During GFH's busiest years -- between 2006, when the Financial Harbour towers neared completion, and 2008, just before the Gulf's real estate crash -- the company used the towers as a signature project to negotiate more land deals with heads of state and governments elsewhere in the region.
"It's not something that was openly advertised, but they would brag about how they were getting the land for next-to- nothing, and about how they were making huge sums of money," said a Gulf-based banker who had a business relationship with GFH and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The model was simple. "You basically go and cut a deal with your buddies in Morocco, or Egypt, Tunisia, Syria," said a senior investment banker in Bahrain. Having paid very little for a parcel of land "they (GFH) would go over to investors and mark it up by something like 40 percent, in some cases even more, and sell it." Other bankers and two senior company insiders confirmed such a markup was typical at the company.
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