With plans to sign an accession agreement next year, Bulgaria is preparing itself to become a EU member. Nick Kochan reports from The Banker’s conference. Bulgaria has moved centre stage among the nations of central Europe. In due course, this will translate into a seat at the EU members’ table, perhaps as early as 2007. These considerations are driving Bulgarian economic and structural policy today. That was clear at The Banker business conference, Banking on Bulgaria, held recently in London and sponsored by investment fund Equest. Solomon Passy, Bulgaria’s foreign affairs minister, told the conference that his government had two priorities when it came to power three years ago: the first was membership of NATO, which was achieved shortly after the election; the second was to prepare the country for EU membership.
Cross-border issues always add extra complexity to M&A deals. But in the Cemex acquisition of RMC, co-lead managed by Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, there was clearly no language barrier, writes Nick Kochan. When you are doing a cross-border deal, it helps if your codename makes sense in your client’s language as well as your own. This was not quite the case in Cemex’s purchase of RMC in September. When the English-speaking bankers referred to the deal among themselves, they called it Bromium. When they talked to their Spanish-speaking clients, they called it Bromo. And the bankers also had different interpretations of the name: one thought it was named Bromo after a volcano in Java, while another thought it was called Bromium after an ingredient in cement. Cross-border communication between bankers and client might have got horridly confused. In fact, relations were faultless.
Nick Kochan finds Dubai and Bahrain are competing hard for the region’s growing business opportunities.The announcement in April of a new federal law governing Dubai’s embryonic financial centre heralds a battle royal between the Gulf states of Dubai and Bahrain. Dubai is the upstart in the imminent struggle, while Bahrain is more established but there can be no doubting Dubai’s enthusiasm, ambition and ‘can-do’ approach.