At Atlantis, bankers take a different plunge - The National Newspaper

While holidaymakers at the Hotel Atlantis queued up yesterday to experience the Leap of Faith, a heart-stopping plunge from eight storeys high through a tank of sharks, bankers were inside the conference centre being asked to do something similar.

More than 200 of them turned up in pinstriped suits and traditional dress – fortunately none was wearing Speedos – to the hotel that opened just as the Great Recession was taking hold. Built by Nakheel, a Dubai World company, it was opened to a grand fanfare of fireworks and singing from Kylie Minogue in the autumn of 2008. Yesterday was a rather more sombre affair.

There was certainly no singing. In fact, most of the phalanx of PR advisers ensured that hardly anybody bleated. There was one alarm when a wire reporter almost sneaked past the red-roped enclosure by pretending she was planning her wedding. Only the keen eyes of a Bloomberg rival prevented this breach of protocol.