Bank analyst forecast Georgian crisis 2 days early

[seafan]

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The outbreak of war between Georgia and Russia shocked most of the world last week, but an investment bank analyst predicted it two days in advance.

.....

Geoff Smith, a Kiev-based analyst for Renaissance Capital investment bank, had anticipated the Georgian move with uncanny prescience in an e-mail two days earlier to a fellow strategist.
"So whaddaya think? I say Saakashvili is going to 'restore the territorial integrity of Georgia' five minutes before the opening ceremony starts in Beijing and dare the Russians to invade while the games are on?" the note said.
Reuters has seen a copy of the e-mail and confirmed its validity with both the sender and recipient of the message.

.....

Russian sovereign Eurobond spreads, a measure of investment risk, widened on the hostilities, and shares tumbled.
"It was just intuition," Smith said by telephone.

.....

Explaining his reasoning, the former journalist said the upcoming presidential election in the United States could have played a role in Saakashvili's decision to send troops into South Ossetia.
"Certainly the next White House will not be as supportive of Saakashvili as this one and so if Saakashvili wanted to reunite Georgia he really had to do it this year and he was probably hoping the Olympic Games gave him the right cover," he said.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSLE696364

---

This could be significant.

[Bluerthanblue]

1. can't help but be reminded of the

sell outs of stock prior to 9/11.

:shrug:

Smells familiar

[notadmblnd]

2. I'm sure the guy just had a psychic moment

:sarcasm: wonder how much he made on it?

[grannie4peace]

3. you are so very right

that's why rove & all those assholes have been roaming the aera. i think it shows what a warped self image the neocons have---they are out of touch with reality...

[Schema Thing]

4. If he ever gets his own mutual fund, I'm in.

[dipsydoodle]

5. How amazing

What great intuition.

[TomClash]

6. Nice try

I don't buy his intuition. Foreknowledge or a lucky guess is more like it.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

10. he was right

how many other Eastern European IBs were wrong? I don't think it's that amazing, in this context.

[Karenina]

7. Spot the lie, follow the

$$$$$ :-)

[unblock]

8. selection fallacy at work!

why not show the thousands of other predictions various people made, or even that this same guy made, that turned out to be way off the mark? oh, because no one cares about those.

hey, i'm gonna open of 501 gmail accounts and send one email from each 501 gmail accounts i'll set up for mrs. unblock.

each one will predict the change in the dow jones industial average tomorrow. +250, +249, +248, ..., 0, ..., -250.

unless there some ginormous move tomorrow, one of those 501 emails will be spot on.

i'll forward that one email to all the reporters and hey, a few wall street bosses. maybe i'll get a gig as a trader.

[JDPriestly]

9. It probably really was just intuition. Forget it.

People who are very familiar with a situation and the personalities of the people involved often can predict such things. That is what people in intelligence are supposed to be good at. Unfortunately, such gifts may be possessed by people who don't toe party lines very well. In fact, people who regurgitate what people in authority want to hear probably are not going to have very well developed intutions. After all, intuition arises from a combination of information, logic, common sense and the personality of the intuitive person. Reason plays a part, but so does the work of the subconscious (which arises from the ego's various aspects) and the spiritual self, which is the connection of each individual to the world around him or her beyond thinking and physical perception.

Confused? You are supposed to be. Intuition really exists, but it is hard to define.

[Cousin It]

11. But...

....I think we'll find the Russians were well aware the Georgians were coming. The FSB would have them well compromised for a start.

Which suggests there'd be a plan for the response, one that more than a handful of influential people in Moscow would have to know.

If the piece told me a car salesman in Minsk had seen this coming I'd have said intuition/weirdly good guess work.

Since we're talking about an Investment Banker in Moscow I'd say someone out and out told him, and probably made a rouble or two while they were at it.

[JDPriestly]

14. Remember. If Bush was snooping on our electronic communications,

Putin is probably snooping on them and everyone else in the world's communications too. They are quite good at spying, I suspect.

[seafan]

12. Notable: One day before Georgian attack on Ossetia, Smith was quoted re: money flowing to Ukraine

London channels capital to Ukraine

by Yulia Golub, Kyiv Post, Staff Writer
Aug 06 2008, 19:45

Even though the United Kingdom is only the fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Ukraine, an increasing amount of capital inflow is being channeled through London.
That’s no surprise since London is Europe's financial capital.
“When we’re talking about British investment in Ukraine we should not forget the role London plays in channeling global investment into the country,” says Renaissance Capital’s Geoffrey Smith. “London offers the largest pool of capital.”

Ukrainian companies have in recent years stepped up efforts to raise money and list stock on international markets. Despite a slowdown linked to the global credit crunch, the expectation is that Ukrainian companies will raise record amounts of capital in the near term, and a long list of domestic companies will eventually list their stock via initial public offerings (IPOs) on the London Stock Exchange. So expect more investment with a London flavor spreading to Kyiv in the future.
Since the beginning of 2007, more than $1.6 billion was raised by Ukrainian companies on the London exchange through IPOs, according to Kyiv-based investment bank Dragon Capital. Billions more will be raised in the coming years.

For comparison, state figures suggest that some $2 billion in FDI from the UK has poured into Ukraine since independence, less than the nearly $7 billion that came from Cyprus and Germany, and the roughly $2.5 billion attributed to The Netherlands and Austria. These top five investing countries account for about half of all foreign direct investment in Ukraine, with inflows 40 percent up in the first half of this year.

True, much of the money flowing into Ukraine via London, be it syndicated bank loans or cash raised through IPOs, is not British in origin. Nor is the lion’s share of FDI from Cyprus, an offshore tax haven, Cypriot.

Yet investment from London has also brought priceless returns and experience to Ukrainian businesses. The more Ukrainian companies list in London, or borrow from top banks there, the more they find themselves playing to the highest global financial standards, regulations and rules of business.
Smith said the increased presence of Ukrainian companies on the London exchange, and borrowing from London banks, is also “an important indicator of Ukraine’s attractiveness.”

It shows that London-listed Ukrainian companies such as ore producer Ferrexpo and real estate developer KDD “can compete for capital in a truly global context,” Smith said.
“The money that is invested in them can just as easily be invested in companies with mines in Latin America or Africa, or real estate projects in the Middle East or Central Asia. London offers the world’s largest pool of capital, and thus the broadest circle of potential shareholders or lenders. As a result companies should be able to get the best possible price for their stock or bonds from that market.”

.....

There is no single leading British investor in Ukraine that stands out as having invested the largest amount, or made the biggest difference. There is, however, the London­based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, founded by developed countries of the world for the purpose of supporting economic development in transition countries. While not British per se, the EBRD claims to be the largest investor in Ukraine with some $5 billion invested through loans and acquisitions. Last year was a particularly strong year for the EBRD, with annual business volume reaching $1 billion.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many companies active in Ukraine, but backed by domestic or Russian businessmen, are registered in UK tax havens. Mapping them out and their would­be British roots would entail writing a book.

Who are the real British investors in Ukraine?

.....

British exports to Ukraine are expected to increase strongly now that Ukraine has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).
But British expats who have been doing business in Ukraine since the early 1990s are cautious.

.....

Like all investors, British firms universally complain about Ukraine’s tedious and corrupt customs procedures and say it harms the nation’s image. “Ukraine must immediately computerize every transaction to make it transparent and adopt European Union customs procedures,” said Martin Nunn, chief executive at Whites Communication.

.....

And it doesn’t help to be British, according to Pickard. All foreign companies doing business in Ukraine complain that the justice system is very poor and non­reliable, he added

.....

Sounds as if there are tremendous streams of money flowing through London to the Ukraine, and not necessarily from Brits themselves.

Wonder if this stream is flowing to Georgia as well... Mr. Smith. who *predicted* the Georgian aggression against Ossetia 2 days ahead of time, does not say in this article.




*Tax havens*..... seems like that has been in the news recently, with some very wealthy Americans under investigation for evading taxes with the help of their offshore banking friends at UBS.


There are so many unanswered questions regarding the invasion of Ossetia by Georgia, and just who is behind this aggression that has ripped Ossetia into tragedy.





Meanwhile, the Jamestown Foundation, a DC-based think tank, the formation of which was backed by former CIA Director William Casey in 1984, just issued its latest piece today, entitled " THE RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN WAR WAS PREPLANNED IN MOSCOW".


We're in a Category 5 $#*@storm now.

“We did not lose the battles of ideas. We were not outsmarted and we were not out-argued,” journalist and author Naomi Klein said. “We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks.”

[AlphaCentauri]

13. We know who finance democracy this day, don't we?