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UK Economy "Boomerang'd" As Russians Shun $719 Bottles Of Cristal

Tyler Durden's picture




 

The UK had feared whiplash from sanctions on Russian oligarchs but this 'boomerang' is too much to bear... As Bloomberg reports, “We’re seeing a lot less Russian surnames on the booking sheet," at London's Mahiki, a Polynesian-themed nightclub in upmarket Mayfair where a bottle of Cristal Champagne goes for $719 - and Russian customers are being supplanted by revelers from countries including China and Nigeria. “The Russian market was like a Champagne fountain,” notes on ereveler, "The money was coming into the top and flowing down..." but not so much anymore...

 

As Bloomberg reports, to gauge London’s place in the global economy, you could examine World Bank statistics, canvass investors and analyze trade volumes. Or you could visit Mahiki, a Polynesian-themed nightclub in upmarket Mayfair where a bottle of Cristal Champagne goes for $719 -- and Russian customers are being supplanted by revelers from countries including China and Nigeria.

“We’re seeing a lot less Russian surnames on the booking sheet,” said Michael Evans, the creative director of the club, where the likes of Rihanna and Prince Harry have been spotted after dark. “It’s very easy to see what’s going on in the world from the markets we attract.”

In another sign of the slowdown, retail spending by Russian visitors to the U.K. between January and May declined 22 percent from a year earlier, according to Global Blue, which runs tax-rebate services. Chinese spending climbed 8 percent in the same period.

It all changed when the sanctions hit...

A few years ago, Russians’ orders for customized Ferraris or Lamborghinis “with your own leather, gilt-edged instrument dials, personalized with your initials, with tailor-made Louis Vuitton (MC) luggage” to match, were a mainstay for dealers, said Simon Empson, managing director of London luxury car broker Broadspeed Ltd.

One customer spent 150,000 pounds customizing a 70,000-pound Range Rover. Another was sent an order form for options on a BMW.

“He faxed it back blank except for writing ‘Give me everything,’” with an American Express number appended below, Empson said. “The sanctions have ended that business”

And while non-Chinese are stepping in to fill the void... there's still a gap...

Even in large numbers, Londoners shouldn’t expect new arrivals from China to fully assume the role that wealthy Russians have held in the city’s economy, cautions Peter Wetherell, CEO of real-estate agency Wetherell. For the most part, he said, they aren’t spending enough to become players in storied districts like Kensington and Knightsbridge, choosing instead to stick to less-prestigious zones on the fringes of the central city.

*  *  *

So UK pops its Champagne bubble as China pops the US real estate bubble.

 

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Fri, 07/11/2014 - 17:54 | 4948470 kliguy38
kliguy38's picture

shove it up their asses......best place for that swill

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:06 | 4948502 COSMOS
COSMOS's picture

The women are better in Russia anyways !!!

Besides The Vodka and Caviar are much better combo back home in Crimea.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:13 | 4948514 max2205
max2205's picture

Wait till they sell their real estate

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:15 | 4948518 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

You mean is we piss them off and talk bad about them publicly, they won't give us their money?  Who knew?

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:20 | 4948527 Atlas_shrugging
Atlas_shrugging's picture

Wow I never realized how lucrative those Nigerian email scams were.  

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:29 | 4948548 knukles
knukles's picture

I uh....   these... uh....  .... ..sanctions..  ..that, uh, we plan to impose with our .. mmm .... allies in the uh   war on ah....  incursions into sovereign territories of our .. uh... friends and neighbors... will.. uh not be accepted by ...ummm... and will prove to be highly... uh... debilitating to those people who we would hope to call friends, the uh... regular man ... in ..uh..   Russia, uh,  Russia, who otherwise would... uh... be in London buying a ... gifts for his um... coke and hookers.. and uh....  Thank you and I'll take questions some other time, if uh... our allies support us in the imposition of their sanctions upon themselves for their own good..

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 22:15 | 4949124 logicalman
logicalman's picture

You should go into politics.

Just take lots of Gravol.

 

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 00:21 | 4949323 Son of Loki
Son of Loki's picture

Atlas:

<< Wow I never realized how lucrative those Nigerian email scams were.>>

Atlas, you need to visit parts of Houston where title companies cannot close fast enough to keep up with Nigerian 'kids' buying houses for their parents. I went with my nephew to close on his house and the closing agent said they are not allowed to ask questions where the money comes from back home in Africa, but she said the Nigerian parents wire in a few million to their 'kids in college' there in Houston and the kid then buys two three houses. I suspect much of it is siphoned off from the billions in foreign aid poured into those African countries ... oir maybe as you say, the email scams. Who knows?

In any case, it's a sight to see! I can better understand now why the Merikan Middle Class is locked out of the housing market in one more way.

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 09:21 | 4949683 Sandmann
Sandmann's picture

It is hard not to admire Nigerian business acumen, the Delta pirates and the kidnapping - they are going to invigorate Texas just as they have the UK. Amy Chua's book "World on Fire" sort of set out the roadmap for this, but it is what the voters wanted and still want each time they are asked

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:30 | 4948553 The Alarmist
The Alarmist's picture

The word for "Real Estate" in many languages almost literally translates back to English as "immovable."  Once they've figured out that "Safe Havens" aren't so safe after all, the flow will turn to a trickle.  When they try to get their money out, they'll learn that London and New York are kind of like Roach Hotels.  And once the Rule of Law is finally vanquished, the former Marxists will learn what it means for an Emigre or foreigner to be expropriated. 

Ever wondered how all those overseas fiat units being were going to be cancelled?  You're getting a front-row seat to the show.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 20:49 | 4948924 stacking12321
stacking12321's picture

i just noticed that myself last year, i was in chinon, in france, and there was a furniture store next to a real estate broker.

the furniture store sold "mobiles", and the real estate broker sold "immobiles".

i don't speak french but i know it's pretty much the same in russian and spanish.

 

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 22:21 | 4949138 logicalman
logicalman's picture

You don't own 'real estate', it owns you.

If you decide to move to another location you can't until you've off-loaded the 'asset' and paid some arrogant real estate person way more than they deserve for the privelage.

If you rent, you can just say fuck it, I'm off - costs you a month's rent. Whoop dee fucking doo.

 

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:33 | 4948554 Handful of Dust
Handful of Dust's picture

Red Hot laundering market there in The City, yes. You wonder; how many peasants back in Nigeria, China, Russia, etc even have a clue how much money their politicians spend of their money.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:40 | 4948581 Platinum
Platinum's picture

Anus Laptops are in high demand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeuPI_NTdHc

 

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:48 | 4948599 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Global sanctions boost GDP. 2+2=5

/LOL

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 01:43 | 4949385 bombdog
bombdog's picture

No it was the drugs and prostitution stupid!

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:21 | 4948526 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

No red beets left behind.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 17:53 | 4948474 The Onion Of Tw...
The Onion Of Twickenham's picture

Yeah, and maybe some of the Russians are waking up to how the English are laughing up their sleeves at their gauche, noveau-riche loadsamoney puerility. Doesn't stop us taking their money, of course.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:04 | 4948500 NOTaREALmerican
NOTaREALmerican's picture

Survival of the fittest, BITCHEZZZZ!!!!

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:10 | 4948509 Incubus
Incubus's picture

How do I get into that market?  Selling bottles of piss for 700?

 

It's all about status, I know.  I just need to convince some high profile people to drink some $700 piss.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 22:18 | 4949128 logicalman
logicalman's picture

You need to come up with a religion.

I'm sure your piss would go for much more than $700 if you could get that one to work.

 

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 01:59 | 4949397 Maxter
Maxter's picture

just print your avatar ass on the bottle

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:13 | 4948513 disabledvet
disabledvet's picture

"When things get real you have to celebrate war."

We'll see what the next leg down in real estate looks like in the USA. The bubble burst a long time ago though.

How does the dollar moving higher last year make US real estate less valuable again?

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:29 | 4948547 Atomizer
Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:17 | 4948522 Atomizer
Atomizer's picture

Kenyan colored shocked!

/sarc

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:27 | 4948541 world_debt_slave
world_debt_slave's picture

cry in your cristal

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:38 | 4948573 Bankster Kibble
Bankster Kibble's picture

I guess we showed Putin what's what.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 19:31 | 4948720 BlindMonkey
BlindMonkey's picture

I don't think Putin's fists can take much more of the damage from repeatedly hitting Barry in the nose.  

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 20:17 | 4948827 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

Russians and Werewolves hang out in the same places in London...

Good thing Barry didn't sanction werewolves.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 22:47 | 4949194 Jack Burton
Jack Burton's picture

I used to see long lines at Heathrow of well dressed Russians and very pretty women with many shopping bags and cases checking in for home flight to Moscow. I am old enough to remember you never sw anything like this in Soviet times. Free markets may be benefiting the minority, but they sure are living it up. Reminds me in a way of 80's international travel when I was a kid, then it was Japanese tourists spending money like mad. At New Zealand's Aukland international terminal there were special stores for Japanese to shop before flying home, goods aimed at Jap tourists, priced to the moon and Jap speaking clearks. Those days are history.

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 05:10 | 4949542 Aussiekiwi
Aussiekiwi's picture

yes, hard to get a NZ house in your hand luggage

Sun, 07/13/2014 - 18:31 | 4950221 Money Squid
Money Squid's picture

when I visit a large, high-end shopping area in the US (all of the most expensive lavish designer names) I see 80% Chinese nationals buying up everything in sight. Not to mention the Chinese nationals working for the stores to sell the merchandise. Few americans working or buying. The shopping area is in the middle of an all white upper class area.

Sat, 07/12/2014 - 22:48 | 4951440 August
August's picture

>>>goods aimed at Jap tourists, priced to the moon and Jap speaking clearks.

The sales staff at NZ luxury retailers, and for that matter at every new car dealership, now includes at least one Mandarin-speaker.

I'd guess the Japanes-speakers aren't around anymore, except at the airport.

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