by Kate Nicholson, CEI Asia Pacific 05-Nov-08, 11:53Brought to you by www.12phuket.com
With many more five-star properties on the horizon, Thailand’s southern paradise continues to maintain its popularity with regional meeting and incentive groups. By Kate Nicholson
Reflecting Phuket’s enduring popularity, the Thai government has granted economic incentives to encourage developers to shape the island into a first-class international resort. Hotels – some of them enormous – line every beach, as corporate meeting and incentive groups pour in from Singapore, Hong Kong and Europe.
Despite the recent political unrest, many new international five-star properties will be built over the next few years. The long list of hotel brands joining the race includes:
Jumeirah, Marriott, Renaissance, Anantara, Regent, Radisson, Four Points by Sheraton and Langham Place.
NAI YANG BEACH Indigo Pearl, a 277-room property on secluded Nai Yang Beach, well away from the bright lights of Patong, is a ten-minute drive from the airport. Designed by Bangkok-based architect Bill Bensley, Indigo Pearl recalls the hotel’s former life as a tin mine. The hotel features detailed
industrial-style interiors, steel beams and exposed ceilings.
The huge property features three swimming pools. There’s also a breezy tapas bar, Black Ginger, which serves Thai cuisine. An outside area next to the Rivet Grill restaurant can cater for up to 20 people for cocktails, while the Coliseum Garden can accommodate 200 delegates.
Unilever held a meeting here for 250 people in March and Chevrolet and Philips both held events here in May.
LAGUNA PHUKET
The big difference at Banyan Tree Resort and Spa is its location. The hotel is part of the 400-hectare, gated Laguna Phuket complex: five resorts that share amenities but sacrifice a bit of exclusivity. The resort is sandwiched between the beach and a par-71 golf course.
Groups will be impressed by the newly launched double-pool villas that come with a laptop, mobile phone, butler service and two bicycles. The three-bedroom versions of the double-pool villas also have a dining room that can easily be converted into a meeting room for up to
15 delegates. Restaurant options include Thai, Mediterranean and health-conscious spa-themed dining.
The largest Laguna property is the 423-room Sheraton Grande Laguna Phuket, which continues to be popular with regional conference and incentive groups.
The sprawling resort offers a campus of two and three-storey hotel-style pavilions.
Set on a big island, the resort is surrounded by a large lagoon.
The hotel recently launched new two-bedroom villas and offers six meeting rooms with natural daylight that can accommodate from 60 to 400 guests. An air-conditioned marquee is also available for conferences and events, with seating for up to 1,000.
The Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket Resort has undergone considerable redevelopment and upgrades, with the Dusit pool villas comprising the latest offering.
The villas can sleep up to eight people.
The resort has just renovated 90 of its 226 rooms and plans to increase its room count to 420 by the end of 2009. Dusit, which can currently accommodate only 100 delegates classroom style in its largest meeting space, also plans to extend its facilities in the near future.
One grand ballroom will be able to host 300 delegates and there will also be eight breakout rooms. The meeting venues should be finished by the end of 2009.
Citibank and Exomobil both recently held events here.
RAWAI BEACH
Being seafront doesn’t make an island resort unique, but having a second island is something few hotels can offer.
This is a feature delegates will enjoy if they stay at Evason Phuket and Six Senses Spa.
Bon Island is a 15-minute boat ride away. The island has a restaurant, showers and sun chairs that overlook Evason Phuket’s private beach and are available for hotel guests to rent for the day.
The resort has 260 rooms comprising guestrooms, suites and pool villas. Into the View is the hotel’s main restaurant and serves American and Asian breakfasts and an a la carte menu at night.
Another restaurant, Into the Beach, is set in the sand under shady trees and serves casual food and tapas. The resort also offers Into Thai and Into the Med dining options.
The resort has five meeting venues, the largest of which can fit up to 410 delegates for cocktails. Evason Phuket is a 45-minute drive from Phuket International Airport.
After 18 years running the restaurant DeTafeljoncker in Berchem Antwerp Belgium,
where they were very successfully and very well known for serving gastronomy of the highest level, with as result 16 on 20 and 2 toques in Gault & Millau. Those both lords of the gastronomy decided to change definitely the grey Belgium for the sunny Phuket.
Where they as chef-cooker and as chef-room master offer you a guaranty for a culinary event with eye for details!
Marc, Chef de Cuisine/Owner, presents you his Gastronomic-Creations; “ Warm Starters”: * Scallops steamed in their own Shell with Mushrooms 685
* White Asparagus of Chiangmai with Smoked Salmon and Eggs “a la Flamande” with Parsley, Nutmeg and Butter: 585
* Warm Sliced CanadianLobster Meat on a bed of White
Asparagus baked with Nutmeg and Vermouth Sauce : 685 “ Colds Starters”: * Marinated Scallops meat served with Sorbet of Mascarpone Cheese perfumed with Parsley and Cerfil : 685
* Home Made Terrine of Goose Liver served with Home made Marmelade of Passion Fruits, Shallots and dried Apricots : 685
* “Salade Royale Nam Tok”of Duck liver, Canadian Lobster smoked Duck breast on a salad with Witlof, Nuts, Apples: 685 “ Soups”:
* Wagyu Beef Tea perfumed with Portwine; 350
* Pumpkin Creme Soup served with dried Bacon ,baked Bread cubes and Spring Ognions : 285
* Brick Pastryfilled up with Lobster and Herbs served in Lobster-Bisque perfumed with Cognac de France : 425
“Fish-dishes”:
* Galette of Parrot Fish Filet filled up with Oyster and Basil,Saffronsauce with Fennel : 795 * “ A la Minute” smoked Canadian Lobster served with Witlof/Endive and Tomato butter with Basil: 1275
* Filet of Parrot Fish“En papilotte”wraped and steamed in paper bag, opened on the table. Fish-fillet steamed with Aromatic Herbs, Shallots, and served with Caper- Butter : 795
* Baked Parrot –Filet with Sauce of Red Paprika’s and steamed Witlof/Chicoree/Endive : 795
“Meat-dishes”: *Tenderloin“Angus Beef, 120 days Grains Fed”(985) or “Black Wagyu Beef “(1985) with Bearnaise Sauce,
baked white Asparagus and Onion confit in Red Wine
* Lamb Rack French Cut with Grains Mustard sauce “Pommery Royale” and Seasonal Vegetables : 885
* Poultry-filet filled up with Goose Liver and Pleurottes Mushrooms, sauce of Raspberry and RosemaryVegetables :625
* Angus Beef Tartar“Prepared on your table” Classic Style, with condi
White Box is the most eagerly anticipated dining venue on Phuket Island, Thailand.White Box is a beachfront restaurant, resting on the sand and coral beach overlooking Patong Bay.White Box was once a famous beachfront house and has been redesigned as a premium restaurant with a minimalist style, themed in white and blue to create an atmosphere that reflects the Mediterranean and Thai culinary inspiration.
White Box was previously a private beachfront residence, famous for its exceptional design and location in Kalim,overlooking Patong Bay.
The new management were inspired to develop this amazing venue into a high-end restaurant but have retained the original minimalist design that that made it famous and extending the rock terrace to create an even more unique dining experience.
Roof top Lounge
On top of the White Box our guests can enjoy an astonishing uninterrupted view of Patong Bay in a white lounge designed to make your evening unforgettable.It is an ideal place for a relaxing after-dinner drink, a romantic sunset cocktail, or jut to enjoy a chilled bottle of Champagne.We aim to surprise our clientele with new cocktails designed by our specially trained White Box bar team and also offer a range of outstanding “tapas” snacks to accompany your drinks, prepared specially by our Mediterranean Chef, Vincent Denayer.
Ambience also plays a major role for White Box and our lighting and music are thoughtfully selected to enhance your experience. Our guests can enjoy our in-house Jazz band and specially invited DJ’s spinning chill-out exotic rhythms.
seasonal Menu
White Box menu is inspired by both Mediterranean and Thai cuisine and takes full advantage of their culinary wealth and natural proximity to fresh ingredients like seafood, vegetables, spices and indigenous fruit…
The Chef, Vincent Denayer, comes to us direct from Belgium, and his creations rely heavily on selecting the finest ingredients that Phuket has to offer for quality and freshness.
His innovative use of ingredients, flavor, color and texture together with creative and thoughtful presentation give our guests a truly memorable dining experience. .
Our “a la carte” takes you on a journey of sensation through from South of France, Italy, Spain and Greece all the way to the Kingdom of Thailand. Address:
PARIS: Oil prices fell Friday to their lowest level in more than a year, as the slowing global economy led the International Energy Agency to cut its forecast for global demand.
The agency, based in Paris and known as the IEA, said it was cutting by 240,000 barrels a day its forecast for 2008 global oil demand. It now estimates daily demand this year of about 86.5 million barrels, meaning demand will increase only 0.5 percent from last year - the slowest growth in 15 years. The agency also cut its forecast for 2009 demand by 440,000 barrels a day, to 87.2 million barrels a day, which would represent an increase of 0.8 percent from the demand for this year.
U.S. light, sweet crude for November delivery fell $8.63 to settle at $77.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the lowest settlement price for a front-month crude contract since Sept. 10, 2007.
Prices for commodities soared in the first half of this year, with crude oil rising to a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11. But the financial crisis and the accelerating slowdown in the global economy have led prices sharply downward.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Thursday in Washington that the global economy was on the “cusp” of recession, and predicted that recovery would not begin to take hold until the second half of 2009.
Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at the Société Générale offices in London, said that the credit squeeze was pushing oil investors out of the market as asset managers fled stocks, bonds and commodities for the security of government bonds.
“Any time you think the risk aversion can’t get any worse, it does,” he said.
He said members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries were almost certain to announce output cuts next month at an extraordinary meeting of the cartel.
“The main producers don’t want to see the price back up at $130 a barrel or more, but prices are off more than $60 from the peak and they want to stop the bleeding,” Wittner said.
Abdullah al-Attiyah, the Qatari oil minister, told Al Arabiya television Friday that OPEC might discuss production cuts at the meeting.
The price of copper, an indicator of expectations for global growth, fell as much as 13 percent Friday in contracts for December delivery to its lowest level since early 2006, before recovering a bit. And the price of steel, which had long appeared impervious to the downturn in major economies, has also begun to drop.
Olivier Jakob, an oil analyst at Petromatrix in Zug, Switzerland, said in a research note that oil prices would be unlikely to stop falling until the rout in the stock market ended.
“Equities will remain the leading directional input to the oil markets,” he said.
Shaw Studios has competed its 1 million-square-foot Digital Imaging and Remastering Center at the studio’s Hong Kong compound.
The complex will house the relocated 30-person digital film remastering team, headed by director Wendy Nam, that recently finished the six-year restoration and remastering of 760 Shaw Brothers titles from the 1950s-’90s for Celestial Films, the biggest restoration project ever undertaken in Asia.
The titles included “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and “Justice My Foot,” starring Stephen Chow.
“Restoration and remastering is necessary not only for old films,” Nam said. “Newly shot film footage might sustain damages that have to be restored.”
The studio also performs digital archiving services for the preservation of whole film libraries.
Shaw Studios, this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of its establishment by Run Run Shaw, is handling the restoration of more than 300 1970s and ’80s titles from the Chinese-language film library of an undisclosed Hong Kong-based studio.
At Pusan to showcase its restoration services at the Busan International Film Commission and Industry Showcase, it is in negotiations with Japanese studios for the remastering of their film libraries, said Lloyd Chao, director of business development and marketing.
Restoration is significant for classic films’ commercial as well as cultural value, as seen from the efforts of the World Film Foundation, spearheaded by Martin Scorsese, an endeavor in which Shaw Studios said it hopes to participate.
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Film piracy cost the movie industry $670 million last year and is becoming a huge problem for the likes of Dreamworks (Public, NYSE:DWA), Universal Studios (Public, NYSE:GE) and Sony Picture (Public, NYSE:SNE).
MPAA chief Dan Glickman, speaking at the ShoWest convention of theater owners, says that piracy cost the movie industry about $6 billion worldwide in 2007, a figure unchanged for about the past four years. “We are getting more advanced in tracking the crime, and they are getting more advanced in committing it,” he says.
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John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theater Owners, says that film piracy - 90% of which occurs from videotaping inside a theater - “is a very sophisticated crime network. It began in North America, but as we began opening movies worldwide on the same date, it has moved to Russia, China, and Hong Kong. Wherever there’s a movie opening, there’s someone with a camcorder.”
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SINGAPORE — Disney’s animated feature “Bolt” will open the inaugural 3DX: 3D Film & Entertainment Technology Festival in Singapore on Nov. 19, two days before its U.S. bow, organizers said Wednesday.
Disney movie division president Mark Zoradi will kick off the festival with a presentation on 3-D and the studio’s upcoming slate. Disney has 10 3-D films scheduled for the next two years, including “Up,” “G-Force” and “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”
“This forum is a great opportunity to engage our partners and to explore the full potential of 3-D, which is really changing the way we look at films,” Zoradi said.
Produced by Los Angeles-based Chabin Partners and hosted by the Singapore government’s Media Development Authority, 3DX is the first event of its kind dedicated to stereoscopic 3-D. The program includes a business forum, screenings and international speaker sessions.
Speakers on tap for the five-day event include Fox Filmed Entertainment’s Jim Gianopulos, DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, James Cameron, MPAA boss Dan Glickman and The Hollywood Reporter publisher Eric Mika, who will present a THR Intelligence report on the outlook for 3-D deployment. The Reporter is a fest presenting partner.
“Bolt” is one of more than 10 3-D films tabbed to screen during the festival. Others include the world premiere of Richard Gabai’s family adventure tale “Call of the Wild 3D,” the regional debut of concert film “U2 3D,” the Brendan Fraser starrer “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and the animated adventure “Fly Me to the Moon.”
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The rescue package that is making its way through Congress includes tax breaks for shooting movies in the U.S.
By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:10 PM PDT, October 1, 2008
Hollywood would get a little unexpected boost from the proposed $700-billion bailout of the nation’s financial system.
The bill wending its way through Congress would provide tax breaks worth more than $470 million over the next decade for movie and TV producers that shoot in the U.S.
That’s not a lot of money, given that the average studio movie costs $106.6 million to make and market, but it could keep some low-budget productions — and jobs — from going offshore.
Hollywood has long sought measures to curb so-called runaway production, which it blames for causing thousands of job losses in Southern California as filmmakers have fled to Canada and other foreign countries that offer cost savings through tax breaks and other incentives.
One provision would provide film and TV producers with the same tax deductions that American manufacturers such as General Motors Corp., Boeing Co. and Xerox Corp. receive for making their products in the U.S.
Specifically, the legislation would allow filmmakers who shoot in the U.S. to qualify for a tax deduction granted in 2004 to domestic manufacturers that capped the top tax rate at 32% instead of 35%. Additionally, the tax package lifts the budget cap on the existing tax deduction, which was limited to movies that cost less than $15 million to make — in effect excluding most studio films, which cost a lot more.
Now producers would be able to immediately deduct all production costs up to $15 million, regardless of the movie’s total budget. The change also extends the existing credit, which was due to expire this year, to December 2009.
Representatives of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the Directors Guild of America and the Independent Film and Television Alliance, which backed the measures, said it was premature to comment because they had not been approved.
The provisions were part of a broad tax extension bill approved earlier by the Senate and then folded into the revised bailout legislation that it passed Wednesday.
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With breathtaking speed, the world of large Wall Street investment banks has vanished. Fabled firms, some more than a century old, have been merged out of existence (Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch), gone bankrupt (Lehman Brothers), or sought asylum as commercial bank holding companies (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley). Why on earth did this happen?
The death of Wall Street has been a long-running, slow-motion crisis, barely discernible to participants who had still booked huge profits in recent years. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of trading desks and the wizardry of esoteric finance lay the inescapable fact that these firms had shed their original reason for being: providing capital to U.S. business.
The dynastic power exercised by Wall Street tycoons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was premised on scarce capital. Only a handful of European countries and their private bankers had surplus capital to finance overseas development. In this cash-poor world, J. Pierpont Morgan and other grandees exerted godlike powers over U.S. railroads and manufacturers because they straddled the indispensable capital flows from Europe. With their top hats and thick cigars, these portly tycoons scarcely qualified as altruists. As Morgan liked to warn sentimental souls, “I am not in Wall Street for my health.” Yet he and his ilk rendered America an invaluable service by reassuring European investors that they would receive an adequate return on their investments, securing an uninterrupted flow of capital.
To safeguard those returns, old-line investment bankers became all-powerful overlords of their exclusive clients. When they issued company shares, they retained a large block for themselves. Some clients chafed at these gilded shackles, while others gloried in their servitude. As the head of the New Haven railroad, a Morgan client, boasted to reporters, “I wear the Morgan collar, but I am proud of it. If Mr. Morgan were to order me tomorrow to China or Siberia in his interests, I would pack up and go.”
In the sunless maze of Lower Manhattan, the old Wall Street houses were miniature temples of finance. Elite, all-male and lily-white, rife with snobbery and bigotry, they didn’t bother to hang a shingle outside, and the tacit message to pedestrians was clear: Keep on walking. This reflected the banks’ patented formula of serving only the most creditworthy clients: industrialized nations, blue-chip corporations and wealthy individuals.
In London, these small partnerships were called “issuing houses” because they issued stocks and bonds but didn’t trade or distribute them. In their risk-averse culture, J.P. Morgan and his breed considered the stock market a faintly vulgar place, better left to Jews and assorted ethnic groups outside the top ranks of investment houses. This bias would later give predominantly Jewish firms like Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs a marked competitive edge. Even in the 1920s, patrician Wall Street firms stayed somewhat aloof from the stock market mania.
Laws during the New Deal, mandating fuller disclosure of corporate accounting, eroded the Wall Street moguls’ power. The new transparency reduced the need of many companies for a banker’s imprimatur to certify their soundness. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which forced full-service banks to choose between commercial and investment banking, further shrank the investment houses’ influence.
After World War II, as capital markets revived, investment banks remained tiny partnerships with outsize power. Morgan Stanley demanded exclusive banking relations with the cream of corporate America: AT&T, General Motors, U.S. Steel, General Electric, DuPont, IBM and Standard Oil of New Jersey. The essence of the business was still the traditional underwriting of stocks and bonds. The era’s emblem was the solemn, rectangular “tombstone” ad in newspapers for share offerings, listing the dozens of firms involved, with Wall Street’s rulers in the top tier.
Underwriting bred a sociable culture of “relationship” banking in which a smooth golf swing, Ivy League credentials, glib patter over a martini and family connections counted for more than financial ingenuity. Firms didn’t advertise, and paid publicists to keep them out of the press. They disdained hostile takeovers, stock trading and other activities that might threaten their coveted underwriting business. And they enforced more rules of etiquette than a debutante’s ball. It was considered bad form to poach an employee or raid another firm’s client. Whatever their flaws, these elite firms still played a vital role in the economy, floating stocks and bonds to create new factories and businesses.
The old Wall Street began to die a lingering death in 1979 when IBM told Morgan Stanley that it wanted to have Salomon Brothers co-manage a $1 billion debt issue. Fearing that its stable of captive clients would likewise revolt, Morgan partners insisted on sole management of the issue. They were flabbergasted when IBM sent back word that Salomon Brothers would be lead manager for the issue.
What accounted for this startling shift? For the first time since the heyday of J.P. Morgan, traditional corporate clients had outgrown their bankers. With Europe and Japan devastated by World War II, U.S. companies had enjoyed unrivaled supremacy in world markets.
They had grown big enough to finance expansion from retained earnings and had many more borrowing options than before. Many had developed their own financial subsidiaries with triple-A credit ratings and scarcely needed Wall Street bankers to vouch for their solvency.
Trading firms like Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs were using their prowess to cultivate relations with powerful institutional investors like pension funds and insurance companies, eating into the profits of white-shoe houses. Underwriting deteriorated into a low-margin business as traders trumped blue-blooded bankers in the Darwinian struggle.
The demise of traditional underwriting would create in the coming decades a vacuum filled by a host of volatile, risky businesses. The cozy world of relationship banking yielded to the brutal world of “transactional” banking. Stock, commodity and derivatives trading, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts and prime brokerage for hedge funds required ever-larger balance sheets, forcing investment houses to become huge, publicly traded companies. Firms that once remained distant from the stock market were now its storm-tossed creatures, as investors demanded ever-higher profits amid cutthroat competition, forcing bankers to take risks that would have horrified their Wall Street ancestors.
Where the old Wall Street stuck to the most prestigious clients, the new Wall Street engaged in an unseemly rush to the bottom. Investment houses that once dealt only in grade-A bonds became swept up in junk bond mania in the 1980s. Firms that once snubbed companies beyond the Fortune 500 flocked to Silicon Valley in the 1990s, eager to take fly-by-night companies public. And, in the final reductio ad absurdum, Wall Street during the past decade gorged on mortgage-backed securities, tying its fate to America’s least creditworthy borrowers. Addicted to colossal amounts of leverage, the onetime arbiter of scarce capital had become the most profligate borrower.
The large investment banks that once allocated precious capital now exist in a world awash with money, crisscrossed by capital flows from many continents, with financial markets deep and liquid as never before. Once the current crisis is past, investment banking services will eventually flourish again inside diversified financial conglomerates. Stripped of excess leverage and more tightly supervised by regulators, investment bankers may even rediscover the old-fashioned virtues of corporate finance. And small boutique firms will continue to offer trusted advice as of old. But the storied investment houses of Wall Street, trailing their glorious past, have now earned tombstone ads of a very different sort.
Ron Chernow is the author of “The House of Morgan” and “Alexander Hamilton.”
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