Quote of the Week

"The axe is falling heavily on the staff of Dubai real estate companies as a
six-year property bubble finally bursts.Big real estate companies are
slashing up to 15 per cent of their workforces. Nakheel, the
government-owned offshore developer, this week said it was paring back
high-profile projects such as the Trump Tower on Palm Jumeirah, one of the three luxury Palm Island developments, while also making 500 staff
redundant."

FT.com

"Small business - have the banks got you by the balls?"

Antony Worrall Thompson closed four restaurants and his AWT restaurant business went into administration last week.
click here for more...

Looking for inspiration? Found at 2009’s HIT Emerging Talent Conference

Apart from handing out a record 204 scholarships to industry talent, the HIT Emerging Talent Conference this week included three keynote speeches which proved to offer both inspirational and timely messages:
click here for more...

Fact of the week

The FT blog quoted the comments made by Democratic Representative Kanjorski on events in the US on 18th September 2008. The brief facts are summarised below:

1. The Federal Reserve noticed $550 billion was being drawn out from
   money market accounts in the matter of an hour or two.
2. The Treasury pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly
   realized that they could not stem the tide.
3. They decided to close the operation and announced a guarantee.
4. If they had not done that that, their estimation is that by 2pm that
   afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/02/10/52272/within-24-hours-the-world-e
conomy-would-have-collapsed/

17% of Sunday Times Buyout 100 list are from travel, hospitality and leisure businesses:

The Buyout 100 list are private equity backed companies with the fastest
growing profits. The 2009 list was published last week and some of the 17% of industry representation included:

• Qhotels - number 17
• Gaucho - number 20
• EAT - number 37
• Yo! Sushi - number 61
• Tragus - number 64
• Wagamama - number 78
• ETC Venues - number 88

Would you like to read about this report? Click here for the supplement:
http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/fasttrack2002/bin/2009-BuyoutTrack100.pdf

En Passant Readership Survey - the winner!

Congratulations to Craig Fehler of The Welcombe Hotel and Golf Course who won a bottle of Verve Clicqout champagne in our prize draw.

Thank you to all those who responded to our survey, your feedback and comments were gratefully received. Kind regards, the EP team.