Friday 7th December, 2012

I have to say I'm a little disgrunted this morning. I really expected to have a letter to the Editor published in The Daily Telegraph. How many other people do you know who noticed that Dave Drubeck was listed in yesterday's Birthdays column ( 92 years old ) right across the page from his Obituary. Not that many I suspect. Well anyway, disappointingly, I pointed this out to the Editor but it seems he didn't care that much. The truth is though that my mood has been affected more by the prospect of two rarified evenings in a row. It was our sales traders "drinks party" at Dirty Dicks last night. I am pretty sure I invited you. Pity you couldn't make it. Tbh I was in the Christmas spirit ( Spanish brandy to be specific ) after a working lunch even before I got there and didn't last that long. The stories are beginning to come out of various degrees of carnage wreaked and as I was lapping these up, I noticed that a friend of mine had just posted the following quote from James Joyce following an evening of his own which I thought was kind of appropriate ( if a bit rarified )...."There is a curious kind of honour-code among men which obliges them to assist one another and not hinder the free action of one another and remain together for mutual protection with the result that very often they waken up the next morning sitting in the same ditch." - James Joyce And tonight I have to head up to Rugby for my daughters end of term house Christmas dinner. What a treat that always is. Virtually undrinkable wine, seafood delice (what ever that is), a sloppy slice of turkey and a bit of cold Christmas pudding with custard. The consolation is I doubt very much I'll end up in a ditch. Oh its high living all right. I can hardly believe, this time last year I was in Sri Lanka staying at the Amanwella. Christmas Challenge As you run down the year here's something for you to mull over....I confess I have done this one before, about ten years ago, but I've always enjoyed limericks......I've written the first line for you. Please complete.......the best contribution wins a bottle of something good...not Spanish brandy I promise..... "There's a salesman at CIMB...... Take your time, do your worst and have fun!

Friday 30th November, 2012

Well, its been a while. Sorry about that. I was ill last Friday. Wasn't at all pretty. I blame the minestrone soup I picked up from Pret A Manger on Thursday afternoon. Still, better now and I have survived, relatively unscathed, a week that included our office Christmas party. I was on best behaviour for that. There have been too many unfortunate scenes on past such occasions. The last one I recall I ended up having to excuse myself from my desk and spent almost half a day lying shivering on a bench on the walkway by the Thames in front of Nomura's office. Truth be told, although a little more circumspect these days, I was also slightly sulking this time as my proposed venue for our bash ( Le Rendezvous, obviously ) was voted down in a secret (rigged obviously) ballot and we ended in some very lame gastro-pub near Victoria Station. Ever with a mind to delivering value-added in these emails of mine I might tell you that if you make use of Lastminute Top Secret hotels facility and are looking for somewhere to stay near Victoria be careful you don't end up at Tophams Hotel on Ebury Street. I was feeling quite pleased with myself at having got a booking there because it was just 100 yards from where we were having dinner however my room was in the basement, smelt like a sewer and the bed was a fold out sofa. What a dump. I just remembered the strangest thing that happened to me that evening.....in the middle of dinner my phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Hen: In history were the jewish people awful to the arabs or have I got that all wrong? x I never did get to the bottom of that one. There's a story there somewhere I suspect but I was already four or five glasses of red the wrong side of caring. Don't get the wrong idea of how I have spent this afternoon, but I thought I would share with you an educational website that was sent me by a friend of mine. Improve your French, your mouse-control skills and test your knowledge of global locations. http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/jeunesse/p-14809-Cartoquiz.htm And if you can beat my score of 321,459 points.....well, respect. But you will not be able to.... PS Nice cartoon in this weeks Spectator. A man in a chair at the optician. " The recession is finally over and my bishop is a woman " he reads off the board in front of him. To which the optician remarks "Well, I'd say you've got 2020 vision"

Friday 16th November, 2012

It's been a while since I last indulged in a bit of name dropping. Life styles of the rich and famous in Knightsbridge. I was out for a run on Wednesday and who should I bump into but Yingluck Shinawatra. Well I say bump into. I was trundling along the track parallel to South Carriage Drive as she came up the other way in an open horse drawn carriage heading I presume for the Thai Embassy having just been given a 21 gun salute. There weren't many crowds of adoring Thais around so I gave them a wave. Exciting eh. What else this week? Oh yes, I devised a new game to pass the time during one of a series of company meetings where the IR representative started pulling a series of nick nacks out of his bag to illustrate various points he was making including the multiple uses of PET. It was like watching the Generation Game. Here....I'll see if I can remember them all now... packet of tooth floss A Shoe horn Can of sweet corn A water bottle with a green top A Starbucks smoothie container Tooth brush Antiseptic wipes Brazilian football shirt A husked corn cob Cuddly toy Go me! Now, on a serious note, some of you may need reminding why I call my Friday afternoon email "Under the Bodhi Tree". I don't bang on about this too often, for obvious reasons, but it was under the Bodhi Tree where the Lord Buddha finally achieved enlightenment. Every now and again I like to think some of the CIMB research I send through is similarly inspiring and there's some good stuff below, but if you have a quiet moment and have had a bad week you could do a lot worse than read this blog from a friend of mine. It is not for the faint hearted but I thought it was amazing. http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.co.uk/ Just to lighten the mood before we head off for the weekend I thought I would tell you of a lucky escape I've just had. Hen has been set a photography project the essence of which is to shadow someone through their day taking a series of photos. She was in town today having lunch with me and it was with a gathering sense of horror that I listened to her describing an idea she had to photograph me in the workplace. I thought I would nip this in the bud and so after lunch whisked her into the office here. Job done. As we left she turned and told me that she had a back up plan which on reflection might be more interesting. "I've got a friend at Leeds who's a stripper. I think I'll take photo's of her instead Dave, if you don't mind". And with that she wandered off to Oxford Street to buy a new pair of jeans.

Friday 9th November, 2012

Two unfeasibly large cans of Zippo lighter fuel surprisingly arrived on our front door step at home last week. It transpires that Bob ordered these having discovered that I had set up one click shopping on Amazon. Precisely what purpose he has in mind I know not, but for the moment it would appear I got off lightly. A friend of mine told me he knew someone who ended up with a 125cc rally cross motorbike through a similar misadventure. Well, relaying this story last night, I may have stumbled upon a soul mate for Bob. I was with a friend to watch a "play", Simon Callow in The Mystery of Charles Dickens....go David, another winner. It's not a play really. More of a monologue. If you want to listen to someone recounting a protracted and frankly pretty boring bedtime story whilst you sit in a cramped seat in a stuffy theatre ( inevitably with some large uncouth yob behind you coughing their insides out ) this one is for you. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Well would you credit it, but my friend's son - who has a fine collection of knives apparently - had also done the 1 Click Amazon thing. A book arrived at his office...."Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction". Respect! Bob's Christmas present sorted one might think. But not necessarily. I have some extraordinary news for you. The other day I got an email out of the blue informing me he had joined the choir. And shortly after that he secured permission from his mother to re-jig his GCSE options. He has given up History ( shame on him and Sophie ) and taken up Art. Here is a picture he sent me in a text message, made from leaves apparently. In due course I suppose it could be a valuable as an example of work from his formative years so I'll file this. It is too early to tell whether Bob's more sensitive side is taking over or to put another way he is turning over a new leaf. Boom boom. I have learnt from Hen that change in character traits take a while to play out don't they. People continue to ask me why we hear so little of Hen these days and I think I have told you already that life was becoming an altogether more serious business for her. At 20 you would expect that really. But if you want an update of her progress, studying photography at Leeds University, you may be amused to hear that I received this message from one of her house mates who seems to be finding her mature outlook too much to bear. "Hen is sitting in her room cutting out pictures of fairies and listening to Metallica....I want her to move out."

Friday 2nd November, 2012

If you ever doubted the professional in me you should be reassured by the fact that I have nipped back to the office from our London Conference whizzing down Piccadilly and round Hyde Park Corner on my trusty Boris Bike....just to send you this and wish you a good weekend. The conference, though I say it myself, has been a great success. CLSA eat your heart out. 38 Asian leaders in a West End hotel. Tony Fernandes entertaining us over lunch with a rivetting run through his career to date. Indonesian trade minister. Prosecco. Duck pancakes. A magician AND....music from the Coutures, aka Three Girls from Essex. Oh and a little too much Soju, a drink of which even a little is too much. I also got carried away with a small Indian company.....be warned this last time this happened to me was when I was reluctantly dragged into a meeting with Inspur at a HK Forum and came out Inspired. It has been a sorry tale since then. But this one is different. Really worth a look..... Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZL IN) - If you can't get your tongue around this company's name don't worry. Call it TBZ. But remember this one. Its only US$220 m market cap but that is changing fast. It has doubled in the last few months and I am pretty sure it is going to do the same again in the next few. It is a play on the rising Indian middle class and its insatiable appetite for jewellery. The critical transformation for this company which for close on a 100 years was a Bombay based wedding jewellery specialist designer, manufacturer and retailer was the decision to switch business model to gold leasing. Think of it as going asset light. Instead of being exposed to gold price volatility and restriction imposed by holding inventory this has allowed it to pursue a dramatic growth strategy transforming itself into a pan Indian company building on its renowned reputation. Now, instead of people trecking to Mumbai to buy their jewellery TBZ is going to them. By end FY15 they will have 57 stores from the current 12 dotted in urban centres all over India and these stores are profitable almost from the outset. Average sales is 300,000 rupees per sq ft. Average billing size is 150,000 rupees. Nothing else in retailing in India comes close. CAGR over last 5 years of like for like gold sales has been 8% and for diamonds (25% of sales) it has been 28%. Add on top the store expansion and you have a stellar growth story. Take a look. So it's been a long week and I have to get back to the conference, but just quickly have to tell you about my trip to Edinburgh on Wednesday where, would you believe, on 31st October, the Christmas trees are up. Anyway, as you know I have various little tricks to keep me engaged during meetings. If I'm with a Chinese company and in front of a client who is a Mandarin speaker I encourage them to conduct the meeting in their own language. Truth is I like listening to Mandarin. When I was with Barings in HK I actually had lessons for a few months and our teacher invariably praised me for my accent which I was quite pleased about. So now one of my little querks is to wait until, with the help of the occasional bit of English that always crops into business talk, I can guess what they are discussing and then chip in with a casual pertinent comment of my own. Fun eh!? Anyway the conversation over lunch was in full flow at the point, I was sure they were discussing various private equity investment firms operating in China. I decided the time was right to launch my attempt to make them think I understood everything they were saying and asked how they selected which firm to work with? They looked at me blankly. "Sorry. We are talking about pineapple cakes" I was told. Busted. After that every now and again, as I reached for another sip of house red, they would break off and with a sympathetic nod in my direction explain they were talking about the Taiwanese financial industry. Hey ho. At least I have the consolation that I can speak more Cantonese than my lunch partner's colleague who, after living in Hong Kong for close on 10 years, can only manage four words....Gung Hei Fat Choi. Pip pip.