Yard Sale: Tuesday, Dubai Municipal Building (Free Coffee!)

Returning briefly to the "Nothing to see here, please disperse..." theme, it seems that Dubai World is destined to throw some Sharpie-adorned, brown-cardboard placards up on the city's light fixtures and other signage to announce the pending garage sale.  Debt Wire brings us the news:

Dubai World, the Dubai government owned firm, may resort to selling some assets or stakes in affiliates to repay dues, reported Mubasher. The report quoted unspecified sources as quoted by a newswire as saying that such assets and affiliate companies are as follows:

• DP World, a stake of 2.7% from Std Chartered, which was bought by Dubai World in 2006 for USD 1 billion
• MGM Mirage, the casino operator.
• Barneys, the U.S. luxury retailer
• Perella Weinberg Partners LP
• Cirque du Soleil
• Turnberry golf course
• Queen Elizabeth 2
• Atlantis The Palm
• London Stock Exchange
• Emirates Airline
• Dubai Aluminum Company Limited
• HSBC Bank
• Deutsche Bank AG
• Sony Corp
• EADS
• Alliance Medical Limited, and;
• Emaar Properties

The Queen Elizabeth II Rusts Slowly In The Company Of A Crane Freighter.

Certainly the news will be cause for celebration by the Brits, who were beyond outraged (though no so much that it kept Cunard from pocketing $100 million or so of Dubai's money) to learn that the vessel which only saw real re-purposing once (and then in the noble cause of carrying members of the Fifth Infantry Brigade to the Falklands so they could kill Argentines) was first to be turned into a floating hotel and then, after the envisioned guests failed to materialize, dismantled for (gulp) parts.

Bidders will likely be lining up, and not just for Dubai's assets.  China, for example, might find much to like in the ripples of Dubai's distress:

Dubai's debt crisis could be China's opportunity to snap up gold and oil assets, a senior Chinese official said in remarks published on Monday.

[...]

Wu Nianlu, a professor at the central bank's graduate school, expressed concern about the safety of China's non-bond holdings.  "Strictly speaking, almost half of our country's foreign exchange reserve is not stable in value and is of high risk," Wu was quoted as saying by the same paper. (Emphasis ours).1

You might not have been looking for signs of a break in China's continuing (and apparently blind) United States Treasury purchasing habit (or another reason to buy some gold) in an article on Dubai's collapse, but, at least this week, all roads would seem to lead to Dubai.

1. 1. Lucy Hornby, "Dubai Woes Give China Chance To Buy Oil, Gold: Report," Reuters, November 29, 2009.