What Does Dubai’s Financial Crisis Mean for Emerging Markets? (Re-post)

It must be fun to spark a world financial panic and then go on a five-day vacation. By now everyone knows that on Wednesday of last week, right before the Muslim world shut down for the Eid-al-Adha festival, Dubai World, the flagship investment company owned by the Government of Dubai and/or Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Makhtoum, announced a standstill on its debt repayments, with specific reference to a $4 billion bond payment that Nakheel, a Dubai World property development subsidiary, is due to pay in December. The world has now, finally, woken up to realize that the Dubai miracle is built on sand, both literally and figuratively.

I hate to say I told you so (why do people always say that? I’m usually delighted to say I told you so), but in a blog post that appeared on this site last July “Can Dubai Come Back?” I advised investors to steer clear of Dubai, pointing out that “rampant intermingling of public and private funds and little transparency over who owns and owes what,” it was hard to know exactly what is going on inside any company. By all indications Nakheel and also Emaar, another state-owned property developer, were perilously close to insolvency if they hadn’t already crossed the line. Nakheel had shelved development of the second and third Palm Island projects and Emaar, developer of the world’s tallest building Burj Dubai, was trying to get itself acquired by Dubai Holdings. Arguments about whether or not all these companies were then or are now insolvent are pretty much beside the point. I likened the Dubai property and investment markets to a game of three-card monte, where losses and liabilities could be moved about and hidden from view. Given the interlocking nature of UAE companies, when you buy a share of one it’s hard to know who else’s hidden risks and liabilities you’re buying too.

Today, the first day of trading in the UAE since last Wednesday’s market close, the Dubai Stock Exchange closed down 7 per cent and Abu Dhabi’s 8 per cent. DP World, a profitable Dubai World ports operating subsidiary, saw its price drop 15 per cent. Some analysts now predict that the Dubai property market, already down around 50% from its peak, could drop a further 40% for a total 70% peak-to-trough decline.