In a week where a powerful UK minister is forced to resign simply because he expedited the processing of a residency visa, an Egyptian dickhead is encouraging business families not to open up. Here’s a piece of his wisdom:
“If you can avoid going public, avoid it,” he told a workshop on family business on the sidelines of the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai.
“You are confronted with thousands of small shareholders asking stupid and illogical questions. Even if the person owns just one share, you are obligated to listen to him. If you cannot get along with your brother, how about 100,000 shareholders?”
Naguib Sawiris, head of Egypt’s listed Orascom Telecom via the GDN
And you wonder why the Arabs are so far behind every other nation on earth? Well this is your answer, these are the “business” leaders (cough – assholes) who hold the keys to our development, competitiveness, and business future.
The stupid fuck raised US$320 MILLION but he doesn’t have the patience to answer to his shareholders. What do you want then dickhead, just swallow their money and keep them shut up until you decide to sink their hard-earned cash into a boat or “pink” nights without question?
If I were a shareholder in this prick’s company… oh if only!
Comments
Contrasts
I totaly agree with you, arabs are greedy and selfish.
Contrasts
Mahmoud
something is up with your postings on my browser, the font has gone completely mad
alan
Contrasts
Hello Mahmood
Just drove home from the store and saw stuff that makes me sick, and read your page and you are right. Theses poor bastards being hauled around like cattle in the back of open trucks while it is pooring rain. Not only is this illegal according to Bahrain trafic laws it is a most basic human rights violation, let them put the owner of this company in the back of the truck and drive him in the rain from hidd to hamad town. The biggest problem I see with the laws in Bahrain is nobody enforces them, very sad mahmood bring this to peoples attention please.
Re: Contrasts in Transparency
Isn’t that the awful truth!
We see it and deal with it on a daily basis. I have ranted for some time about this particular problem which we do have aplenty in Bahrain. But Bahrain is nothing compared to our sister Gulf states. Believe me, I know.
That won’t go away fast, UNLESS we have a proper parliament and democracy that can crush these insects for ever. We’re getting there… there is a transparency office in Bahrain now in its second (?) year and they have just released their first full report aparently pointing fingers at corruption and nepotism, however it (I believe) does not have recommendations for dismissal, nor was there a parliamentary probe based on that report to rid this land of its leaches.
That’s what needs to happen NOW. Oh wait, Al-Saidi will no doubt propose something must more important like asking the Southern Municipality to come and suck up all the shit he’s producing in his district. And thus, one man once again can sideline not just the parliament, but the whole country!
Re(1): Contrasts
Mahmood,
Yeah, I agree with that. If you’re going to go public, you need to be held accountable by those pesky stockholders, many of whom are idiots. If you don’t, then the money will dry up in that market. That’s the reason why capital doesn’t find its way into corporations in the Third World, there is no accountability, weak corporate law.
During my MBA and the gold rush days of working in e-commerce, going public was thought of by most of my peer group as a way to cash out, to harvest your profit and execute your exit strategy. I’ve come to see such reasoning as the foundation for bad business decisions that expedite temporary profit at the long term expense of the enterprise. I’d rather go in with people who have no exit strategy, who are committed to their enterprise, who have no intention of leaving. People who want to make a good product.
I also think it’s better not to have partners. From what I have seen in various small businesses, like grocery stores and meeting companies, it usually doesn’t work all that well. There’s usually one or more partners who are a drag on the enterprise and pull it down. It’s better to have one guy with absolute control who can execute a neat, clean, uncluttered strategy and make decisions on the spot.
Steve
Contrasts
The guy might have a point about going public. You are better off not having to contend with shareholders. When you go public, you lose a lot of control over your company, the investors demand steady profits every quarter, and they punish you for doing the kind of smart things that will serve your company well in the long term. Even staying private with a lot of partners, all with their hands on the wheel, is bad. You really have an advantage with a single owner wielding total power to implement a consistent approach to a set goal without having the public examine your books.
Steve
Re: theme problems
it is probably because of the cache is not updated yet whereever you are calling from, if you hit refresh on your browser a few times, does the problem go away? I changed the theme and some point sizes and well as the size of the effective display area from 700 pixels wide to 900.
Let me know if you still are experiencing problems Alan, thanks.
Re: Contrasts
I agree with the principle Steve. I also recognise, as this guy’s whole family did that there is no way of raising that obscene amount of cash unless they list. This guy wants to simply eat the whole cake: experience growth, have good strength in the market, expand into international territories, yet he does not want to cede any kind of control or worse, does not want to be held accountable.
How else is a company to grow to international position without a huge number of investors? Yes I realise that you have some families in both Europe, the States and the Arab world who are happy enough as they are and control large businesses, however for them to go to the next step they must accept public participation.
And what you say is correct, if you don’t want to cede control then stay as you are, and you probably will stay small to medium size for the rest of your company’s life.
Re(1): theme problems
Unfortunately it is still there, perhaps it is the browser. I am using internet explorer on windows xp
also shame david blunkett had to resign here, but it seems he did manipulate civil service so I suppose he had to go
alan
Contrasts
I have heard that Asharq al-Awsat is closing its operations in Iraq. I guess it goes back to some report they did about the insurgents in Iraq. I wish this tool of the Saudi royal family had as much guts about reporting the issues in Saudi as they do in Iraq.
What do you expect? My family knows the new editor of the paper, Tariq al-Homayed, who with very little experience and not much education was appointed the editor. Why? Again it is all about “wasta” or connections. Editors here in the west work decades before they become editor of a major paper, in Saudi you just have to know the right people and a bachelors and a couple years experience is good enough.
Tariq and his family fled the US after 9/11 and now only come back when they need to shop. Never figured out why? Why come to the US for bargins when your “wasta” has given you enough money to be able to live and shop in London when they pay you to be? Nonsense.
That is one of my biggest issues with the Middle East. Doesnt matter what experience you have, what education you have, if you have connections everything is open wide!
Malik
Re(2): theme problems
can I trouble you to take a screenshot of the problem and emailing it to me please? it’s mahmood_at_mahmood_dot_tv
thanks
Re: Contrasts
was about to but the site is back now to normal
alan