Not long ago, while on a Singapore Air plane travelling back to HK, the plane hit an air-pocket. I let out a noise as the stewardess hit the ceiling. I was afraid for at most a nano second, and went deadly calm as I realized the plane was in free fall. The adventure ended soon enough, though the remainder of the trip was turbulent. As then, I am now deadly calm.
A Morman friend of mine had once been on a Filipino propeller plane when the engines stopped 2000 feet in the air. He told me that the air is very quiet up that high. The pilot was calm. The lady passenger lost her voice. The big German tourist shitted in his pants. The plane then glided and crashed in the rice field with no casualties.
I am more optimistic now about 2000 than I had been at any time since January 1st. Of course, my optimism could be heightened still further in the coming weeks. I feel as alive as ever, but the frenzied happiness is no more. The only way to get the feeling back is to stay with the game.
Sorry for not responding earlier. I am still in ShiJiaZhuang, the capital of Hebei province, about three hours drive from Beijing on a world class expressway.
As in a game of Unreal Tournament, www.gtgames.com, some insane player just pulled the trigger of the Redeemer at close quarter in a crowded arena. For those not familiar with the weapons of UT, the Redeemer fires off a small thermo nuclear bomb of some sort and basically drops all those within line of sight. Escape with injury is possible for those at the peripheral chambers
For those lucky enough to have survived the bomb, though wounded, a decision now must be made ?
a. Pick up health - save a bit of cash from everywhere possible, especially from shares not hit
b. Pick up weapons from the departed ? buy some beaten down goodies
c. Keep running ? just keep selling
d. Hide ? same as c, and then stay out forever
Experience shows that tactics a and b, while dangerous due to possible additional crazies around the corner, are parts of a winning strategy.
Tactics c and d are parts of a survival strategy. Standing around is almost never good.
I note that ShiJiaZhuang is a town of a few million, full of not so busy traditional industries, some new-tech pharmaceutical and international invested industries and a lot of bath houses, massage parlors, acu-pressure centers. The folks here are, presumably very clean and relaxed, free, upbeat and know about the outside world through occasional business trips and a lot of satellite TV feeds. I do not have my adrenaline pumping music station with me but I do have MTV and Channel V on TV, complete with Mariah. I also have CNBC and CNN, supplemented with hotel provided broadband i.net access.
I am here to help a British client restructure yet another infrastructure deal gone bad. I will return to HK in time for Easter, intending not to turn n the computer, much, and laze in the sun on the beach down the hill from home. I intend to eat well, hug wife, meander with friends, and generally do nothing. 2000 has been instructional and somewhat costly (a lot of university tuition-equivalent, to put matters in perspective; a sail boat would have been more long lasting fun).
The British client is lucky that there is something left to restructure.
The local Chinese partner is good in that they allow a responsible restructuring, encouraged with a bit of political arm-twisting, implied threats and some incentives dispensing. Some past jobs required total pulverization of the opposition through all means available. After a while one?s reputation travels ahead of one and the opposition takes the path of least resistance ? cooperate ? as they realize that you do not care if you have to make a mess in their kitchen.
I am lucky that there were such manias that attracted all sorts of folks into the infrastructure deals and that it cost more to get my help to get out of such bad deals than if the clients had hired me to put them into better deals. Better means better focus, structure/partner, phasing and economics. I make money from past manias to feed future manias and then the cycle goes on.
The people who originally acted as middleman to the client are now out of the co-generation deal making business, and are putting folks into i.com and e.net. I will not be helping people to get out of such deals as there will be no assets to clean up and what used computation equipment are left will have been carried home by the ex-employees.
Damage Report. On my own portfolio:
a. I am down 13% on NAV basis, 27% on portfolio basis and 100% on Maui ranch basis. I am valuing my 9984 at the US$ 350 level (more representative than the limit-down price in Tokyo);
b. 70% cash (due in part to equity portion having gone down);
c. Sold off all of my 9984 Yen 56k warrants as I no longer like the time limit of March 2001 (feels like a noose) and because I got out at only a small loss to original (Euro 3.6 vs 4.6) purchase cost. Following the tenet that when the ship starts to sink, do not pray, jump;
d. I have sold off my junk stocks (616, 241, 603, etc) in HK and consolidated the proceeds into two pieces of junk (Harbour Ring 715 and Softbank 648);
e. I probably will further increase my Philip Morris long+put/call position as the economics has not changed much since my original investment a few weeks ago and 100% return by January is still possible;
f. I will add 9984 via US if the transaction price (US$ 350) is still lower than Japan (Yen 60k). The Japan pricing may not get that low;
g. I intend to wait until May, after bad Jan-Mar productivity report, before making any dramatically suicidal moves. I have started to nibble ever so carefully (slooowly) on Ariba, Commerce One and Tibco, all via put writing. |
