Payout time; V, U or L; Tea time in Dubai? (Weekly opinion)

So here we are in mid-May and the first confirmed recipient, Nakheel, of the Dubai Government Bond, first tranche subscribed to in late February, has given an exclusive interview to Business24/7. (If my memory serves me correctly, I thought the first public words on the disbursement were made by Nasser Al Shaikh on 21 April, 2009, "Dubai Business Breakfast", radio.)

• Is it true that Nakheel has asked contractors to revise prices on their contracts by 30 per cent? What about issues of payments in these tough times?

• We are definitely talking to our contractors to help them and ourselves through the current situation. We are at the stage of commercial settlements and negotiations........

Above published in Business24/7.

• But Nakheel, part of Dubai World, an indebted government-owned umbrella group, has asked some suppliers to accept payments of 50-75 per cent, and asked them to write-off or reschedule the remaining balances, according to people dealing with the company.

As reported in Financial Times this afternoon.

What a charitable term, "to help them", used by Chris O'Donnell, CEO Nakheel, compared with the brutality of Financial Times reporting "payments of 50-75 per cent,..."!

Again I do wonder at the communication skills within the region, hopefully Westminster style democracy and corporate behaviour will be kept at bay!

Unusual to have Winston Churchill as the intoductory photograph, but with all the talk of a V shaped recovery, along with many Green Shoots being reported,I thought it might be useful to offer the alternative viewpoints:

Charting the ’suckers rally’ (A UK site)
The Pragmatic Capitalist (A USA influenced site)
Blogoronomy (A UAE Stock Market site)
ArabianMoney (A Universal blog)

So it looks like a U shaped recovery is on the way, but when?

I will close with this heartening story, picked up from The Arizona Republic,

"Scottsdale firm to distribute tea in Middle East."

"International sales in general make good business sense, said Dan Schweiker, co-founder with Martinson of China Mist. The weak dollar means U.S. products are cheaper for foreigners to buy, and increasing foreign sales can offset slow sales in the recession-plagued U.S. market," he said.

Will Dan's colleagues and friends point out to him that the UAE Dirham is pegged/fixed to the mighty Greenback, and what about the opening Nakheel story, which strikes me as fairly plagueish?

Have a good week.