Entry Charges

Due to not being able to collect all "consommation" at the, KwL is now charging a fixed entry at the door.

Entry charges: $7 or LL 600,000 which entitles you to a free drink of your choice.
(Please bring a $10 note with you. There will be change.

Labyrinthe: If your want to attend in person, register using the first button.
Or . . .
Zoom: If you cannot attend in person, register for the zoom meeting using the sec​ond button

The Talk

‘Haircut’. ‘Eurobonds’. ‘Restructuring’. Some of the many terms that are bandied about daily in the local and international media, and even at the humble barber’s, in a nation desperate to hear that sooner or later its money-in-the-bank will be returned into its deserving and grateful hands. 

How did we get into this mess? Oussama’s talk will begin by describing how deposits at the local banks were used principally to extend loans to the Lebanese Republic and the Banque du Liban. These two entities were initially able to pay high rates of interest on these loans, before becoming overwhelmed by the cost in late 2019 and declaring their inability to continue making payments. 

In turn this resulted in the collapse of the banking system and the realization of an aggregate loss estimated to be close to $80 Billion, or many multiples of the total capital of the entire system. A question that arises is what were the regulators doing all this time?

The talk will conclude with Oussama’s best sense of what can be done at this stage, and what depositors should reasonably be expecting once the dust settles.

Oussama has two short articles he would like you to read before the talk:

Click Here for “What should Lebanon’s Eurobonds be Worth”
Click Here for “The Consequences of a Sovereign Restructuring”

Oussama A. Nasr has worked for 39 years as a lawyer, banker, financial trainer and consultant in New York City and Beirut. He began his career at a large corporate law firm in New York City, then joined an investment bank, before establishing his finance consultancy 28 years ago with a small number of close colleagues.

Of particular relevance to his proposed talk, Oussama has worked on the sovereign debt rescheduling of Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador’s debt, as lawyer and banker successively, in addition to analyzing and evaluating insolvent bank restructurings in a variety of countries across the world. He brings to the task his financial and legal backgrounds to a determination of what is feasible for Lebanon and what is merely fantastical.   Oussama holds BA and MA degrees from the University of Cambridge in Mathematics and Philosophy and a Juris Doctor degree from Cornell Law School.