Ian Hamilton

This column is authored by Ian Hamilton, who is the founder of IDS Group. IDS provides fund administration services in Africa and Europe through Malta. He is also the founder of Scotstone Investments, a company that has fund structures and services for global emerging new managers.

Barclays Capital a few years ago published an article on the correlation between the building of tall buildings in various parts of the world and the economic collapse of the economy in that country.

Interesting correlation: Empire States Building heralding the depression, The Sears Roebuck building in Chicago which heralded the 1970s American recession , the PETRONAS building in Kuala Lumpa which was followed by the Asian little Tigers collapse in the late 1990s, and the more recent building of Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the tallest building in the world.

I ran this theory some time ago when Dubai was building Burj Khalifa, which means "Tower Khalifa". It was to have been called "Burj Dubai" but as a token of appreciation to Sheik Khalifa of neighbour Abu Dhabi who came to the economic rescue of Dubai, it was renamed before completion.

But my conclusion at the time was a little less economic. My theory is if you start peering into heaven, the heavenly powers get angry and punish the upstart place, just as in the Old Testament, there was a reaction to the Tower of Babel.

The Barclays theory is on the right track, but incomplete by concentrating on the building of tower blocks. I have a far better indicator and that is the "Crane Theory".

Now this has nothing to do with birds, but refers to building cranes. Readers may recall that Dubai bragged about housing the largest numbe......................

To view our full article please login

This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.