by executive-magazine.com —by Thomas Schellen — In the beginning, the land was empty and without borders, but then came people who settled on the land and built upon it. The people divided the land into plots large and small and invented rights of ownership to the land, all that was built on it, the water and resources beneath it, and the airspace above. They drew up title deeds, named the plots and all that was built on them real estate, called them commercial and residential, and deemed that it was a fantastic asset class. Any thorough understanding of Lebanon recognizes that land in this country, when compared to most other countries and also considering the density of the population, is both desirable and scarce. The Lebanese link their identities to their villages, and ownership of private homes is as pronounced as the inclination to invest in domestic real estate. But is real estate in Lebanon a good investment today? The ruling assumption for over 20 years in post-1992 Lebanon was that while investments in this asset class might not always appreciate in value, they would never be losing propositions. Property prices, so the assumption goes, might stagnate, but never drop. The investment conditions and views on real estate in 2019, meanwhile, have become more nuanced.

Nuances about the current state of property investing in Lebanon are, however, far from the message of Beirut-based real estate developer, businessman, and investor Georges Chehwane. “When it comes to any kind of investment in real estate, I, Georges Joseph Chehwane, do not advise anybody to invest a penny in Lebanon,” Chehwane tells Executive. “In terms of investment and business, [Lebanon] is the worst place on earth.” In an outburst that appears almost calculated, the chairman of real estate developer Plus Properties and communications media venture Group Plus cites the lack of government support for property owners in Downtown Beirut, alongside persistent public corruption, slow permit processes, and increasing costs of dealing with public administration units. He further lambasts the rising interest cost of bank loans, which he says has risen to 13.5 percent per year for developers like him, and the lack of incentives that Lebanon offers to overseas investors in local real estate. Chehwane then juxtaposes these with investment incentives for property buyers in Cyprus—specifically European residency advantages—and the reliability and transparency of permit processes for Cypriot real estate. Plus Properties currently owns and develops more than 25 apartments in Cyprus, and the country, according to Chehwane, is attracting Lebanese property investors. “I am selling many apartments in Cyprus to Lebanese who do not want to keep their money in the Lebanese banks,” he says. On the other hand, from the vantage points of the financial and wealth management profession in Lebanon, the picture is not fundamentally grim.

By Ros Krasny and Vivian Nereim — bloomberg.com —Saudi Arabia’s king named his son Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman as energy minister, installing a royal family member at the helm of the kingdom’s oil policy for the first time. Prince Abdulaziz, a longtime top Energy Ministry official, is half-brother to the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the two aren’t believed to be close and are quite far apart in age. The prince replaces Khalid al-Falih, whose future had been uncertain over the past week after he was stripped of his responsibility for overseeing industrial development and removed as head of Saudi Aramco.

Al-Falih had been the face of OPEC diplomacy over the past three years, as the producers’ group joined other major producers, most notably Russia, in an attempt to counter the rising tide of U.S. shale oil that flooded markets. The new minister takes charge as the world’s biggest oil exporter tries to bolster prices at a time when a raging trade war between the U.S. and China weighs on global demand. Prince Abdulaziz, who most recently served as state minister for energy affairs, is widely seen as a capable and experienced technocrat. In his former role, he oversaw a breakthrough in talks with fellow OPEC member Kuwait to resume output in the neutral zone between the two countries after a four-year halt. “Prince Abdulaziz is a very seasoned veteran of Saudi and OPEC policy making,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group. “He won’t have a learning curve. I don’t expect any big rupture in current Saudi oil policy or relations with Russia.”

by inc.com —@BillMurphyJr The year was 2001, and Target did something that would be unthinkable today: it outsourced its entire online operation to Amazon. It seems crazy, but Target wasn’t alone. Big names like Borders, Circuit City, and Toys R Us all did the same thing. Now those other brands are gone, but Target is thriving. So what did Target do differently? Why did it survive when the others didn’t? Here’s the story about a bold move Target made, that looks totally brilliant in retrospect. Borders, Circuit City, and Toys R Us

Let’s go back to the start. E-commerce was still new in 2001. Online sales amounted to barely 1 percent of all retail. And Amazon was a small fraction of its size today. It had never turned a profit. Meanwhile, big retail leaders wanted to focus on their core businesses, so a parade of brands went into partnerships with Amazon. Here’s part of the timeline: August 2000: Toys R Us announces a a 10-year exclusive partnership with Amazon. April 2001: Borders, then the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, strikes a deal to let Amazon take over its entire digital operation. August 2001: Circuit City, the number-2 consumer electronics chain, does a deal with Amazon. But, look at where they all wound up: Toys R Us needed a lawsuit to get out of its Amazon deal. Afterward, it never put anywhere near enough resources into its own online sales, and the company closed its doors in 2018. Borders got out in 2007, but lasted only four more years before going bankrupt and closing all its stores.

Amazon grew its electronics business to $1 billion a year by 2004. Five years after that, Circuit City was on its own, in bankruptcy and closing its stores. Target basically went into the same kind of deal — right after Circuit City, in fact. It was announced in the early morning of September 11, 2001. But the big difference that came later was that Target perceived the threat that a quick-growing Amazon posed, negotiated its way out, and poured tons of money into building its own digital operation. The Target deal It’s worth noting how Amazon and Target switched places during the course of their deal. At the start, Target was much bigger, based on market capitalization: $31 billion for Target versus $4 billion on the day they signed the deal. But then…

by cnbc.com — BEIRUT — Lebanon’s prime minister pledged to stabilize the country’s economic problems and aim for a budget deficit of around 7% next year. Speaking to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Beirut, Saad Hariri said: “I understand that we have a problem but I am extremely confident that we can get out of this problem if we follow through all the steps we put in front of us.” “What we are doing is, fixing our debt to GDP (gross domestic product), our deficit and the budget to 7.6% this year, we want to go down to 7% next year, or maybe a little bit less. And then, you know, continue on stabilizing this deficit,” he added in the interview aired Wednesday. Hariri also said he was committed to keeping the Lebanese pound’s currency peg to the U.S. dollar. “We believe in the government and in the Ministry of Finance (and) also the central bank, we believe that keeping the Lebanese pound at 1,500 is the only way, only stable way to move forward with these reforms.” On Monday, Lebanon was on the brink of declaring a state of economic emergency, initiating plans to accelerate reforms in an effort to save the country’s ailing economy. Hariri reiterated the importance of reducing the country’s deficit to reporters the same day, following a meeting between his cabinet and other political leaders.

by ahvalnews.com — Turkey has criticised Lebanese President Michel Aoun after he made a speech lamenting what he called state terror practiced by the Ottoman Empire during its four-century rule of the region. Turkey’s Islamist government often harks back to what it sees as the glory days of the Ottoman Empire that ruled much of […]

by aawsat.com — Lebanon’s political leaders met Monday with the aim of finding a solution to the country’s economic crisis, raising concerns that more taxes will be imposed. Lebanon has one of the world’s highest public debts in the world, standing at 150% of GDP. Growth has plummeted and budget deficit reached 11% of GDP […]

by dailystar.com.lb — BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Saturday denied Israeli claims about his party having factories to produce precision-guided missiles in Lebanon, saying such “lies” were an attempt to justify Israeli attacks against the country. In a televised speech Nasrallah said Hezbollah possessed precision-guided missiles but not the factories to produce them. “We […]

BEIRUT,  (Xinhua) — Lebanese central bank’s foreign exchange reserves increased by 1.4 billion U.S. dollars during the second half of August to reach 38.66 billion dollars at the end of the month. “This increase is due to the influx of deposits from the non-resident private sector directly to the central bank,” a statement by the […]

 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Lebanese bank for connections to Hezbollah on Thursday. The agency announced the sanctions against Jammal Trust Bank and its subsidiaries for “brazenly enabling” the financial activities of Hezbollah, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. “Corrupt financial institutions like Jammal Trust are a direct […]

by esquireme.com –Chris Cotonou– It might be nothing, or it might just be the perfect metaphor. On a usually busy corner of Armenia Street in Beirut, a mural depicting the iconic Lebanese singer Fairuz is now semi-hidden, obscured by plant pots, chairs and scribbled graffiti. I point it out from a busy bar across the street and Salma, a 22-year-old Beirut student, half-smiles and muses “I hadn’t noticed it before, but I’m not surprised.” The short pause in our conversation is replaced with a pulsating American club track bluring out of the bar’s speakers. “Not a lot of people my age would admit they listen to Fairuz these days. She is our parent’s generation,” says Salma. The street art is the work of Yazan Halwani who—along with other artists such as Sabah and Khalil Gibran—sought to fill Beirut with murals of Lebanese cultural icons they believed would inspire and unite the next generation. As the Arab-world’s best-selling singers Fairuz is undoubtedly one of those icons. In Lebanon and abroad she remains a representative of the country’s identity. As Halwani once put it “she’s a symbol of Lebanese identity not soured by sectarianism”. “Not a lot of people my age would admit they listen to Fairuz these days. She is our parent’s generation”

As a transcendent star stitched into the tapestry of Arabic pop-culture, her popularity has spawned a rather unique tradition where many Lebanese families, taxi drivers, and workers start their days with her music. On Spotify and YouTube you can find popular playlists titled ‘Fairuz Morning Songs’ created specifically for this ritual. Although, today with the maturing of a new generation, people like Salma believe that perhaps it has now had its time. “That is something our parents do,” she says, “but that won’t be happening in 10 years, at least not in Beirut.” While a shift in tastes is not particularly dramatic—new generations have always sought music styles that will define and differentiate them from their elders—it is Fairuz’s longevity that is impressive. “These days people have no respect for the classics. Kids today would rather listen to trash! They forget what we fought for to get here.” With a career spanning 50 years, and more than 150 million records sold, Fairuz has been three types of icon to three generations: the first during the glamour and optimism of the Golden Age; then to that generation’s children, who either heard her from abroad, or amidst the sounds of sobbing and ammunition; and finally following the war when her image became a de facto matriarch of a new Lebanon looking for reinvention. For three generations, she has remained relevant.