Unvarnished advice needed
2007-11-29
Advising investors on entering the CR is a huge industry. It
employs consultants, lawyers, bankers, realtors and even interior
designers. Anyone who might scare away the big fish with
anything but glowing praise of the Czech miracle must be kept
away like the plague. Imagine the difficulty of the experts now
in spinning a bright tale, with golden Czech hands hard to find,
the strong crown making exports less competitive by the day,
and corruption even worse than under ÈSSD. John Reed said that
when he was CEO of Citibank during the real-estate downturn
of the 1990s, he would have lost his job if he had kept listening
to people who were too embedded in the situation to see the
full extent of the problems. You need to distance yourself to
have a better context, he said. His advice to new or existing
investors in the CR would be: Be careful whom you listen to in
plotting your next move.
[Czech Republic Citigroup crisis subprime mortgage]
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