qe3-9 should be good
just in in-tray
Carmignac's $150k Trichet dig
Giles Turner
05 Oct 2011
Bonaparte once advised “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for
action arrives, stop thinking and go in.” Fellow-country man and star
manager Edouard Carmignac has echoed Old Bony’s sentiments, and has taken
out a full-page advert in today’s Financial Times, demanding action from the
European Central Bank.
According to the advertising rates in 2011, a full page colour advert in the
FT costs $152,830, and at approximately £500 a word, Carmignac, founder of
French asset manager Carmignac Gestion and one of the best known names in
European asset management, did not hold back.
Addressed to Jean-Claude Trichet, the letter urged the head of the European
Central Bank to cut its interest rate from 1.5% to zero, and to make a
declaration of intent to buy up the sovereign debt of those eurozone
countries teetering on the brink of default.
According to Carmignac, lowering the interest rate will help fight the
euro’s overvaluation, and pledging to bailout distressed countries will
allow these states better terms on the bond market.
Carmignac saved his most contentious remarks for Trichet himself, concluding
the letter: “I sincerely hope that the zealous senior civil servant we all
know will reveal himself a true statesman.”
This is not the first time Carmignac has decided to put the boot into the
European authorities via adverts in the FT. In July, Carmignac warned that
power is shifting towards the emerging economies amid what he terms Europe's
"irreversible decline."
Trichet will chair his last ECB Council meeting tomorrow. According to
Carmignac, “you certainly won’t be missed.”
The ECB declined to comment.
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