Cornucopia
Page 52
O’Connelly was a journalist become writer. He was from an Anglo-Saxon world where journalists were not indebted to the state for the regal subsidies paid to the press or the pension privileges and tax breaks accorded to journalists in France. Not only did his work ethic and independence drive him, he also refused to see himself himself as part of the establishment with its politically correct luvvies and its self satisfied ways. He was apolitical, his choices were based on a rational consideration of events and a strong empathy for victims, whatever the cause: war, poverty, discrimination, politics, disease and simple bad luck, however, that did not make him an unconditional bobo.
*
O’Connelly was up to his word; pointing to each building, describing every street, nearly all of which dated back three hundred or more years. They crossed place de la Bastille where he told the two girls the story of Napoleon’s elephant as they dodged the traffic and wound their way through the Friday night crowd. The followed their guide down rue de la Roquette, then rue de Lappe with its crowds, bars and restaurants. At the end of the narrow street they turned left and five minutes later they arrived at Mi Ranchito Paisa, where they were warmly welcomed by Ernesto, the Colombian owner.
Claire had discovered the small restaurant soon after they had returned from the Hays Festival in Cartagena, where with Pat the relived their souvenirs of Colombian. It was small, simple and Colombian. A tabernita decorated in a folksy ranchito style. Their first visit had been on a quiet weekday evening when they talked and drank with Ernesto until late in the evening.
To start with O’Connelly ordered a round of mojitos, then dinner with the help of Ernesto: ceviche, guacamole, chicken and beef asada with plantain and rice, and a bottle of Spanish Rioja. It was almost as if they were back in Colombia as Ernesto hovered around exchanging words in Spanish with Liam as a salsa played in the background.
The ceviche was served as the Ernesto fussed around their table, delighted to see to the celebrated writer back in his establishment, serving the Rioja as the evening got under way. The restaurant was full and if the noise and laughter was any indication the evening was going to be one to remember.
After the excellent ceviche they enthusiastically watched as the arepa con carne asada was served with stuffed plantains and arroz con coco. As Ernesto refilled their glasses the sound of firecrackers echoed outside adding to the Latino ambiance.
Suddenly the entrance door burst open, a girl staggered in supporting her boyfriend. Ernesto startled by the sudden intrusion, but before he could shoo them out, the young man, who had obviously too much to drink, collapsed on the floor.
The girl screamed for help, he was bleeding profusely from the shoulder. Others pushed their way inside, their faces shocked, women sobbing.
“What the hell’s going on,” shouted O’Connelly as the sound of firecrackers going off sounded stronger from across the street.
“They’re shooting everybody,” a girl cried out. “Lock the door.”
Francis recognised the sound, it was automatic gun fire.
By now they were all crouched on the floor and diner was forgotten. Outside people were running. The firing was louder, hard thudding sounds, louder and louder, in short bursts.
“What the fuck’s happening,” yelled Clancy.
More people tried to push their way in.
Then there was silence. It was some moments before anyone moved.
Sirens hurled as flashing blue lights from a patrol car reflected off the buildings on the opposite side of the street.
“Call an ambulance,” someone shouted.
There were three people bleeding.
Some of the tables were turned over. Overturned plates of food lay on the floor with cutlery and wine bottles spilt their contents in dark patches across the tiles.
Clancy peered carefully outside. Opposite, across the narrow street, was a scene of horror: bodies lay everywhere, people screamed for help, tables and chairs upturned on the pavement terrace of La Belle Équipe and the Japanese restaurant adjoining it.
S
cene near the Bataclan in Paris
“Are they gone?” shouted O’Connelly.
A crowd had started to gather as restaurants and bars emptied, certain nursed their wounds, many lay dead or dying on the pavement, some cried and others were were in a state of shock, there was blood everywhere, in the background the sound of sirens echoed as ambulances and police cars started to arrive.
Soon the police were shouting orders telling diners to stay inside. Neighbours leaned out from their windows overlooking the narrow street.
O’Connelly and his friends stood outside aghast, trying to understand what had happened. Others consulted their phones. It seemed there had been several attacks, there were confused rumours about the Bataclan, a concert hall, a short distance from rue de Charonne.
An unusually balmy November evening had been transformed into a scene of horror as terrorists shouting Allah Akbar fired into the evening crowds seated on the terraces of bars and cafés in a district popular with young Parisians, young trendy people. Apart from visitors familiar with Paris, it was a district little known to tourists, just a stone’s throw from the Bastille, where bars were trendy and affordable for young people out to enjoy themselves.
It had not lasted more than twenty seconds.
O’Connelly checked his phone. There had been a series of attacks and it was urgent to get his guests back home.
Fearing further danger he pointed in the direction of the Bastille. As they hurried past the site of the famous siege where the French Revolution had started, ambulances and police cars rushed to the scene, their lights reflecting off the Opera and surrounding buildings. In fifteen minutes O’Connelly and his shaken guests were back at his place on quai des Célestines, where everything seemed so normal.
Once inside he zapped the TV to news channels. Vivid scenes from the sites of what now appeared to be multiple attacks flashed onto the screen. Deeply shocked the three couples sat their with their eyes fixed on the screen until the early hours when special forces stormed the Bataclan. One hundred and thirty innocent people died.
*
Then came the questions. Why? Why France? To politicians and commentators it was a savage terrorist attack, to O’Connelly it seemed like an explosion of built up rage against the society in which the assailants lived and the apathy of their parents and the community they had grown up in. Three of the terrorists were born in France of North African parents. Had they suffered the stigma of rejection? In any case the trademark of the young terrorists, born in the UK of Pakistanis parents, was there, those who had perpetrated the deadly terrorist attack on the London Underground in 2005.
Were these young men religious fanatics, perhaps, but it was more probable they had been drawn to extremist preachers and their mosques as a reaction to their marginalisation by the societies in which they lived. If so the battle would be long.
“The fault lies with us to a certain degree,” suggested Francis
“Oh!”
“Yes. Our friends George Bush and Tony Blair bear a certain responsibility for destabilising an already volatile region.”
“Maybe, but the World Trade Center came before all that,” O’Connelly reminded them.
WEALTH MANAGEMENT
“Our business is wealth management. That’s why we’ve set up INI Private Bank in Dublin, especially designed for the needs of our wealthy client, you know preserving and growing their assets,” Kennedy explained to O’Connelly. “With fiscal optimisation we can preserve wealth and make sure it flows smoothly from generation to the next through offshore holdings; avoiding heavy death duties.”
“Are those companies in the Caribbean,” O’Connelly asked. “I mean the offshore companies.”
“Not necessarily. You don’t have to go to the Caribbean to set up a shell company. There’s plenty of places you can set up a shell company. Here in Hong Kong, or even in the US.”
“The US?”
It was a subject of interest to the writer, not only for his research, but also for his own finances.
“As a matter of fact you can set up a LLC, that’s a limited liability company in any state, without having to disclose who the beneficiary is. But, Delaware offers the most anonymous companies.”
O’Connelly had long used various foreign accounts and investment vehicles to protect his royalties from the taxman. His situation was complicated by his multiple residences, which gave his accountant a full time job diverting the flow from his different sources of revenue into safe long term investments.
Writers, as actors and other creators were never be sure of the loyalty of their fickle public.
“Remember, there’s nothing illegal about setting up a shell company, half of all traded American companies use Delaware as their legal home.”
Conveniently, men like Kennedy and O’Connelly used shell companies to buy property, anonymously if necessary, or own bank accounts and to shelter their different investments.
“The problem is,” said Pat with an innocent smile, “shell companies in far off places make it easy for people to hide assets, avoid taxes, or money from corruption. But why go to all that trouble when you can do all that in Ireland. There’s tons of ways you can minimise capital gains tax, corporation tax or income tax on the assets held in Irish funds.”
*
INI Private Bank and Castlemain Private Capital offered their precious services to very wealthy clients, hiding their assets behind an endless number of Chinese screens in the Dublin, the City, Hong Kong and the Caribbean.
Amongst their privileged clients were the families of China’s Communist party elite, the Red Nobility and their Princelings, who used offshore companies to dissimulate their holdings.
Every montage imaginable was used: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, in-laws, children, grandchildren, cousins and even more distant relatives, in the ancient Chinese tradition of very extended family relationships, were at the centre of a web of companies stretched across the world to the Caribbean.
Included was the brother-in-law of Xi Jinping - General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the People’s Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
The staggering wealth of China’s leaders was almost without comparison, perhaps only the Russian elite could boast of such fabulous wealth. In China, one could have said it was normal given the size of the country. It was a strange destiny for Mao’s successors and even stranger given Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption and behaviour that could embarrass the Chinese Communist party with its near ninety million members.
INI Private Bank was part of the system that hid the links between China’s elite and the Hong Kong business world, and Castlemain Private Capital hid the links between Hong Kong and the rest of the world. None of this was necessarily illegal, though most certainly unprincipled. Whatever, but it explained why Pat Kennedy’s faith in the rewards offered from the business his bank ran remained resolutely solid.
As China’s masses looked on, entrepreneurs like Wang Jianlin, the founder of Dalian Wanda, a real estate and entertainment group, saw his wealth more than double to reach thirty billion US dollars, which led Chinese, great and small, to ask themselves why they should not grab part of the action, be it a very small part.
Even Kennedy, who was comparatively speaking small fry when compared to Wang, had high hopes for his own ambitions, after all Wang had leapfrogged Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba, pushing him into second place.
In all the top one hundred China’s richest entrepreneurs were collectively worth not far off half a trillion dollars, or to put that in perspective half of the GDP of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Which made David Cameron’s much criticised inheritance look smaller than chicken pickings.
SUEZ
Across the ocean another canal was the focus of international attention. The Suez Canal expansion: ‘Egypt’s Gift to the World’ was being inaugurated in a grand display of patriotic pride. An expansion that had been financed, in part by public subscription, in which the Egyptian people, from the richest down to the humblest fellaheen, had been cajoled into buying state issued bonds, valued at the equivalent of two dollars and upwards.
2
015 Suez expansion inauguration ceremony
Standing amongst the guests in Ismailia was the smiling figure of Pat Kennedy. He, thanks to a client of INI Hong Kong, an important shipping company and regular user of the canal, had been offered an invitation as part of the SAR’s VIP delegation.
The eight plus billion dollar investment added a second shipping lane allowing two way traffic, reducing transit time and hopefully increasing traffic and more than doubling the revenues.
The most noteworthy aspect of the construction was the time taken for its completion: less than one year from start to finish. A civil engineering feat that required three-quarters of the world’s dredgers and more than forty thousand labourers seven days a week around the clock.
Critics saw it as an exercise to restore Egypt’s image after the disaster of the Arab Spring and a boost to its sagging revenues. Others, however, doubted the growth in traffic from East Asia and the transit of oil to the West, given the economic slowdown Europe and China.
Egypt’s President al-Sisi faced a pharaonic struggled to pull his country out the profound crisis that weighed on it since the failed revolution of Tahrir Square in 2011. Egypt’s real problem was its two plagues: overpopulation and archaic Islam. With a population of ninety million, and just forty thousand square kilometres of inhabitable land, it was comparable to Belgium, but with a population eight or nine times greater, Egypt was held back by its adherence to an unreformed religion which had brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power until al-Sissi’s takeover.
The country owed its survival to the generosity of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, which together provided twenty five billion dollars of financial aid each year, however, their continued assistance depended on the price of oil, a two edged sword, if it rose it hurt Egypt’s economy, if it fell it put the Gulf kingdoms’ capacity to continue their assistance in peril.
Behind the smiles and congratulations of a long list of guests, including including heads of state like François Hollande - who had recently sold twenty five advanced Rafale fighter bombers to cash strapped Egypt, simmered the fear of Islamist insurgents, chaos and rebellion.
All that was of little or no concern to Pat Kennedy, his interest lay entirely in the lesson of how the canal project had been pushed through and completed in such a tight time frame.
The same could not be said for the Nicaragua Canal project, which showed little sign of movement, a major problem for Wang, a disappointment for Kennedy.
But, Pat looked on the positive side, reminding himself of Gore Vidal’s words: It is not enough to succeed: others must fail. The demise of Michael Fitzwilliams had left him in an extraordinary position. He was the head of INI Hong Kong. He answered to no one. The Wu’s left him a free hand if only for one reason: Kennedy was lucky. The others had failed and he succeeded. Good fortune was a thing of great value in the Chinese vision of life.
OIL
As the price of oil continued to slide, so did the value of InterBank, INI’s partner in Russia. The seizure of Sergei Tarasov’s Russia empire could have been seen as a blessing in disguise for the former oligarch. With his offshore assets secure, Tarasov watched as his enemies caught up in the quagmire of OPEC’s internecine struggle for domination of the world’s oil markets.
The Kremlin was forced to batten down as Urals Crude sank to below forty dollars a barrel as expectations for a turn around receded.
The collapse of oil had devastating implications for Moscow and a whole host of high cost producers as an all out
price war was declared with Saudi Arabia challenging its rival, Iran, and OPEC members fought amongst themselves in a fierce battle for domination of world oil markets, a war that would drive weaker producers to the brink.
Tarasov watched from a safe distance as Russia was faced another epic battle for survival and not without a sense of schadenfreud, though it hurt him to see his motherland suffering in yet another crisis, which as often was to a large extent of its own making.
It was hard to believe that only eighteen months earlier life had looked so promising. It seemed as if Russia’s leaders led a conspiracy to inflict endless suffering on the nation’s all suffering people, a truism confirmed by Vladimir Putin’s bellicose defence of Moscow’s client, Bashar Assad, firing costly cruise missiles from its warships in the Caspian in a chilling demonstration of military power. A tragedy considering Russia’s reduced straits. It was as if Britain or Spain was attempting to recover their imperial glory in a display of military fire power.
The danger of Moscow depleting its foreign exchange reserves was real, forcing it to monetize its debts, thus bringing more misery to its people, who just as their hopes had risen were faced with a new trial to test their endurance.
Since the very start of Putin’s high risk gambit, Tarasov had, wherever he could, pulled out of commodity investments, focusing attention on assets and property in New York, London or Paris, dissimulating ownership behind secure offshore structures. His objective was conservation and security, putting his personal wealth beyond the reach of the Kremlin and all those who could take advantage of him as doors that were once wide open slowly closed.
All good things came to an end and so it was with the commodity supercycle. Miners and refiners were fighting a desperate battle for survival, slashing debt, shutting mines in distant lands: Zaire, the Congo, Chile, South Africa and Australia, laying off thousands of luckless workers and selling off assets at knockdown prices in the realisation there would be no quick end to the glut.