the battle begins...

Ok, time to say goodbye to my room for a week. I am delighted, and terribly nervous as well. I know enough about M&As that I will know more than half the stuff anyway. The only 2 things that can be my downfall are my horrible (considering the level of complicated and advanced business language I will have to use) German and my eating speed :P
I guess I'm also feeling a bit lonely because I'm going alone :(

Hole-In-One!!!

I was surprised when I first came across a Hole-In-One golf contest. That was in late August, in Jurong Country Club. The prize was a BMW 700 (if I remember correctly). And I thought, oh boy, I wonder how many more people they can attract into their tournament by this.

A couple of days later, I was astonished to read that a blind woman actually putted it in on the first shot!!!!! I think that reveals the true nature of this contest, its all luck and no skill that is required.

A few days later, I was completely shocked, while discussing the BMW prize with Charlie and Bob (my two managers in Caterpillar), when I found out that there are companies CALLED 'Hole-In-One' and 'Hole-In-Won' that provide financing for these prizes. I actually screamed aloud in Caterpillar's carpark: "Who the hell came up with that!!!" Anyway, it works like this. If you are a tournament organizer, you pay something from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars (depending on the top prize, the par of the course/hole, the number of participants etc.) to these companies, and they will pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prizes if somebody is lucky enough to putt it in. Simple huh, and I was thinking the Jurong Country Club would be screwed if somebody was lucky enough.
http://www.hole-in-won.com/
http://www.holeinoneinternational.com/
http://www.holeinoneinsurance.com

Anyway, the reason why I recall all this now, because I just came across a type of companies that has a business as creative as the Hole-In-One. They are called "Shark Watchers". And they observe patterns in their clients stockholders activities. They specialize in detecting early who is accumulating the firm's shares. So that the clients can be alerted to their defense, if the case is that of a hostile takeover.

Once again I am reminded that there are gaps everywhere in the world and it takes a true entrepreneur to realize the opportunity and seize it. And now I should go back to devouring M&As...

OFW Business Tour 2007, Deutsche Bank and Anschreiben

Of all the crazy things that happened during the last two days, I will start with the craziest. On the evening of 6th Nov, I got an email from Organisationsforum Wirtschaftskongress (OFW) Business Tour 2007, saying something in German which didn't sound like a rejection. I didn't exactly understand the message because I was shivering with excitement. So I EMAILED the message to my apartment mate, waited a full 5 minutes for a response, then went to her door and started banging it!! And she came out and I explained. She read my email and told me that the decision has been delayed for one day because of an extraordinary number of applicants. She wished me luck and asked me to tell her whatever decision comes. I told her that she'd know from my screams if I get accepted...

The next evening, I went to the library to check my email. And there was an email. And it told me that Cologne Main Railway Station was the meeting point. I'D BEEN ACCEPTED. I spent 10 minutes punching in the air, grinning like mad and all the while thinking if I should go out of the library and let the screams out.....Before my readers start wondering what the heck I've been accepted for, here are some pictures which will give you some idea.......

Only 20 students from the whole Germany have been selected. And I don't remember if I was ever so happy. I will be visiting the offices of the top firms in the world, all over Germany (that is, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich) and working with M&A Experts and the best students in Germany on case studies, and presenting our solutions.

I screamed the news to Eva when I returned home. After I'd 'returned to the ground', I decided to seek advice. So I sent messages to Rameez Ansar and Nedim. Rameez bhai is my ideal globe-trotting management consultant at BCG, and is probably the busiest, and nevertheless, the most helpful person I've ever met. Nedim, is a French Muslim, working in McKinsey Paris right now.

My friendship with Nedim is as crazy as me :D. I was standing at Buona Vista bus stop this July. And I saw a French girl wearing an INSEAD shirt. I decided to talk to her, because I'd spent the last few months thinking I need to talk to some INSEAD students. Bad for me, she started boarding a bus. Good for me, I made my decision 'like a fighter pilot' ("Make Decisions Like A Fighter Pilot" is the title of an article, by a management consultant I believe, that tells about studies done by US Air Force that show that the performance of fighter pilots in combat is directly dependent on the speed of their decision making) and boarded the bus. (This is still one of the most memorable decisions of my life and I'm totally proud of it :P)

Anyway I talked to the girl, Claire, and discovered that she was the fiancee of an INSEAD student. She offered to give me a tour of the campus. So we got off the bus at the next stop. She showed me around the campus, told me about her fiancee, Nedim, and gave me his contact number. I basically wanted to find out how the school was, and its reputation in France and Europe.

So I contacted Nedim, and we met in Raffles Place. During the first few minutes, I learned that he was working on M&As in a boutique investment bank. And just like I am completely off the track right now, I completely forgot at that time that I was there to talk about INSEAD. We spent the whole time talking about investment banking and management consultancies. The word 'INSEAD' was spoken exactly ZERO TIMES during our conversation.

Anyway, coming back to the ground, I received super-prompt replies from both guys, for which I'm indebted to them. And I formulated my strategy. Which is my usual brute-force idea. Improve financial-German. Devour as much material on M&As as possible. Impress the companies enough to get an internship, and maybe a permanent offer. Maybe I'm going too far now, but when 5 companies select 20 students from the country, they should have something in mind for them...atleast I hope so.

I started reading lecture notes, watching lectures on DCF, FCFE, WACC and stuff life Poison Pill, Greenmail, Bear Hug and Pacman Defense. 2 hours sleep in the first night. Good good. The next day, I was in super high spirits. But in the afternoon, I received my anticlimax. A rejection from Deutsche Bank. After less than 30 minutes, I received a call from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. I was informed that to do an internship in Germany, I need to be fluent in Germany. Grosse Scheisse.... Anyway, after some whining, convincing and negotiating, he asked me to send my cover letter and transcripts. I spent 2 hours in the evening with my German teacher after class, and we ironed out my cover letter and resume in German. Let's see how things out.

And I was super-alert (as usual) in my M&A lecture that afternoon. Apart from being an MBA course, it also happens to be a 3 hour lecture completely in German. However, I can understand quite well now, and I know enough on the subject to barrage my professor (an investment banker who happens to have worked with Morgan Stanley, and is working with some top investment bank right now as well) with questions, and to invite the remark "good question!!" with every question. He told me that he will have a lot more time after the next class, and we can have a longer one-on-one.

I think this is the most random posts so far. Anyway, I once again request all my readers to keep this blog confidential. I blabber all the frustration in me here, and its not for everyone :) Thankuss.

La Calisto

Yesterday, I achieved yet another 'first ever'. This time, it was my first ever opera. The opera was La Calisto by Francesco Cavalli (music) and Giovanni Faustini (). The conductor was Ivor Bolton, and the hot Calisto (that's the main character, who is a nymph!) was played by Sally Matthews. One big achievement was that I understood pretty much the whole opera even though it was in Italian language with German overtitles (which are displayed on a screen above the stage).


This is the Bayerische Stattsoper, in Max-Weber-Platz. And it looked awesome at night.

We were on level 4. And taking pictures is strictly forbidden. But do you expect me to come out of my first opera without taking a picture!

The opera was absolutely stunning. And I learned that it was one of the very good ones. (So I have to attend at least one more opera that is one of the very best...maybe something by Mozart)

These are the main characters. At the end of the opera, I heard the loudest and longest applause ever. It went on for 5-10 minutes during which the cast came in groups, individually, with the musicians and so on.

I also had some pretty long and complicated discussions with Tobias, completely in German. So I'm improving a little bit every day. (Let's see if I can understand the 5 hours of lectures in German this week...) Overall, it was a truly memorable day.

November 3, 2007 (Part 2)

Anyway, the second and more important reason is that I went to Landshut. A very nice, but very small city in Bavaria.

During most of the trip, I was in a small group of 4.

Me and Juliana (from Brazil).

Petri and Anne, both from Finland.

Landshut is famous for this church tower. The church is called St. Martin and it has the highest church tower made of bricks in the whole world.

This is the Landshuter Residenz, the first renaissance palace north of the Alps.

This is a BMW of the 1960s model.

This pic was taken inside the Residenz.

The guy on the left is Mehmut from Turkey, in the middle is Muhammad from Egypt, and on the right is me! By the way, Muhammad is our gang leader, and has taken us to lots of places. He is fluent in German and Arabic, reasonably proficient in English (it did take me 15 minutes to explain the word 'savior' to him, and he insisted that the right word is 'saver' like lifesaver!), and is working on Spanish and Russian these days.

These are my trademark pictures of somebody taking a picture.

The fifth person in this photo is Christoph, a resident of Landshut and a student of Political Science in LMU, and an apartment mate of Juliana. He was critical in helping us find this good place when we were short of time and desperately needed some food.

This picture is a memory of the most important lesson I learned during the trip. That is, NEVER order ketchup in an Italian pizzeria. I asked the waiter for ketchup, and had to listen to a long lecture, at the moment and later when we were leaving, about how this is one of the worst things you can say to an Italian.

The discussion that followed resulted in the following lessons:

1) Never cook Weisswurst in a frying pan. Always boil them in water.

2) Never cut Weisswurst before boiling.

3) Never eat Weisswurst with skin.

During the trip, I also learned that a Finnish company Patria designs and manufactures the wing spoilers for A380. I found this out from Petri as he interned there last summer. It was rather astonishing for me, because I've heard that one of the key strengths of Boeing is in their wing technology. And I assumed that the other leading aircraft manufacturers must be very strong in this technology. I believed that wing spoilers are one of the most crucial parts of wing technology.

Patria is a first tier supplier for the Composite wing spoilers for the Airbus A380, world’s largest passenger aircraft, being exclusively responsible for their design and analysis, verification, manufacture and product support.
http://www.patria.fi/products/PatriaProductsPublic/search.aspx?selectedcategory=CCE2642B62914F47BD68DDBA7199FFCA&productid=91196D811ABD4A3AAEA1EA21C618092F&page=1
Anyway, what I knew, and turned out to be correct, is the fact that composite materials are being used for aircraft structures, and the reason why.

The composite spoilers are an essential contributor to lower operating costs through reduced fuel consumption as the aircraft derive much of their efficiency from lower structural weight, achieved through the increased use of composite materials.
http://www.patria.fi/products/PatriaProductsPublic/search.aspx?selectedcategory=CCE2642B62914F47BD68DDBA7199FFCA&productid=91196D811ABD4A3AAEA1EA21C618092F&page=1
I further discovered that Boeing subcontracts its spoilers as well, not surprisingly to an American company, Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc. Vought is also the largest U.S. manufacturer of aerostructures for Airbus. And incidentally it has a plant in Nashville, which designs and manufactures the wings of Gulfstream jets. Nashville is where the headquarters of Cat Financial are. :)
http://www.vought.com/newsFactGallery/factsheets/company/vought.htm

The second most important, and the dumbest thing I learned that it is OK to rotate my camera and take a picture in portrait format, but it is NOT OK to rotate my camera during a video shoot. You can rotate the pictures on the computer but not the video. And I learned this lesson the hard way!!

November 3, 2007 (Part 1)

November 3, 2007 was important for two reasons.

First, General Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and eight other judges refused to endorse the emergency order, declaring it unconstitutional, resulting in Mr Chaudhry's dismissal.

In the two page statement, the Chief Justice asked all judges and civil servants not to take an oath under the PCO. However, as usual in Pakistani politics society, when the time comes to make personal gains and sell your allegiance, somebody always comes forward.

Supreme Court judge Abdul Hameed Dogar, a supporter of Gen Musharraf who was a member of the special tribunal appointed to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Mr Chaudhry, has already taken an oath and is the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar has declared the verdict by the seven judges against the emergency null and void.

Iftikhar Chaudhry, Aitzaz Ahsan, Munir Malik, some other judges I believe to be including Justice Bhagwandas, Justice Ramday, and Justice Javaid Iqbal, and Imran Khan are supposed to be under house arrest.

Attorney General Malik Muhammad Qayyum said that the Supreme Court endorsement to the new PCO was not needed.

In his address to the nation Saturday night Musharraf said that the first time in the history Pakistan completed the transition under a strategy and it was making headway. But, the vested interests were obstructing its path. How Pakistani politicians love this phrase!

Senior advocate Ahmad Raza Kasuri, who is in New York as a member of Pakistan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, on Saturday welcomed the imposition of state of emergency, saying it was in the interest of stability of the country. I am surprised by neither the fact that Kasuri welcomes the emergency, nor the fact that these are the kind of people representing Pakistan at the UN.

Pentagon has said it would not change its support to Musharraf. No surprises here either. Americans have lost yet another opportunity... I earlier expressed what the western world needed to do to show solidarity with the Pakistani people. US, EU and Commonwealth countries must recall their diplomats immediately and press for the restoration of the media and judiciary rights. But of course, there is a reason why the people of poor and unstable countries all over the world love the westerners.

What is the plural of "penis"?

Today was the first Engineering Management tutorial. 4 groups of students, each group from a different country, presented the key information about the local corporate culture they would like to tell foreigners going to their country, and the information they would like to tell their compatriots coming to Germany. We had presentations about Malaysia, Nigeria, Sweden and China. And I witnessed 4 very unique presentation styles that made the session all the more exciting.

Apart from learning about the corporate culture of 4 countries, I stumbled upon the fact that I am not sure about the plural of the word "penis". The story goes like this...

At the end of the last presentation from the Chinese girl, I asked her during the Q&A session: "Is it important for me to be able to eat a tiger penis if I want to strengthen business relationships in China?" And everyone was incredulous, including the Chinese! I repeated the question, and then again but to no avail. As the clock showed well past 12 and students started peeking in through the doors, the professor suggested that I have a one-on-one with the girl to sort things out.

So I approached the girl. And I tried to explain. And surprise surprise...her English was not very good. After she asked me a couple of times: "tiger PEANUTS?", I began to wonder whether she knows what a penis is. And that was big trouble, because I don't know how to say "penis" in German or Chinese. The only options I had was to say "dick" or point towards mine!!! (That reminded me of a guy who once questioned the habit of pointing towards one's bare wrist when asking about the time from somebody else. He retorted: "Do you point towards your dick when you ask where the toilet is?". OK let's cut the crap...) But both seemed rather inappropriate as I was in a class with almost 30 students. Then one of the Chinese guys helped me and explained my question to her. Finally...she understood the question. But she was completely unaware of the fact that tiger PENISES are eaten in China. The guy also told me that they are more of a side-dish than a main course. No big deal, I can imagine that myself. If over 1 billion Chinese had been eating tiger PENISES as main course, tigers would have become extinct ages ago...

Anyway, to sum everything up, here is the webpage that contains the plural of some interesting words, including "penis".
<http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mplurals.html>