The Plan by John Francis Kinsella
After a perfect weekend with Sophie, Tom Barton found himself alone in Paris; just two hours from London by Eurostar. The idea of heading for the Gare du Nord tempted him, but once again he hesitated, remembering the many explanations he may or may not have owed to certain people.
Although he had fallen into the habit of jumping on a plane at the slightest pretext, bound for some far-flung destination, he still baulked at the idea of returning to London. His year-long odyssey had led him to places he would have had neither the occasion nor the inclination to visit ― even for a vacation: Dubai, India, Thailand, and barely known Caribbean islands. A curious turn of fate considering his past stay-at-home lifestyle.
During the boom years he had frequently travelled to Spain; flying potential buyers to Marbella on weekends to visit villas and apartments built Grupo Martínez, for whom Barton’s brokerage arranged mortgages. Things had changed since those happy go lucky days. Through his own making he had become a frequent business traveller, falling into the trap of thinking he was only doing something useful when he boarded a plane to somewhere…anywhere. A perverse but real sentiment, a feeling that many politicians and business travellers developed, a justification for their addiction.
The trouble was travelling cost money, a lot of money, especially after he had become used to first class travel and five star hotels. He had made some fairly serious money speculating on oil, but the gains derived from his venture into commodities and Forex markets were less exciting. Given the bleak business climate the thought of dilapidating his capital persistently nagged him. Past experience, together with the eye opening discoveries of his odyssey, had reminded him fortune could suddenly deal him a bad card. Slowly Barton was becoming aware he had much to lose.
It was time to put his considerable knowledge and experience to gainful use. Fitzwilliams was a good starting point; the banker had even intimated he could use Tom’s experience. What Barton needed was to transform the nascent idea of an investment service into something concrete.
In other circumstances his experience as a City mortgage broker alone would have limited his options. But the world had suddenly changed. With foresight, he had made the decision to get out at the right moment; by cashing in on his investments in late 2007, banking the capital necessary to restart his life. However, the idea of setting himself up as an independent investment advisor was still indistinct. Now, from his newly established base in the Caribbean, he could, without the need of a nameplate, or a conventional workplace, transform his idea into reality.
The previous day, Sophie had chided him, gently mocking his fears of returning to the UK as unfounded. Now almost twenty four hours later, after idling the morning away in his Paris hotel room, he was forced to admit it was time to confront his past. Picking up his phone he scrolled down the numbers, stopped at Steve Howard’s name and pressed ‘call’.
‘Hi Steve, it’s Tom Barton.’
‘Tom, I was just thinking about you. Where are you?’
‘In Paris.’
‘Great. Travelling on that Dominican passport,’ Howard said making a friendly jibe.
‘How’d you guess, said Barton uncomfortably. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in London.’
‘Great, let’s get together. Can you come over to Paris?’ he asked half-heartedly.
‘Still nervous about coming to London?’
‘No…,’ he replied, without conviction.
‘Where’s Sophie?’
‘'Gone to Strasbourg...business.’
‘Then do it! Now!’
‘Now?’
‘Take the Eurostar, I’ll meet you at St Pancras, then we’ll stay in town.’
‘Sounds good,’ he replied more positively. ‘How are things over there?’
‘A bit slow, you know Spain and all that.’
‘I met a couple of Chinese investors in Bangkok who were interested in European property. What do you think?’
‘They’re the only ones who have any money to spend today. We can talk about it.’
‘Great.’
‘Call me back when you know the time of your train.’
Early that afternoon, as Barton slipped his travel documents into his pocket, he started to worry about his Dominican passport; would it raise eyebrows at immigration in the UK? Then, on second thoughts, he figured there was no reason why it should. There were plenty of expat Brits living in Dominica who regularly used their local passports when travelling home. In any case, he thought consoling himself, nobody was looking for him ― with the possible exception of the Irish.
At Gare du Nord he produced his Dominican passport, stamped with a multiple entry Schengen visa, to the French police controller. He then presented his British passport to Her Majesty’s official who with barely a glance waved him through with a cheerful ‘Good morning Sir.’
Relieved Barton made his way down to the waiting Eurostar. Soon, as the flat landscape of northern France flashed past, his mind slowly drifted back to his still embryonic business plans. A persistent doubt lingered. Just as things were beginning to look better new clouds had appeared on the horizon in the form of a sovereign debt crisis. Barton wondered whether it was simply another passing storm, or was there something more menacing behind it? It was impossible to say, few now dared make predictions. Those who had recently announced the imminent collapse of the euro had been forced to eat their hats.
In spite of the huge sums of taxpayers’ money that had been thrown at the crisis, things had not improved and huge debts were being accumulated by governments. The US alone needed to raise a couple of trillion dollars, and then there were Europe’s needs, not forgetting the rest of the world, some feared there would be insufficient money to go around.
As the Fed allowed the dollar to slide, in a not too subtle form of devaluation, China was caught between two stools. On the one hand the value of its dollar reserves fell in real terms, and on the other, its artificially undervalued dollar pegged currency, the RMB, made Chinese exports even more competitive in other markets.
This dismal outlook left little hope the world would return any time soon to the prosperity of recent years. Barton comforted himself with the idea that even in the worse crisis there was always a niche for the wise investor. The question was where. Asia seemed an obvious choice, the future seemed to be there, but he was forced to admit, apart from his very recent experience in South East Asia, he knew very little of that vast region. As to Japan it was a no-go, mired in the same kind of debt problem as the West, but for already more than twenty years.
China seemed a good option. The Chinese were becoming more adventurous, arriving in places like Dominica bearing gifts, perhaps there was business to be done there.
That morning, the main headline news speculated over the possible bankruptcy of General Motors and the fate of GM Europe, owner of Opel in Germany and Vauxhall in the UK. What surprised Barton most, a company he had never heard of, the Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation, was listed amongst the potential bidders at the carve-up of the troubled firm.
As far back as he could remember Vauxhall had always been a household name in British cars. In the same way Opel was in Germany. Looking back it would have seemed totally inconceivable that such iconic names could be bought-out by the heirs of Mao’s China. It was like being told Rolls Royce had been bought by Martians he thought, before remembering the legendary firm was now owned by BMW.
Barton was aware China, as the holder of vast quantities of US dollars and treasury bonds, was increasingly concerned about the risk of having all its eggs in the one basket. If the US was seized by an inflationary spiral their investment would be become worthless. Their best hedge would always be fixed assets, bricks and mortar, and that was a business Barton knew. What better an asset for a Chinese investor than a piece of prime property in Belgravia or Mayfair? He remembered Tom Kavanagh having sold a run down, but well located property in Bloomsbury to a Singapore businessman in the mid-nineties, at what had then seemed like a
vastly exaggerated price. In retrospective, it was an excellent investment despite the prevailing depressed market. There was a lot of prime property in London for foreign investors and if the Russians had retreated then why not look for Chinese investors.
A little over an hour later the familiar pleasant Kent countryside, showing all the signs of spring, zipped by, and soon London’s sprawling 19th century brick suburbs appeared. Nothing had physically changed during his absence. There was a certain permanence. People changed, economics changed, politicians changed, but physical attributes changed so much more slowly.
In all, the journey to London had given him just enough time to take a snack and glance through the English newspapers. Once arrived, he had little time to admire the recently opened St Pancras Eurostar terminal. He joined the line of disembarking passengers, uneasily filing past the keen eyed customs and stern faced police officials. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief as he exited through the sliding glass doors out onto the main concourse. There he spotted Steve, a newspaper tucked under his arm, smiling and as usual boasting a healthy tan.
‘How’re you doing Tom? Nice to see you again,’ he said pointing the way to the exit where they joined the line for a taxi. ‘We’re booked into the Churchill, it’s on Portman Square, it’s where I normally stay when I’m in London.’
‘Still living out of a suitcase?’ remarked Barton.
‘Yep, home is up North. Rarely get up there these days, not since my parents passed away. It’s not worth having a fixed place here, too much trouble, too expensive for what I need—not that money matters, though I don’t believe in throwing it away,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘At Churchill’s I’ve got everything at my fingertips.’
After checking-in and dropping off Barton’s affairs they stopped for a coffee in the hotel’s comfortable lounge and exchanged news. Howard’s business in South East Asia had slowed, but it was more buoyant than that in the UK or continental Europe. He had little to complain about, which seemed to confirm Barton impressions, if Asian investors were still making money, then they would be interested in prime property in London. It would be a safe haven for them and prices were beginning to look attractive.
There was a mountain of loose cash swilling about in China, where wealthy Chinese families and businessmen were looking for secure offshore investments. The Chinese had become wary of stocks and bonds and even more mistrustful of their government’s strategy, especially if their economy was to stall. There was however a stumbling block for would be buyers; apart from Singaporean and Hong Kong investors, the Chinese knew little of property in London, or in any other Europe capital for that matter. Their only options were to work with top end of the market property agencies, such as Guthrie Plimpton, which was daunting for a Chinese investor given the culture gap, or to use their own close circle of trusted overseas relations and business acquaintances.
‘I can certainly help you with a few introductions. Chinese investors are definitely are looking for solid offshore investments. They’re very clannish and almost always use personal relationships to do business, they call it guanxi.’
‘Guan…’
‘It’s like a social network, but it goes much deeper, business and political links…same village, same town, same province and especially their extended family links, something we don’t have.’
‘Oh.’
‘A family in China can include hundreds, even thousands of relatives, from the same place with the same family name.’
‘Interesting.’
‘I have a couple of Chinese business friends from Shanghai who have invested in property in Bangkok. Things are a bit shaky in Thailand with the political situation. So it could be a good moment to suggest they diversifying their investments. UK property could be a good option, you know a shelter, especially prime properties ― residential and business.’
‘I’d like to meet them.’
‘No problem. We’ll try to set that up. It needs patience, although we’d have to move fairly quickly before the market recovers.’
‘That’s no problem.’
‘I’m returning to Bangkok in a week’s time, why don’t you join me?’
‘Are things alright there now?’
‘Not really. It’s a tangle of political in-fighting. It’s almost impossible for the government to function correctly with all these demonstrations going on.’
‘What about the King.’
‘Well King Bhumibol has enormous influence behind the scenes. Be careful what you say about him by the way, you could end up in one of those Thai jails, lèse-majesté and all that,’ Steve said with a laugh.
‘…and the future?’
‘At the moment it’s not looking so good, business and confidence has been badly affected, and the long-term outlook is not much better. That’s why some of the Chinese are getting cold feet, which could help you.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘You should try to put together a portfolio of the kind of property that’s on the market to interest them.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Barton said making a note to speak to Sarah Kavanagh.
‘Don’t get excited too soon Tom. We’re going through the biggest economic crisis in more than half a century and it won’t just go away just because a few journalists or politicians are talking about green shoots.’
‘You’ve got a good point.’
‘People are naive to think that this crisis can be solved just by printing money? It’s not so easy, on the other hand it doesn’t mean the end of the world is here, there’s still a lot of loose cash around, the world is a bigger place than it was in the 1930s.’
‘I suppose you’re right there.’
‘One other thing, I’ve got some banker friends looking at setting up a new property fund. I think you should meet them whilst you’re here.’
‘Property fund?’
‘Yeah, you know an investment fund.’
‘A hedge fund?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I thought they had all collapsed,’ Barton joked.
‘No, there’s plenty of them making good money.’
‘Who are they?’
‘The Nederlandsche Nassau Fund.’
‘Of course, they’re part of the Irish Netherlands Bank?’
‘That’s it.’
‘That’s Michael Fitzwilliams outfit.
‘Yes, I was planning on meeting him.’
‘Great.’
‘There’s a lot of opportunities. Forget the crisis, remember, you and I, a hedge fund, anybody with some cash, can buy and sell anything…currency, shares, gold, property ― you name it, it’s all out there for the taking. And what’s better you can even invent your own product, financial or material, if you think you can sell it.’
‘A little cynical.’
‘Not as cynical as politicians like Brown and Blair!’
Chapter 22 THE EMERALD POOL
Although he had fallen into the habit of jumping on a plane at the slightest pretext, bound for some far-flung destination, he still baulked at the idea of returning to London. His year-long odyssey had led him to places he would have had neither the occasion nor the inclination to visit ― even for a vacation: Dubai, India, Thailand, and barely known Caribbean islands. A curious turn of fate considering his past stay-at-home lifestyle.
During the boom years he had frequently travelled to Spain; flying potential buyers to Marbella on weekends to visit villas and apartments built Grupo Martínez, for whom Barton’s brokerage arranged mortgages. Things had changed since those happy go lucky days. Through his own making he had become a frequent business traveller, falling into the trap of thinking he was only doing something useful when he boarded a plane to somewhere…anywhere. A perverse but real sentiment, a feeling that many politicians and business travellers developed, a justification for their addiction.
The trouble was travelling cost money, a lot of money, especially after he had become used to first class travel and five star hotels. He had made some fairly serious money speculating on oil, but the gains derived from his venture into commodities and Forex markets were less exciting. Given the bleak business climate the thought of dilapidating his capital persistently nagged him. Past experience, together with the eye opening discoveries of his odyssey, had reminded him fortune could suddenly deal him a bad card. Slowly Barton was becoming aware he had much to lose.
It was time to put his considerable knowledge and experience to gainful use. Fitzwilliams was a good starting point; the banker had even intimated he could use Tom’s experience. What Barton needed was to transform the nascent idea of an investment service into something concrete.
In other circumstances his experience as a City mortgage broker alone would have limited his options. But the world had suddenly changed. With foresight, he had made the decision to get out at the right moment; by cashing in on his investments in late 2007, banking the capital necessary to restart his life. However, the idea of setting himself up as an independent investment advisor was still indistinct. Now, from his newly established base in the Caribbean, he could, without the need of a nameplate, or a conventional workplace, transform his idea into reality.
The previous day, Sophie had chided him, gently mocking his fears of returning to the UK as unfounded. Now almost twenty four hours later, after idling the morning away in his Paris hotel room, he was forced to admit it was time to confront his past. Picking up his phone he scrolled down the numbers, stopped at Steve Howard’s name and pressed ‘call’.
‘Hi Steve, it’s Tom Barton.’
‘Tom, I was just thinking about you. Where are you?’
‘In Paris.’
‘Great. Travelling on that Dominican passport,’ Howard said making a friendly jibe.
‘How’d you guess, said Barton uncomfortably. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in London.’
‘Great, let’s get together. Can you come over to Paris?’ he asked half-heartedly.
‘Still nervous about coming to London?’
‘No…,’ he replied, without conviction.
‘Where’s Sophie?’
‘'Gone to Strasbourg...business.’
‘Then do it! Now!’
‘Now?’
‘Take the Eurostar, I’ll meet you at St Pancras, then we’ll stay in town.’
‘Sounds good,’ he replied more positively. ‘How are things over there?’
‘A bit slow, you know Spain and all that.’
‘I met a couple of Chinese investors in Bangkok who were interested in European property. What do you think?’
‘They’re the only ones who have any money to spend today. We can talk about it.’
‘Great.’
‘Call me back when you know the time of your train.’
Early that afternoon, as Barton slipped his travel documents into his pocket, he started to worry about his Dominican passport; would it raise eyebrows at immigration in the UK? Then, on second thoughts, he figured there was no reason why it should. There were plenty of expat Brits living in Dominica who regularly used their local passports when travelling home. In any case, he thought consoling himself, nobody was looking for him ― with the possible exception of the Irish.
At Gare du Nord he produced his Dominican passport, stamped with a multiple entry Schengen visa, to the French police controller. He then presented his British passport to Her Majesty’s official who with barely a glance waved him through with a cheerful ‘Good morning Sir.’
Relieved Barton made his way down to the waiting Eurostar. Soon, as the flat landscape of northern France flashed past, his mind slowly drifted back to his still embryonic business plans. A persistent doubt lingered. Just as things were beginning to look better new clouds had appeared on the horizon in the form of a sovereign debt crisis. Barton wondered whether it was simply another passing storm, or was there something more menacing behind it? It was impossible to say, few now dared make predictions. Those who had recently announced the imminent collapse of the euro had been forced to eat their hats.
In spite of the huge sums of taxpayers’ money that had been thrown at the crisis, things had not improved and huge debts were being accumulated by governments. The US alone needed to raise a couple of trillion dollars, and then there were Europe’s needs, not forgetting the rest of the world, some feared there would be insufficient money to go around.
As the Fed allowed the dollar to slide, in a not too subtle form of devaluation, China was caught between two stools. On the one hand the value of its dollar reserves fell in real terms, and on the other, its artificially undervalued dollar pegged currency, the RMB, made Chinese exports even more competitive in other markets.
This dismal outlook left little hope the world would return any time soon to the prosperity of recent years. Barton comforted himself with the idea that even in the worse crisis there was always a niche for the wise investor. The question was where. Asia seemed an obvious choice, the future seemed to be there, but he was forced to admit, apart from his very recent experience in South East Asia, he knew very little of that vast region. As to Japan it was a no-go, mired in the same kind of debt problem as the West, but for already more than twenty years.
China seemed a good option. The Chinese were becoming more adventurous, arriving in places like Dominica bearing gifts, perhaps there was business to be done there.
That morning, the main headline news speculated over the possible bankruptcy of General Motors and the fate of GM Europe, owner of Opel in Germany and Vauxhall in the UK. What surprised Barton most, a company he had never heard of, the Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation, was listed amongst the potential bidders at the carve-up of the troubled firm.
As far back as he could remember Vauxhall had always been a household name in British cars. In the same way Opel was in Germany. Looking back it would have seemed totally inconceivable that such iconic names could be bought-out by the heirs of Mao’s China. It was like being told Rolls Royce had been bought by Martians he thought, before remembering the legendary firm was now owned by BMW.
Barton was aware China, as the holder of vast quantities of US dollars and treasury bonds, was increasingly concerned about the risk of having all its eggs in the one basket. If the US was seized by an inflationary spiral their investment would be become worthless. Their best hedge would always be fixed assets, bricks and mortar, and that was a business Barton knew. What better an asset for a Chinese investor than a piece of prime property in Belgravia or Mayfair? He remembered Tom Kavanagh having sold a run down, but well located property in Bloomsbury to a Singapore businessman in the mid-nineties, at what had then seemed like a
A little over an hour later the familiar pleasant Kent countryside, showing all the signs of spring, zipped by, and soon London’s sprawling 19th century brick suburbs appeared. Nothing had physically changed during his absence. There was a certain permanence. People changed, economics changed, politicians changed, but physical attributes changed so much more slowly.
In all, the journey to London had given him just enough time to take a snack and glance through the English newspapers. Once arrived, he had little time to admire the recently opened St Pancras Eurostar terminal. He joined the line of disembarking passengers, uneasily filing past the keen eyed customs and stern faced police officials. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief as he exited through the sliding glass doors out onto the main concourse. There he spotted Steve, a newspaper tucked under his arm, smiling and as usual boasting a healthy tan.
‘How’re you doing Tom? Nice to see you again,’ he said pointing the way to the exit where they joined the line for a taxi. ‘We’re booked into the Churchill, it’s on Portman Square, it’s where I normally stay when I’m in London.’
‘Still living out of a suitcase?’ remarked Barton.
‘Yep, home is up North. Rarely get up there these days, not since my parents passed away. It’s not worth having a fixed place here, too much trouble, too expensive for what I need—not that money matters, though I don’t believe in throwing it away,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘At Churchill’s I’ve got everything at my fingertips.’
After checking-in and dropping off Barton’s affairs they stopped for a coffee in the hotel’s comfortable lounge and exchanged news. Howard’s business in South East Asia had slowed, but it was more buoyant than that in the UK or continental Europe. He had little to complain about, which seemed to confirm Barton impressions, if Asian investors were still making money, then they would be interested in prime property in London. It would be a safe haven for them and prices were beginning to look attractive.
There was a mountain of loose cash swilling about in China, where wealthy Chinese families and businessmen were looking for secure offshore investments. The Chinese had become wary of stocks and bonds and even more mistrustful of their government’s strategy, especially if their economy was to stall. There was however a stumbling block for would be buyers; apart from Singaporean and Hong Kong investors, the Chinese knew little of property in London, or in any other Europe capital for that matter. Their only options were to work with top end of the market property agencies, such as Guthrie Plimpton, which was daunting for a Chinese investor given the culture gap, or to use their own close circle of trusted overseas relations and business acquaintances.
‘I can certainly help you with a few introductions. Chinese investors are definitely are looking for solid offshore investments. They’re very clannish and almost always use personal relationships to do business, they call it guanxi.’
‘Guan…’
‘It’s like a social network, but it goes much deeper, business and political links…same village, same town, same province and especially their extended family links, something we don’t have.’
‘Oh.’
‘A family in China can include hundreds, even thousands of relatives, from the same place with the same family name.’
‘Interesting.’
‘I have a couple of Chinese business friends from Shanghai who have invested in property in Bangkok. Things are a bit shaky in Thailand with the political situation. So it could be a good moment to suggest they diversifying their investments. UK property could be a good option, you know a shelter, especially prime properties ― residential and business.’
‘I’d like to meet them.’
‘No problem. We’ll try to set that up. It needs patience, although we’d have to move fairly quickly before the market recovers.’
‘That’s no problem.’
‘I’m returning to Bangkok in a week’s time, why don’t you join me?’
‘Are things alright there now?’
‘Not really. It’s a tangle of political in-fighting. It’s almost impossible for the government to function correctly with all these demonstrations going on.’
‘What about the King.’
‘Well King Bhumibol has enormous influence behind the scenes. Be careful what you say about him by the way, you could end up in one of those Thai jails, lèse-majesté and all that,’ Steve said with a laugh.
‘…and the future?’
‘At the moment it’s not looking so good, business and confidence has been badly affected, and the long-term outlook is not much better. That’s why some of the Chinese are getting cold feet, which could help you.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘You should try to put together a portfolio of the kind of property that’s on the market to interest them.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Barton said making a note to speak to Sarah Kavanagh.
‘Don’t get excited too soon Tom. We’re going through the biggest economic crisis in more than half a century and it won’t just go away just because a few journalists or politicians are talking about green shoots.’
‘You’ve got a good point.’
‘People are naive to think that this crisis can be solved just by printing money? It’s not so easy, on the other hand it doesn’t mean the end of the world is here, there’s still a lot of loose cash around, the world is a bigger place than it was in the 1930s.’
‘I suppose you’re right there.’
‘One other thing, I’ve got some banker friends looking at setting up a new property fund. I think you should meet them whilst you’re here.’
‘Property fund?’
‘Yeah, you know an investment fund.’
‘A hedge fund?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I thought they had all collapsed,’ Barton joked.
‘No, there’s plenty of them making good money.’
‘Who are they?’
‘The Nederlandsche Nassau Fund.’
‘Of course, they’re part of the Irish Netherlands Bank?’
‘That’s it.’
‘That’s Michael Fitzwilliams outfit.
‘Yes, I was planning on meeting him.’
‘Great.’
‘There’s a lot of opportunities. Forget the crisis, remember, you and I, a hedge fund, anybody with some cash, can buy and sell anything…currency, shares, gold, property ― you name it, it’s all out there for the taking. And what’s better you can even invent your own product, financial or material, if you think you can sell it.’
‘A little cynical.’
‘Not as cynical as politicians like Brown and Blair!’
Chapter 22 THE EMERALD POOL