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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (57056)	7/19/2005 5:07:44 AM
From: Rande Is	Respond to of 57584

U.S. Company to Invest $800M in Dubai By TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 18, 9:30 AM ET DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - An American-owned company said Monday it will build an $800 million real-estate development in Dubai in what will be the largest Western investment in the Gulf emirate. Capital Partners, a privately owned company run by two Americans, moved its headquarters to Dubai three years ago, when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had soured U.S. perceptions of investing in the region. Since then, Chief Executive Jonathan Wride has been negotiating the legal framework for Dubai River Walk, an office-and-residential development. Huge real-estate projects — from man-made islands to the Burj Dubai, touted to be the world's tallest building when it opens in 2008 — are not new to Dubai, the second-largest member of the United Arab Emirates after the capital Abu Dhabi. According to the government, an estimated $80 billion of real-estate projects are under way in Dubai. The Western injection of funds from Capital Partners is an exception however, since Dubai's booming real-estate sector has attracted plenty of regional investors flush with cash from high oil prices. A government official involved in the negotiations says Capital Partners got a good deal on the land in a bid to attract more foreign investment to Dubai. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Wride believes other U.S. developers will follow. "The interest is coming," he told Dow Jones Newswires. "We're getting more and more calls from large U.S. companies, especially developers," said Wride, whose partner, Todd Thiel, oversees the company's U.S real estate and technologies portfolio. The company is now based in Dubai, and their U.S. operations are run out of Irvine, Calif. Dubai's most ambitious projects include Kuwait's IFA Hotels and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding Co., which have joint hotel and real-estate investments of more than $1 billion across the state, and equity interests of more than $500 million. Foreign direct investment measures include the equity component of a project. Dubai cleared the way for foreign investors to own and develop properties in specific zones in the emirate in 2003, but investments to date have been small compared with Capital Partners' project. Wride said delays set in over the contract because he refused the offer of a 99-year lease on the land, insisting the company acquire legal ownership of the land. The government official said the company will pay around 20 percent on any commercial rental yields to Tecom, its government partner, which will handle property marketing and government-related services such as visa processing. Capital Partners confirmed the outlines of the deal, but didn't want to elaborate on details. Wride said it also took time to persuade his investment committee that Dubai was a secure location to place some of the company's money, most of which is invested in California real estate, because of U.S. perceptions that the Mideast is a risky place to invest. "We see opportunities here, we'd rather be one of the first people here," he said. "At the time we thought, if we didn't take this land, someone else will," he was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires. The first Western-owned company to invest in a property development was Dubai-based Plantation Holdings. It is building a $150 million polo and equestrian center with 110 mansions in Dubailand, an entertainment development that Dubai hopes will grow to be twice the size of Florida's Walt Disney World. The other major Western investment is from Bahamas-based resort operator Kerzner International Ltd., which has $100 million of equity in a $1.1 billion joint venture with Dubai's government for Atlantis, a 2,000-room hotel and resort development on one of Dubai's man-made Palm Islands.

To: Rock_nj who wrote (57056)	7/19/2005 11:30:04 AM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Unfortunately, it takes far too much petrol to harvest, process, ship, and distribute that biodiesel to urban yuppies. It only makes sense to burn biodiesel two places-- near the farms that produce it, and in otherwise stinky deisel metro buses. "the will to implement it in a meaningful way" You probably don't realize just how cheap regular petrol is--take away taxes and you are looking at a wildly inexpensive and easy to obtain source of energy. The only reasonable way to slow our export of cash to oil producing nations is to conserve. ........... Finally--storing solar in batteries? There is no free lunch. Those batteries will be a huge burden when their useful life is spent. You can however generate electricity from solar locally, store and use it in a low voltage system--travel trailer style. It is enough light for reading lights and such for a few hours each evening. I can't say enough about conservation. Americans are huge energy pigs. Stop looking for more energy and simply use less. I will look for a thread for it, or start one. I for one will guess that I can cut my energy use about 25% in the summer half of the year. Imagine if everybody did that! I'll bet I can find easy ways to cut energy use in the office as well.