Gone in 60 seconds....

It takes just over 60 seconds for the lift in the Burj Khalifa to travel from the ground level to the observation deck on the 124th floor.  The music played in the lift is copyright so I've overdubbed it with a track from a local singer, Hamri Al Arbi, who is happy to have his music heard.

Easy come, easy go: Abdullahs sell tower to pay back Damas debt

Source: The National 20 January 2010
Photo: Khan Tours website
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The Abdullah family has sold one of its twin high-rise towers on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai to raise money to pay back part of the US$165 million (Dh606m) it owes shareholders of the jewellery giant Damas International for "unauthorised" investments.
The sale of the tower, to a private investor, marks the first efforts by family members to meet their debt payment schedule, which requires them to pay Dh200m by April this year. The unauthorised investments were made with company money.
The two 49-storey buildings were known as Angsana Hotel and Suites until late last year, when Damas Hotels cancelled its contract with Banyan Tree Hotel and Resorts. Banyan Tree said in a statement at the time that the building would be "converted to residential use" and sold.
Yesterday, a temporary sign hung outside one of the buildings, proclaiming the new name "Emirates Grand Hotel".
Staff in the building said the tower had been sold to an Emirati investor for an undisclosed sum in October last year and would reopen next month with Iberotel, a German hotel company, as the operator.
The second tower is still for sale.
"We just signed a contract last week," said Alaa Hanna, a sales director at the Iberotel Miramar Al Aqah Beach Resort in Fujairah. "It previously belonged to Damas International but it was sold because of all these problems."
Construction on the two towers started in 2004. The tower that became the suites section of the hotel was opened last year, while the second building, with 364 hotel rooms, did not open despite being scheduled for completion late last year.  A spokesman declined to comment yesterday but a source close to the company said this week that the family had begun liquidating assets to meet its obligations. The brothers have recently been promoting the sale of their largest yacht to raise more cash.
Prices of residential property in Dubai have fallen by more than 50 per cent since their peak in 2008, which could be an obstacle to liquidating the investments the family made with the proceeds from the Damas International
public share offering in 2008. Almost 70 per cent of the transactions were investments in the property sector, with about 90 per cent of those in the UAE.
Blair Hagkull, the head of the regional office for the property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, said yesterday the sale was among the only major transactions in Dubai in recent months.
"We are seeing a situation where cash-rich organisations are finding attractive deals in this market," Mr Hagkull said. "The market has been quiet, but there are many purchasers and potential investors that are waiting in the wings for the prices to get to the right levels."
The Abdullahs face the risk of losing control of their 103-year-old family jewellery business. The brothers signed an agreement on November 4 to pay back the amount of the unauthorised transactions within 18 months.
They have also pledged to return 350 million of their 515 million shares if they fail to pay Dh200m within six months, Dh400m within 12 months and the full amount within 18 months.  If they were to default on these payments back to Damas International  and the shares were taken back by the company, their holding in the firm would fall to 16 per cent, from 51 per cent.

They call me Khalifa.

The Burj Dubai Khalifa opened last night with a light and firework display that was spectacular even by Dubai's standards.  While that was expected, what was unexpected, except to insiders, was the surprise announcement of a change of name for the tower.  No longer Burj Dubai, its now 'Burj Khalifa' after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi.  The implications of the rename would not be lost on UAE residents.  Here's another view of the rename from the Chicago Tribune:
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The Burj Dubai-Burj Khalifa name change: Better change those T-shirts and caps in the gift shop--and a whole lot more.
The stunning name change of the world's tallest building from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa, announced last night at the tower's opening, is going to upset a lot of applecarts--and is likely to wind up costing a lot of people a lot of money.
Consider:
--T-shirts and caps for sale in the skyscraper's observatory, called "At The Top," and in its gift shop in the adjoining Dubai Mall are emblazoned with the words "At The Top/Burj Dubai." They're now outmoded--on the first day that the observatory is opening to the public.
--The district in which the skyscraper is located is called "Downtown Burj Dubai." It is identified as such on road signs and maps. "Downtown Burj Dubai" presumably will now become "Downtown Burj Khalifa."
--The tower's backers reportedly just spent $2 million on Burj Dubai uniforms for security and hotel personnel. How much will it cost to change the uniforms? Or might it be easier to put patches on the uniforms that cover up "Burj Dubai" and say "Burj Khalifa" instead?
Dubai's leaders must have known that problems like this were coming when they agreed to the name change, which recognizes the Abu Dhabi leader who bailed them out of their debt crisis. It appears that they were so desperate that they had no choice.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Photo: Maureen Davies