Somali Pirates offer to buy Dubai

Somali Pirates offer to buy Dubai

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dictys

Original Poster:

913 posts

259 months

Tuesday 8th December 2009
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From an email
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The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Dubai.

The pirates would buy Dubai with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $1 billion in cash and paper for Dubai, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. `You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the Dubai investors anything," said Ali.

Dubai is particularly attractive to the pirates thanks to its position close to one of the narrowest parts of the Persian Gulf which serves oil tankers leaving Saudia Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. "Due to the smaller sea area, it won't be so easy for ships to escape us" said Ali. Dubai is attractive since it is the only one of the seven United Arab Emirates to have two Coastlines.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden, and following the purchase of Dubai, from the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said "we need a solid financial centre so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Dubai is an attractive up and coming financial centre which will give us access to many of the world's leading private banks and a useful place to keep our money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets have allowed us to purchase Dubai at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of Dubai's 500 kilometre long Coastline and territorial waters to grow the business even faster." Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better. With the addition of Dubai to our portfolio it will enable us to capture a whole new breed of ships, and in particular the Super-tankers leaving Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Hitch78

6,107 posts

195 months

Wednesday 9th December 2009
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If I wasn't so bored of the recent Dubai bashing I'd probably find that quite funny. Unfortunately when some bint in The Times compared Dubai to Jordan (the cry, not the country) I lost my sense of humour. Let's just say that they reserved their right not to publish all letters to the editor on that one!

p.s I believe that Fujairah is the only Emirate to have costline on both the West and East of the peninsular, not Dubai!