Dubai goes bust

• Dubai World's restructuring and "debt standstill" on $22bn debt, including $4bn due Dec 14th. (definition: Mechanism by which a country agrees to cease payments on its debts until a restructuring agreement has been negotiated with its creditors) sends markets into turmoil: little information plus low volumes due to holidays compounded the situation.
• Dubai World: one of the emirate's biggest and best known companies
• Nakheel: most trouble subsidiary - asked to extend maturity from Dec to May 2010
• Investors feel misled about implicit state guarantee; typical of the way things work: top-down and in a vacuum
• Perspective: put 40bn in context of 1,000bn of toxic assets in the US and Europe
• 2nd order effect: preparing for a fire sale of prime property in London and NYC