The Ranger and Silver travelled to the Gulf last week. The pair scoured the land, from the skyscrapers of Dubai to the mountains of Oman, to meet the Middle Eastern market.
The Standard Chartered loans team has a very active approach to life in the Dubai metropolis — no sitting on their haunches and enjoying long brunches for them. Vivek Gopalakrishnan told the Ranger that he prefers to strap on his bicycle helmet and go touring around the desert than sit in bars all day.
HSBC’s Aziz Ata was bubbling with enthusiasm for middle eastern capital markets. He told us how he expects to see a more diverse set of issuers by geography and category this year. Ata calls for more governments to issue loans and bonds, and for Gulf borrowers to bring private sector bonds and private placements.
At a conference in Muscat, the Ranger heard the executive president of the Central Bank of Oman, adorned with gleaming white robes, discuss the future of his country’s capital markets. His Excellency wore a polished silver dagger in his belt, the traditional Omani khanjar — hopefully just a ceremonial tool and not for warding off journalists.
The Ranger introduced herself to Stanchart’s Sarmad Mirza and National Bank of Abu Dhabi’s Fawaz Abusneineh as “a journalist from a small financial newspaper in London” and both men laughed and said they knew the paper well – GC journalists had been on the phone to the bankers that morning.
The Ranger managed also managed a most fortuitous meeting with one contact.
Inspired by a dusky evening, the Ranger and Silver set off in search of adventure. After driving a great distance from the buzzing city —crossing underneath the electricity pylons leading out to the horizon — the Ranger finally arrived at a lowly stable.
There the Ranger faced her trusty steed: a camel called Layla. Layla groaned and heaved as she lifted a hummus-heavy Ranger onto her back and the pair lolloped slowly around the desert.
On returning from their desert adventure, the two reporters realised that they were stuck in the desert in the failing light, with no sign of a taxi.
Frantically, Silver and Ranger asked around for a way home. A kind family who had been riding at the ranch offered a lift. Before long, the Ranger realised that the father of the family was an assistant vice president at Abu Dhabi’s First Gulf Bank, responsible for loan origination in parts of the United Arab Emirates.
The kind contact and his family told the Ranger and Silver how they had travelled and worked in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. The banker said he was expecting a busy year ahead as his bank adapted to the fast changing market, where they would have to “do much more of the same” to keep ahead of the game.
“How rare and fortunate to meet a contact out here!” thought the Ranger. “I think I’ll expense that camel ride then.”
