Al Fahim has given an 'interview' to one of the tame Arab business newspapers in an effort to improve his increasingly tarnished image.
Unlike the UK medial, newspapers in the Arab world are rarely critical and with the right contacts you are able to maintain editorial control over articles. Yesterday's piece in the Business 24-7 illustrates this point.
This issue is well illustrated by the paragraph regarding IIMSAM - no independent journalist would submit copy containing this turgid text. Al Fahim however is keen for the role of IIMSAM to be talked-up and for spurious connection to the UN to be maintained.
In the 'interview' Al Fahim is keen to start the 'rumour' that he is about to receive a £100m bonus from Hydra. We are aware of no such rumour circulating prior to this astonishing claim in this article.
Given that Al Fahim will have his image tarnished should Portsmouth, as expected, pull the plug on Al Fahim, he needs to ensure that he is still seen as a man financial might. However this £100m claim is clearly bogus.
This week, Hydra finally announced that it is scrapping all its developments, other than Hydra Village (plus two smaller tower developments). The company also made it clear that it needs additional cash to continue the projects and that this have to come from owners Royal Group. The entire Hydra venture is set to be loss-making for Royal Group and the prospect of a huge bonus to Al Fahim is inconceivable. Al Fahim was sacked as CEO and 'moved upstairs' to the Board in June.
The size of the '£100m bonus' is also fanciful. Of the 2,500 properties at Hydra Village, just 60 are considered as 60% complete - most of the rest are not even started. The sales receipts from all 2,500 properties is less than £200m. The notion that the astute Royal Group would pay a bonus of £100m bonus on a partially completed, loss-making project is simply beyond belief.
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Awww, boo hoo. Whiney whiney whiney whiney. Go get a life.
ReplyDeleteAl Fahim is a conman. Pure and simple.
ReplyDeletethis was written on the Hydra Investrs page in Facebook on July 6, 2009 at 6:07am where you can see that ALFAHIM and and his investors invested AED 600 million dirhams, and i think the rumor is that he will get back his money by end of the year if the projects got canceled.
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Why do the people who seem to know so well about Hydra and Sulaiman Al-Fahim tend to forget easily that Al-fahim along with others invested around USD 150 million or AED 600,000,000 of his own money in Hydra Avenue and Marina Spirit which is still blocked? And unlike the monies of other investors in Hydra, Al-Fahim cannot take his money out which, as many say, was the primary reason of him leaving Hydra as the CEO.
Yazooy - I've had a look at the facebook page and the comment you have quoted was apparently written by his wife! Don't trust this guy as far as I can throw him (which wouldn't be far!). Also, where did he get $150 million from? From his CEO job? I don't think so....
ReplyDeleteThe 'bonus' is clearly a wheeze to get the cash from whoever is actually backing the bid to Fahim in a barely plausible way.
ReplyDeleteThe FA have stalled the bid, clearly unhappy that Fahim has the funds, or that he has enough money himself. So magically out of nowhere, and despite Dubai property being mired in a massive crash for 12 months, a 100M GBP bonus suddenly materializes.
I am sure Mr Fahim will be asked for documentation by the FA. Maybe they can get a copy of his doctorate and UN passport while they are at it. His PR man Anil Bhoyrul of Arabian Business claims Fahim is a UN goodwill ambassador, and that he has even seen his red UN passport, but he is not listed on the UN.org web site with the 183 goodwill ambassadors.