It has been a while since I dipped into the wacky world of Middle East public relations, but some momentous events have taken place in the past six months, and at last the spin doctors are responding.
I don't mean the on-off relationship between the UK's Bell Pottinger and the government of Bahrain. At about the time forces moved into Bahrain, the firm said its activities in the troubled kingdom were being scaled back for the time being.
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Recently, I notice an increase in the number of Bell Pottinger e-mailed statements on behalf of one Bahraini government department or another, so you would have to assume it's all back on for the company, based in London.
What I mean is the exciting news - so far only whispered about in PR circles and the specialist press - that a new force is on the scene in the Middle East. And quite a pedigree it has, too.
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The financial crisis didn't seem to put off too many of the big international firms from the region. In fact, I can recall offhand at least three launches that have taken place since the summer of 2008.
But this is the first I know of to have been prompted directly by the historic events of the Arab Spring. Hillingdon Cresswell already has offices in London and Amman, and is looking out for the right premises (and clients, of course) in the UAE.
The duo behind the new company consists of Chris McShane, long-time press adviser to the former British prime minister Tony Blair, and Ghalia Alul, who ran strategic communications for the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and Queen Rania of Jordan.
They have pulled together a team of experienced consultants from the UK and Middle East as the core of the new operation.
A couple of members of the line-up are former Blair advisers, while there is also a gaggle of experienced hands from PR, marketing and communications.
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Apart from Mr Blair (whose role as Middle East peace envoy must rule him out of any direct executive role at the firm), there is another eminence grise: Lord [Peter] Mandelson, who as former British business secretary saw quite a lot of action in the Gulf region, mainly in helping British contractors get some of their money back after the property bust.
"Peter has a working relationship with Chris, from his days in government," Ms Alul says. "We value his [Peter's] advice, but it's not official."
That all adds up to quite a lot of political firepower, so it's no surprise that Hillingdon Cresswell's potential clients are governments and government-related enterprises. And not just for a bit of one-off spin doctoring.
"Our motto is 'building capacity, not dependency', so we really want to help governments and others set up their own communications structures," Ms Alul says.
Mr McShane elaborates: "We see ourselves almost as management consultants specialising in communications.
We don't think the best way is to hire an expensive foreign firm and then wait to be told what to do. It's far better if they [the clients] do it themselves, with good advice."
Have they got any clients yet? "We're at the relationship-building stage," Mr McShane says, which I suppose is a new way of saying "no". But he adds: "We've enough funding to see us through," without elaborating on the source of the funding.
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I guess the biggest question today for Hillingdon Cresswell is whether the connection with the former British government (the one that took the UK to war with Iraq), and with Mr Blair in particular, will be a help or hindrance in opening doors with governments in the region.
Despite, or maybe because of, his role in the Israel-Palestine peace process, you do not hear Mr Blair's praises being sung widely in the region as elder statesman turned peacemaker.
His old friendship with George W Bush is a big factor in this ambivalence.
It's good to have a new voice on the PR scene.
It will be interesting to see how Hillingdon Cresswell's novel approach goes.
fkane@thenational.ae
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
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