Luxury Webblog Spot

A Middle East private equity consortium led by Bahrain-based Investcorp has agreed to acquire a majority stake in a Saudi Arabian gold and jewellery company, betting that the Middle East’s young and affluent demographic composition will see off the worst of the downturn.

The group will take a total 70 per cent stake in L’Azurde, the world’s fourth largest gold and jewellery manufacturer, in a deal that values the company at more than $300m, financiers behind the deal told the Financial Times.

Investcorp – which has owned Tiffany, the jewellery chain, and Gucci, the luxury goods group – will take a 51 per cent stake in L’Azurde. Its partners – Eastgate Capital Group, the private equity arm of NCB, which is Saudi Arabia’s largest lender, and Abu Dhabi-based The National Investor – will take the remainder.

It is a bold move by Investcorp, which reported its first ever loss of $511m in the last six months of 2008. The company, which has specialised in investing Arab private and sovereign wealth in overseas private equity, hedge funds and other alternative assets, was downgraded to junk status by Standard & Poor’s in January, causing Investcorp to terminate its rating contract on what it saw as an “unjustified” downgrade.

While the credit crunch has hit demand for luxury goods, Investcorp executives are confident that the region’s social and demographic dynamics will allow the company to grow.

“Jewellery in general, and gold jewellery in particular, is almost a necessity in this region,” said Azmat Taufique, the co-head of Investcorp’s $1.1bn Gulf-focused private equity fund. “Sales are linked to social events, such as weddings, and with the Gulf’s positive demographics, we think these will increase.”

Half of the Middle East’s population is under 20 years old, and half a decade of oil-fuelled growth has swelled the size and affluence of the upper and middle classes.

L’Azurde produces 26 tonnes of gold jewellery a year and had revenues of $500m last year, selling its products through 4,200 wholesale accounts and 18 retail stores across the region. The Gulf makes up about 12 per cent of the global market for gold.

L’Azurde had implemented a pricing mechanism that would shield it from gold’s volatility, Investcorp’s executives said.

Note: Feb. 14 is a favorite holiday for spammers, who are relying on an old standby in these down times: male insecurities

Valentine’s Day has long been a gold mine for florists, candy makers, restaurateurs — and spammers. Valentine’s Day gift Every February, junk e-mailers send out millions of messages allegedly promoting holiday getaways or last-minute gifts for that special loved one. In the days leading up to the holiday this weekend, the amount of spam is spiking again, anti-spam experts agree.

This year, however, many spammers looking for ways to score clicks are going back to basics. According to Symantec (SYMC), the anti-spam company that has been monitoring Valentine’s-related spam traffic this month, the most popular type of spam this season tends to focus on one of the old favorites of the spam industries, appealing to men and their insecurities. “This year the top three types of spam tend very much to be related to what we call ‘male capabilities,’” says Michael Chue, managing director for Hong Kong and Taiwan at Symantec. While he doesn’t have data yet available on the amount of such spam, Chue says “in the last couple of weeks we can see this type of spam increasing.”

Are men, hurt by the worst global downturn since the Great Depression, more vulnerable to this sort of junk e-mail? Chue won’t speculate, although he does point out spammers are typically very sensitive to the free market. “The statistics tell the spammers these are very popular,” he says.

Rejiggering Malware

Spammers are also taking advantage of Valentine’s Day to push so-called malware, or malicious software, in necklaces new directions. For instance, Symantec says spammers have shifted gears for Waledac, a type of malware that in the past has hijacked computers and forced them to send spam peddling “performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals.” Ahead of the holiday, Waledac “is now distributing misleading applications,” Symantec says on its Web site, via Valentine’s Day-themed messages. Waledac is “attempting to leverage Valentine’s Day as it attempts to trick unsuspecting users into downloading and running the malicious binaries.”

Spammers are also infecting computers from more places worldwide. According to recent statistics from Sophos, a spam specialist from Oxfordshire, England, the U.S. remains the world’s largest source of spam, accounting for 20% of the total worldwide. China, including Hong Kong, is No. 2, with 10%. That’s to be expected, since the U.S. is the world’s largest economy and China the world’s largest country, says Paul Ducklin, head of Asia-Pacific technology for Sophos. “You would expect those countries to dominate,” he says.

A Lot from Small Countries, Too

What’s surprising — and troubling — is the extent to which spammers have been able to hijack computers in much silver bangles smaller countries. Vietnam, for instance, has fewer than 20 million Internet users, of whom only 2% have broadband connections. Even so, Vietnam accounts for almost 2% of the world’s spam. Looking at spam sources worldwide, “there are places where it’s not easy or cheap to get on the Internet,” says Ducklin. Yet spammers still manage. “When you take the outliers, you realize what a global problem it is,” says Ducklin.

See BusinessWeek’s slide show of the world’s biggest spam-producing countries.

The city of Olathe issued the following news christmas gift release:

This year’s Winter Fest is scheduled for Friday, December 4th at the R.R. Osborne Plaza at Olathe City Hall. It will run from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The event includes the Mayor’s Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, music from Olathe high school and elementary school choirs, the Olathe Civic Jazz Band, the MNU Jazz Band as well as the Special Olympics Pops Chorus. Food and warm beverages will be available for purchase.

In addition to food and music, a number of family and children’s activities silver bangles are planned. Santa will take time out of his busy pre-holiday schedule to make a visit and sit for pictures with kids.

As part of the festivities, representatives from the thirteen beneficiaries of the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Fund will be introduced, and proceeds from the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast will be presented to the Christmas Tree Fund.

Winter Fest is sponsored by the Olathe Noon Optimist Club, the City of Olathe, HyVee and a silver rings number of other event partners.For more information please contact: Sarabjit Jagirdar, Email:- htsyndication@hindustantimes.com.