Global takes a big loss

The seemingly-always-in-trouble Global Investment House of Kuwait booked some enormous losses in the fourth quarter of last year: over $1bn. A big ouch for Global, but hardly unexpected given the headwinds the company hit last year when it failed to make a scheduled payment on a mere $200mn loan. Cross-defaults started cascading down, and a committee was set up to negotiate a restructuring of Global's debt.

All we know from Global thus far is that it made money on its asset management business and its fee-based operations last year despite the big loss, and that the management team plans to focus in the future on the areas where it can make money (hardly a surprising strategy). Thing is, we don't know much more. One analyst I talked to said Global's a hard-to-understand beast right now because it really hasn't been forthcoming about the nature and extent of its difficulties. All you can do is sit back and read the headlines, he said.