Work Happenings or Non-Happenings

Despite what you may believe, I too can make blog entries ! It is funny how fast things can change. When we arrived in late June Russia was at the height of its overconfidence, politically and economically (noted particularly in the amount of rent we pay!). With the war in Georgia facilitating an exit of capital from the Russian equity markets. This started to drive down the equity market, causing oligarchs to have to cover their loans pledged with shares by selling more and more shares, forcing the prices down further. The worldwide liquidity crisis affected banks and others here too and the larger economy is started to be affected as well. The capital markets are dead and people say there are not likely to be any IPOs or other offerings until 2010. As for investment funds (my field), hedge funds are in dire straights and several will have to shut down. Private equity funds are unable to debt finance any investments, but the crisis will provide opportunities (some of the biggest PE returns were investment made in the aftermath of the tech bubble burst). So, I'm not too busy at work and spend most of my time on client development initiatives, trying to position us well for when things turn around. It also has left some time for the travels (as seen in Lindsey's blog entries) and some other actives, like the Amercian Chamber of Commerce Soccer Tournament:

Our team:

Our firm is small, and thus so is our talent pool! Other big companies had some pretty good teams. We played four games in our group (each game with two 10 min. halves on a shortened field). We managed to tie our first game with our goal resulting from the other team's miscue of a lobbed ball which their defender managed to head into their goal. That was the extent of the scoring for us.
One of our other attorneys wanted to play goalie so I was in the field until the last game and after my masterful performance they all lamented that I didn't play in all games.....(and the other guy lost my favorite goalie jersey, so I had to pull out my older one).
We lost that game too, but only 0 - 1 ! We were pretty bad, but a good time was had and we look forward to another try next year.