Brian Bollen's Blog

Asia Pacific the next wealth hotspot

The value of liquid assets held by the global population will exceed $100tn by the end of 2017, with frontier and emerging economies leading the way in terms of future growth according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

He'll rip your lungs out Jim

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge – Halloween

He’s the hairy handed gent who ran amuck in Kent. Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair. Better stay away from him, he’ll rip your lungs out Jim. I’d like to meet his tailor. 

Catalunya and Spain...and the rest

Ye Gods. I spent interminable hour after interminable hour listening to Professor Nick Round bang on about the history of what we have come to know today as Spain, but was traditionally an amalgam of different states all with their precious 'fueros' (IIRC), these being independent rights which were forever being denied and then restored.

My first instinct tells me that we are heading for a new Spanish civil war, and we all know what that proved to be just a warm-up for.

My second tells me that if Catalunya goes then it is only a matter of time before the Spanish federation with Castilla in charge falls apart. Who's next after Catalunya? Andalucia? Galicia? The Basque country?

 

Gunpowder and Gotham

Finished watching the BBC's Gunpowder mini-series last night, with Kit (Jon Snow) Harington, made available Netflix-style on BBC iPlayer. What a difference it makes to see a series in this way rather than having to wait a week for the next episode.

It was vastly better than I had expected. Some top-notch acting and directing. And it felt very modern watching this tale of religious zealots trying to blast their way to revenge and power. The moral of the story, though, is anyone who takes up arms against a powerful state is buying a one-way ticket to hell on earth.

One quibble. Or rather two. I'm afraid that too much dialogue went unheard because of the modern fashion for mumbling in the interests of imagined authenticity. And some of the sword play was a bit amdram. But well worth the time spent.

Also finished watching the third series of Gotham the other night, making it 66 episodes in a matter of a few weeks. It is absolutely mental, but great great fun. This is easily the best version of the Batman universe I've ever known, largely, I think, because Batman isn't actually in it until a very brief scene at the very end.

I have never seen Gotham portrayed so well as a nest of corruption and criminality, and Arkham Asylum is magnificently Gothic in its outright madness. If you haven't tried it, give it a go.

Try take over the world

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the World!

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary, it is not investment advice…

Oh dear. It’s a foggy day in London town and it’s yet another “most important day ever for the European Central Bank” as Yoorp’s very own properly grown-up central bank reveals ongoing plans for balance-sheet market domination/taper. I can hardly contain my rapt anticipation of the moment. I’m not even going to bother with a “US readers: Sarcasm Alert” because it’s just so blindingly obvious that even Americans will understand my cynicism…

Real-Tme Risk

This is a fascinating book, by Irene Aldridge, president and head of research at AbleMarkets, a big data for capital markets company, and Steve Krawciw, CEO and head of business development at AbleMarkets.

It is accessibly written, making a potentially technically daunting read something to dip in and out of easily and quickly. And the main body of text is only 200 pages, making it a minnow in relation to some books that have recently come to the market.

Most important Porridge ever written

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary, it is not investment advice…

Despite the rather flippant first few paragraphs – this might actually be the most important Porridge I’ve written in a while. So Pay Attention!

BBC 24-Hour 'News'

The BBC 24-hour 'news' channel has just run a filmed report from July 2016 to cover the Brighthouse story...it's not often I am lost for words...

Take all the courage you have left

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary, it is not investment advice…

I’ve just spent the last week in the US, and it’s been a fascinating experience talking with clients and colleagues in the Big Apple. The key takeaway is I’m going to have to spend less time in the office and more time on the road listening (note – key word: LISTENING) to clients. There is a danger sitting comfortably here in my Canary Wharf eyrie means I’m missing much of the good and bad market evolution that’s going on.

Koeman gone

I see Koeman's gone from Everton. Klopp next from Liverpool?

World's Most Influential People

The Exchange Invest 1000 The World's Most Influential People In Market Structure is the title of a recent publication from Exchange Invest, a daily newsletter 'devoted to analysing and understanding exchanges and market structures throughout the world'.

Everything you always wanted to know about cross-border M&A

Title: Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

Author: Scott C Whitaker (editor of multiple contributions)

Publisher: Wiley

Pages: 440 including index

Price: US$75.00

This book might as well have been titled 'Everything you always wanted to know about cross-border M&A'. From conception to initiation to execution to integration the entire lifecycle of buying and selling in other countries features. If I were asked to identify one single primer for a newcomer to the industry eager to build up knowledge and awareness I'm pretty certain this would be it.

The 10 contributors from the nine countries where the bulk of global M&A activity takes place do a job that is as thorough as thorough can be. This is as comprehensive and lucid a book on M&A as anything I have personally read in the 30-years-plus since I first wrote about an M&A deal.

An ideal sister volume on the subject is Make the Deal: Negotiating Mergers & Acquisitions by Christopher S Harrison, chief investment officer of Falconwood Corporation, also from Wiley in tandem with Bloomberg Press. I particularly liked the 'War Story' segments. A picture always paints a thousand words, and case studies form much the same function in any educational material. 'Tis a pity they are anonymous but that is very much the nature of the beast, I'm afraid.

I also liked the 'Sample Provision' feature. Even if I'm not sure I understand many of them it is clear that the author is doing the reader a valuable service by examining, deconstructing and explaining key words and phrases that can be buried in M&A documention.

Becoming China: an essential read

Title: Becoming China The Story Behind The State

Author: Jeanne-Marie Gescher

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 731 including index

Price: £40

Harry Potter and the Middle Kingdom this most certainly is not. Since the very start of my own professional life in September 1979 when I reported for duty as an ambitious young graduate recruit at Midland Bank International's branch in Kingston-upon-Hull, I have been reading about the commercial prospects that China represents when it opens up and modernises.

Having studied the rise of Mao as part of the fascinating Modern Studies O-level in 1971-72, I never bought into the underlying reasoning.

Briefly flicking through the pages of this tome  - on the afternoon of a day in which The Times 2 supplement devoted two pages to the creation of a Chinese prep school in Kensington - I felt a chill running down my spine as the combination of myth, religion, communist belief and out-and-out anti-Westernism led my eyes down the page.

Any non-Chinese thinking about doing any kind of business with China really must read this book first.

Two sample sentences from page 688, yanked completely out of context: Prohibitions on textbooks preaching Western values were repeated, and university campuses were asked [for which read commanded] to introduce more, and more interesting, classes on ideology and politics, deepen their theoretical research on Marx, and generally clean up their pollution. For younger learners, textbooks would introduced to ensure a 'perfect personality education' [for which read brainwashing] - they would sit alongside other textbooks focusing on national security education in general and, in particular, on how to report spies.

How do you say 'We surrender totally' in Mandarin???

 

My Mum immortalised

By Google Maps: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html/svr/3104;jsessionid=2022F1C34EB237F8371226A54206219A?prop=5024933&sale=18963374&country=scotland

She'll be forever pottering around the front garden of 1 Baird Avenue thanks to Google Maps...

October 1987 Black Monday memory lane article

I am writing a piece about the October 1987 financial crash and am keen to talk to anyone who was working in the markets as a trader or analyst or any other function.

Do you know anyone who might be interested in taking a stroll down memory lane? My deadline is Wednesday this week to be ready for the anniversary on October 19.

If you'd like to help, email me: [email protected].

When Black Friday comes

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge – October 12th 2017

When Black Friday comes, I’ll stand by the door and catch the grey men when they dive from the fourteenth floor

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary, it is not investment advice…

I’m sorry, but this morning’s Porridge isn’t fresh. It was slammed together yesterday afternoon. As you receive this I’ll be doing some showy-off stuff in the City. No freshly scribbled early morning Porridge today – just this “warmed up in the micro-wave” pap. (Incidentally, one of my favourite words is Poppity-Ping – Welsh for microwave. Don’t say you don’t learn something every day…)

2-2 in Slovenia is not a bad result

Let's put it in perspective. Amidst the calls for Gordon Strachan to be replaced as Scotland manager, it must be noted that a 2-2 draw in Slovenia is NOT a bad result. It is just that we needed a better one.

That away draw, scoring two goals against a side that has a reputation for keeping clean sheets, is not what cost Scotland the chance of qualifying for next year's World Cup finals. If anything, it was the 2-2 draw at home to England that cost us dearly. To drop two important points, at home, to the last kick of the game, that was what made the difference.

Had the players kept out England for a few seconds more (and remember this is the worst and least experienced England professional football team in history) we would this morning be sitting on at least 20 points. And if the pressure hadn't been so great last night, we might have been more relaxed and finished the qualifying with 22.

But I repeat, a 2-2 draw in Slovenia is NOT a bad result. And statistically, according to today's Daily Record, Strachan boasts a better record in the job than the late great John (Jock) Stein...

Even if we DO beat Slovenia

Further to my earlier thoughts about the likelihood that Scotland will not qualify for the World Cup finals next year, an awful realisation struck me when reading the complicated rules about qualifying group second-place finishers.

Only eight of them get a play-off place and if results do not go Scotland's way, even if we somehow contrive to beat Slovenia in Slovenia, we could still easily miss out...

The worst England football team ever

I've said it before but it needs repeating. This is the worst England football side I have ever seen. And it grows worse with every outing, it seems.

There are far too many caps being awarded to immature players who show potential but, probably because they think they are the finished article, do not 'train on'. Experience is needed, particularly in the non-existent midfield.

And how on earth are Scotland suddenly second in the group? That came out of nowhere. I confidently predict, however, based on long experience of disappointment, that having hauled themselves into contention and 'only' needing to beat Slovenia away in the final qualifying match, they will botch it.

If I were a betting man, I'd go and place a bet on them to lose, furthermore, to lose to a penalty in the very last minute, to insulate myself against the inevitable woe.

 

Money always owing

Mint - Blain’s Morning Porridge

Always the hurricane’s blowing, always the population growing, and the money owing...

For the avoidance of doubt – the Morning Porridge is unrestricted market commentary, it is not investment advice…