. Box 3915 Abu Dhabi Fax: 02 6779644Mussafah Branch Tel: 02 5555088P.O. Box 9770 Abu Dhabi Fax: 02 5553559

62 APRIL 2009

Al Ain Branch Tel: 03 3751300Oud Al Touba Street Fax: 03 7513500Al Mandoos RoundaboutP.O. Box 17888 Al AinSharjah Branch Tel: 06 5742000King Faisal Street, Fax: 06 5742200P.O.Box 23000 SharjahNBQ Kiosk Fax: 06 5742200Sharjah Mega MallP.O.Box 23000 SharjahAjman BranchesCity Center Branch Tel: 06 7436000Ajman City Center Fax: 06 7436060P.O.Box 4133 AjmanMasfout Branch Tel: 04 8523377 NBQ Building Fax: 04 8523093Main Street P.O.Box 12550 Masfout, AjmanFujairah Branch Tel: 09 2232100Fujairah Insurance Co. Building Fax: 09 2232220Hamad Bin Abdulla RoadP.O.Box 1444 FujairahRas Al Khaimah Branch Tel: 07 2366444Corniche Al Qawasim Road Fax: 07 2364470P.O.Box 32253Ras Al Khaimah

Philippine National Bank

Dubai Representative Office Room 108, Al Nakheel Bldg., Zabeel Road, Karama Tel 04 3365940P.O. Box 52357, Dubai, UAE Fax 04 3374474E-mail: pnbdxb@emirates.net.aeAmroussi Tillah Rasul First Vice President & Regional Representative

Rafidain BankAbu Dhabi Tel 02 6335882 / 3 Al Nasser Street, Glass Bldg. Fax 6326996P.O.Box 2727, Abu Dhabi Salah Mahid Branch Manager

Royal Bank of Canada

Dubai Representative Office Tel 04 3313196API World Tower, Suite 1002, Shk. Zayed Road, P.O. Box: 3614. Telefax 04 3313960Umaima Zaman senior managerAshwani.k.Dewitt senior managerGlobal Private BankingAshish Anand Chief Representative

RAK Bank

Ras Al Khaimah Head Office, Oman Street, Al Nakheel Tel 07 2281127P.O. Box 5300 Fax 07 2283238E-mail: nbrakho@emirates.net.ae; www.rakbank.aeHistory: Established in 1976 as The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah. In 2003, name was changed to RAKBANK

H.E. Sheikh Omar Bin Saqr Al Qasimi ChairmanH.E. Sheikh Salim Bin Sultan-Al-Qasimi DirectorMr. Hamad Abdulaziz Al Sagar DirectorMr. Essa Ahmed Abu Shuraija Al Neaimi DirectorMr. Majid Saif Al Ghurair Director

Mr. Ali Samir Al Shihabi DirectorMr. Yousuf Obaid Essa DirectorMr. Graham Honeybill General ManagerMr. Ian Hodges Head of Personal BankingMr. Anil Sukhia Head of Corporate BankingMr. Steve O Hanlon Chief Operating OfficerMr. Geoff Harman Head of Internal ControlsMr. Jose Braganza Head of CreditMr. Malcolm D’Souza Head of TreasuryMr. Nigel Summersall Chief Internal AuditorMrs. Susan Gardner Head of Human ResourcesMr. Venkat Raghavan Head of FinanceDubaiDeira Maktoum Branch Tel : 04-2248000Deira Souk Branch Tel : 04-2248000Umm Hurair Branch (Bur Dubai) Tel : 04-2248000Sultan Business Center ( Dubai Main Branch) Tel : 04-2248000Sheikh Zayed Road Branch Tel : 04-2248000Emaar Business Park Branch Tel : 04-2248000Marina Diamond Branch Tel : 04-2248000Al Quoz Branch Tel : 04-2248000Al Qusais Branch Tel : 04-7058444Ibn Battuta Mall Branch Tel : 04-3685890SharjahSharjah Main Branch Tel : 06-5746888Sharjah Industrial Area Tel : 06-5132666Kalba Branch Tel : 09-2778707Khorafakkan Branch Tel : 09-2371900Al AinAl Ain Branch Tel : 03-7644222Abu DhabiAbu Dhabi-Tourist Club Branch Tel : 02-6448227Khalidiya Branch Tel : 02-6666658Ras Al KhaimahRAK Town Branch Tel : 07-2333744Sha’am Branch Tel : 07-2666833 Badr Branch Tel : 07-2448822Al Mannei Branch Tel : 04-8525999Al Rams Branch Tel : 07-2662434Al Dhait Branch Tel : 07-2351147Al Nakheel Branch Tel : 07-2281127

Sharjah Islamic Bank

Mohammed Abdalla Chief Executive Officer 06-5115116Ahmed Saad ibrahim Chief Operating Officer 06-5115118Mohammed Rizwan Chief Risk Officer 06-5115172Saeed M Ahmed Al Amiri Head, Investment Group 06-5115000Ossama Salah El Din Head, Retail Banking 06-5115339G . Ramkirshinan Head of Coroprate Banking Group 06-5115111Hussam A. Abu Aisheh SVP-Chief Internal Audit 06-5115153Mohammed Ishaq Chief Dealer 06-5115151Mohamed Azmeer Head of Credit Division 06-5115319Eman Jasim Sajwani Head of Human Resources Group 06-5115170Myron Britto Head, nformation Technology Div.-CIO 06-5115444Sufyan Maysara Head of Shariaa Supervision Divison 06-5115213BranchesMain Branch - Al Brooj Avenue Mohammed Yousif 06-5115121King Faisal Street Branch Abdul Salam Al Ali 06-5746805Ladies Branch Laila Ali Salem 06-5746807American Unversity Branch Mohd Mousa Ali 06-5585789Al Dhaid Branch Khalid M. Ajmani 06-8829414Industrial Area Branch Waleed Abdul Qadir 06-5397623Sharjah Expo Branch Jassim Al Awadi 06-5992502Sharjah Buhaira Branch Osama Ahmed AlSalman N/AKhorfakhan Branch Yousif M. Abdullah 09-2387490Dibba Branch Ali Al-Abdouli 09-2442601

63APRIL 2009

Kalba Branch Abdullah Bin Hikal 09-2774204Fujairah Branch Nawal Mohamed AlMaghribi 09-2244339Dubai Branch Mohamed Ibrahim Alghufili 04-2698322Sheikh Zayed Branch Maisoon Zainudin 04-3217543Al Twar Branch Maha AlBanna 04-2638335Abu Dhabi Branch Thomas P.Y. 02-6224166Al Ain Branch Majid Sha’abaan 03-7513200

Shuaa Capital PSC

Head Office Tel: 04 3303600/ 04 3199778Emirates Towers Hotel, Level 7 Fax: 04 3303550P.O. Box: 31045, Dubai, UAE.Website: www.shuaacapital.com Iyad Duwaji CEOAbeer Ayash Marketing and PR coordinator

Societe Generale

Dubai DIFC Gate Village, Bldg. 6, 4th Floor Tel.: 04 4257500Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai Fax: 04 3653170 Website: www.socgen.com Alain L. Tave Chief Regional Representative

Standard Bank Plc - Dubai Branch (DIFC)

Dubai Emirates Tower, Office-16 B Tel 04 3300011P.O. Box 504904 Fax 04 3300169Website: www.standardbank.comJeffrey Rhodes General Manager 04 3300164Kate Lunjevich Head of Compliance & Operations

Standard Chartered Bank

Head Office: United KingdomDubai Main Branch Tel 04 3520455 Head Office: Al Fardan Building, Fax 04 3526679 Mankhool Road, Bur Dubai P.O. Box: 999, Dubai - United Arab Emirates www.standardchartered.com/ae/Phone Banking: +9714 3138888 (24 hours)Dubai Branch P. O. Box 999, Al Mankool Road, Dubai , UAE 04-3599550Deira Branch P. O. Box 1125, Al Nasr Square, Dubai, 04-5085300Gold Souq BranchP. O. Box 64555, Gold Souq, Dubai , UAE 04-2262699Jebel Ali BranchP. O. Box 16920 , Jebel Ali, Dubai , UAE 04-5085200Sharjah BranchP. O. Box 5, Al Boorj Avenue, Sharjah , UAE 06-5916100Hamdhan BranchP. O. Box 240,Al Fardan Tower ,Abu Dhabi, UAE 02-6165600Istiqlal BranchP. O. Box 241, Istiqlal Street, Abu Dhabi UAE 02-6165400Al Ain BranchP. O. Box 1240, Near Clock Tower, Al Ain, UAE 03-7056800Dragon Mart BranchP. O. Box 4166, Dragon Mart mall, Dubai, UAE 04-5085260Emaar Business Park BranchP. O. Box 103669,Building 3 ,Dubai , UAE 04-5085255Wealth Management CenterP.O Box 999, Jumeira Beach Road, Dubai UAE 04-5085706

The Housing Bank for Trade & Finance

Abu Dhabi P.O. Box 44768 Tel 02 6268855/6270280 Fax 02 6271771Muhanad Habashneh Representative

Union de Banques Arabes et Francaises UBAF

Dubai Creek Tower, Baniyas Road, Deira Tel 04 2284080P.O. Box 29885 Fax 04 2284070Hamed Hassouna Chief Representative GCC & Yemen

UBS AG

Abu Dhabi ADNIC Bldg., 5th Floor, Sh. Khalifa Street Tel 02 6275024P.O.Box 3744 Fax 02 6272752Website: www.ubs.comRoger Leitner Senior Representative

DubaiCreek Tower, Office 17A, Baniyas Road, Deira 04 2240044Peter Schaer Senior Representative 04 2220006

DIFC Gate Village, Bldg. No. 6, 5th Floor Tel.: 04 3657150Sheikh Zayed Road Fax: 04 3657191P.O Box 506542Per Larsson Senior Representative

Union National Bank

Abu Dhabi Tel 02 6741600Head Office, Salam Street, P.O.Box 3865, Abu Dhabi Fax 02 6786080Website: www.unb.aeHistory: Established as a Public Joint Stock Company in 1982Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan ChairmanMohammad Nasr Abdeen Chief Executive OfficerAbu Dhabi Corniche 02 632 1600City Centre 02 627 3471Najda 02 632 4981Hazzaa 02 641 2288Khalidiya 02 635 2511Adgas Booth 02 627 0611Musaffah 02 555 9111Shahama 02 563 4600Baneyas 02 582 1886Al Dhafra/Madinat Zayed 08 884 8484Al Muroor 02 444 8384Al AinSh. Khalifa Street 03 7644551Al Jimi 03 7626240DubaiMain Branch, Deira 04 2211188 Al Maktoum Street 04 2232266Khalid Bin Al Waleed Road 04 3516444Al Bustan 04 2636388Jebel Ali 04 8810999Sheikh Zayed Road/Jumeira 04 3329911Rashidiya 04 2857686

64 APRIL 2009March 200964

Ajman Central - Emirates Post 06 7425552Fujairah 09 2222747Ras Al Khaimah 07 2286600Sharjah 06 5686141King Abdul Aziz 06 5746161

United Arab Bank

General Management & H.O. Tel 06 5733900Sh. Abdulla Bin Salim Al Qassimi Building, Al Qasimia St., Sharjah Fax 06 5733906E-Mail Address uarbae@emirates.net.aeWebsite www.uab.aeHistory: Established 1975

Bertrand Giraud General Manager 06 5733900Awni Alami Dy. General Manager 06 5733900Gibert Hie Asst. GM-Corporate & Retail 06 5733900Arif Premdjee Asst. GM-Admin. & Finance 06 5733900

United Bank Limited

Dubai Gargosh Bldg, Khalid Bin Waleed Street Tel 04 3552020

P.O. Box 1367, Dubai Fax 04 3514525Email: ublgmuae@emirates.net.aeWebsite: www.ubl.com.pkWajahat Husain Head of Middle EastMaruf Ahmed General Manager UAE

Wachovia Bank National Assoc.

Representative Office Dubai The Atrium Centre, Khalid Bin Waleed Street, Bur Dubai 04 3556244P.O. Box 53089 Fax 3557117Head Office: USAJ.Kennedy Thompson Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Heavener International DivisionDubai Branch:Chafic Haddad Vice President & Regional Manager Carol Hampson Customer Services Representative

1APRIL 2009

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