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To: PaulM who wrote (23012)	11/16/1998 5:54:00 AM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116790

IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR PLAN B IN THE BRAZIL BAILOUT By JOHN DIZARD ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOW that the Treasury policy freaks' round of self-congratulation over the Brazil bailout package has died away, we might consider what the market operators are making of the long-awaited $40 billion plus package. A few weeks ago, you may recall, I suggested that the announcement would be the cue to take your money out of the place, and to say a silent prayer of thanks to the rich world's taxpayers who will have made the profit-taking possible. So you might want to consider some alternatives to the Brazil Fund or Telebras, which are much the same thing, anyway. One interesting point was just how long it took to get the whole package together. There's a lot of i-dotting and t-crossing to do, but was something else going on? Yes. Let it never be said that the IMF and our own Treasury don't learn from history, as long as it's recent history. Remember the Russian bailout package from way back in July? Neither the IMF nor the Treasury thought it necessary to have a Plan B just in case the ridiculous assumptions they made didn't work out. Consequently, when the unlamented Kiriyenko government defaulted in August, the well-informed Washington insiders were left holding their private parts in front of the whole world. So they spent some time after the initial Brazil package was glued together to come up with a backup in case - make that when - the package failed. Plan B includes provisions for what will be called an orderly devaluation, along with debt reschedulings and other marks of failure. But at least this time the Treasury/IMF team won't be gaping like startled goldfish as they were in August. Late last week, just after the package announcement, the back and forth chitchat in the sinister international speculative community was how long after the end of Carnival would it take the Brazilians to dump the plan. The conventional wisdom is that the country will get through the end-of-the-year holidays because the world's bankers want to take a vacation. And after that, nothing gets closed in Brazil until after Carnival, which is the end of February. So, the specs agree, we're probably looking at March. I'm getting more optimistic about Russia. For one thing, it's been abandoned and scorned by the community of Western advisers and consultants who used to infest Moscow. That's a good sign right there, since their presence was expensive, distracting, and annoying. Also, while the Primakov government doesn't have a recovery plan yet, the Russian people have been improvising their own ways to deal with the default. Times are very hard but they're coping better than the numbers would tell you. They never believed in the Western consultants' plans or the sound ruble, so they weren't that shocked when they failed. As they would say, they've been to the camps before. Their savings were in dollars. The oligarchs have lost influence, which is good. And the single easiest move the Russian government could make to bring in real direct foreign investment is a lot closer to happening. That would be legislative and administrative approval for the standard oil and gas Production Sharing Agreements. The PSAs would give the world's oil companies the framework they need to get to work on the rapid development of Russia's best source of cash. OK, so you sold the stocks I told you to last week. I know, you were early, but believe me, it's better to leave some money on the table rather than lose it all during a busy signal on 1-800-SELL ALL. So where do you put the profits? Try Imperial Credit Commercial Mortgage Investment Corp. (ICMI, Nasdaq). Based on the recent price of around 9, it's yielding around 10.6 percent. The closing price was 9 9/32. It's a victim of the credit crunch that hit securitized commercial mortgages, but according to analyst Mike Winer of the Third Avenue Fund, It's already selling at a huge discount to it's liquidation value in a fire sale. That would be around 12 to 12.5 a share. The book is around 14. It would appear that the dividend is safe, and the management seems to have shareholder interests in mind. nypostonline.com