Hollywood and Bollywood screenwriters must beware. Their creativity stands no chance against the “cataclysmic” global financial crisis’ talent for script writing if Infosys BPO’s Anantha Radhakrishnan is to be believed.

In these “turbulent and tumultuous” times, the script being crafted by the crisis promises to “differentiate the men from the boys” in the business process outsourcing industry, with deep-pocketed firms expected to brace their way through the storm, according to Radhakrishnan, a vice president at the outsourcing firm.

But not before electric fluctuations in the currency market play their course, and bitter and desperate price battles are fought and won. Multi-stranded epics starring Amitabh Bachchan have to hang their heads in shame.

And all this amid heart-stopping uncertainty of the Hitchcockian variety.

“When you go to bed, you don’t know which is the next big guy on the block which is being taken into ICU or being salvaged or bailed out by the government,” Radhakrishnan said at the Reuters India Investment Summit. To hear his comment click here.

Click here to listen to some more comments from Radhakrishnan, who was one of the featured guests during the summit, held in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, India.

One would expect a top executive of the world’s largest software services provider to hang out with the latest gadgets. Sandip Patel, Managing Partner for IBM Global Business Services in South Asia, seems to be quite the contrarian.

He is antagonized by even the most common gadget to adorn executive pockets in these times.

“I haven’t yet succumbed to the Blackberry,” Patel confessed when asked what phone he carries. He spoke at the Reuters India Investment Summit.

He proudly pulled out a well-worn Nokia E90 and admitted he wasn’t much of a gadget guy and just liked a good solid phone.

The Bangalore-based executive disapproved of the intrusive nature of communication technology today and said the “propensity and reliance” on these contraptions was rather out of control in India. To hear Patel’s comments click here.

Patel was one of the featured guests during the summit, held in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, India.

As the global economic turmoil rages on and shows no sign of abating, Genpact Chief Executive Pramod Bhasin believes “wait and watch” is the flavour of the season for business process outsourcing firms.

The flavour seems bitter for now.

Over the past few years, BPO services firms armed with competitive, English-speaking professionals working for relatively cheap wages have cashed in on an outsourcing boom. But they are now experiencing a lull in growth as the U.S. economy faces one of the worst crises in history.

Amid such grim conditions, CEO Bhasin doesn’t care to track his company’s stock price. “I don’t even know what my own share price was yesterday, for instance, and I don’t normally look,” he said. To hear the comment click here.

Genpact shares have lost almost half their value this year. Not a pretty sight.

But there’s still some hope for Bhasin on the flavour front. He hopes the company’s Moroccan venture is a success, because Morocco is a “great place to eat.” To hear the comment click here.

Bhasin was one of the featured guests during the summit, held in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, India

It’s not just the global economic crisis that is weighing on Genpact Chief Executive Pramod Bhasin’s mind, but also several home-grown concerns.

Nothing works in India, Bhasin said, and rattled off a list of public utilities from water and power to security and transportation.

“Indian entrepreneurs are dragging us into the 21st century and our public services are dragging us back into the 18th century,” he said at the Reuters India Investment Summit. To listen to the comment, click here.

Bhasin wasn’t very appreciative of the Indian youth either.

A lot of young people today want to be capitalist when the returns are good and turn immediately socialist when their jobs are threatened, the head of India’s largest business process outsourcing firm said. To hear the comment, click here.

Wonder what he has to say about companies who are capitalist when the going is good but turn socialist when it comes to bailouts.

Bhasin was one of the featured guests during the summit, held in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, India.

U.S. companies who think they can command the prices of a
bygone era from Middle East investors need to think again, says
Zabeel Investment’s executive chairman.

Because of the hype surrounding sovereign wealth funds from
oil-rich Gulf Arab states, in particular, U.S. corporate players
seem to have visions of “oil wells with taps” when they see an
Arab investor, Mohammed Ali al-Hashimi said at the Reuters
Middle East Investment Summit.

Zabeel has stakes in Sony, planemaker EADS and bought
a Las Vegas-based nightclub and restaurant developer last February.

“They think that because I look the way I look and I wear
this thing here (traditional head cover), I’m going to pay them
a lot more than their company is worth. It doesn’t work that
way, we’re not stupid.

“Corporates in the U.S. haven’t woken up to reality I think.
They’re living in a dream world.

Reality is that rich Middle Eastern investors need to focus
closer to home and protect their own backyards amid the global
financial crisis.

“I think the priority is here, it’s our bread and butter,
the reason for our success. I’m not trying to be patriotic but
in times like this, that’s where people should be focused I
think.”

So tough luck, troubled U.S. firms. But don’t despair just
yet:

“I still think opportunities in the U.S. are there and I’m
interested but until people get their heads out of the clouds
and become realistic, we’ll wait,” the Zabeel executive added.

The Reuters Middle East Investment Summit kicks off on Monday 3 November. With the world facing its worst economic downturn since the 1930s, the summit is set to provide a view from the world’s largest oil producing nation. Events organisation is never easy and in such turbulent times, the region is proving just as difficult. Five speaker cancellations just 12 hours before the summit highlighted just how diifficult keeping appointments is in the region. Emergency board meetings, sudden trips overseas or in one case “yes we confirm in the morning” to “we are not sure by lunch time” to “no, no the chairman has other engagements by the evening.” Anybody doing business in the region is acutely aware that appointments are never rigid, but when the world needs stability and not chaos it might be time to keep to those appointments to reassure the investment community. As one public relations executive noted “As they say in these parts In Sha’ Allah (God Willing) next time.”

Talk in western Europe of possibly nationalising private banks to save them from the credit crisis is sending shivers down the spine of policymakers in ex-communist central Europe.

They remember how their government controlled financial systems completely collapsed in the 1990s and threatened to take the countries’ economies along with them due to pouring money into firms with little prospect of returning it.

“There are very strong attempts to nationalise banks, which, in my opinion, is a very short sighted approach,” Slovak central bank Vice-Governor Martin Barto told the Reuters Central European Investment Summit in Vienna this week.

He pointed to what he said was “very extensive experience with state owned banks” in Slovakia.

The Slovaks bought non-performing assets from state-controlled banks for over 100 billion Slovak crowns ($4.13 billion), or roughly around 12 percent of GDP, prior to their sale to western investors early this decade.

Polish Deputy Finance Minister was also unimpressed when asked about government ownership. “This is a very delicate issue particularly for countries in our region because 20 years ago banks were not private but public,” she said at the summit.

The central Europeans may shrug off the notion of nationalisation at least for now. Their banks, after being cleaned up and sold, have fed on domestic financial services growth in the past decade and have largely avoided the scraping for profit that forced western banks invest into highly leveraged assets that have turned sour.

But some analysts say attitudes may change fast if another bout of the crisis hurricane sweeps though their markets.

The other measure under fire is guarantees on deposits, both private and on the interbank market. Central Europeans have frowned upon deposit guarantee hikes in some countries as infringing competition. Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek has opined that European politicians were “going crazy”.

Hungary central bank Deputy Governor Ferenc Karvalits said the European actions to aid euro area markets “have some unintended consequences by creating an uneven playing field for financial institutions in non euro-zone members states”.

First, the ECB’s instruments are not available to non-euro banks and at the same time they thin money markets that those banks need to finance.

Also, guarantees on interbank deposits cut off those not covered from borrowing. And non-euro zone assets cannot be used as collateral in ECB operations, which leads to banks dumping them.

There’s no shortage of commentators lining up to opine on how much the troubled hedge fund industry is likely to shrink as the credit crisis unfolds.

So when someone talks about the industry being in “meltdown”, it is good to see they are backing up their dramatic views with some dramatic actions.

Enrique Marazuela, chief investment officer of Spain’s BBVA Patrimonios, says his clients have slashed exposure by more than two-thirds over the past year because the returns and risks are simply not what they were expecting.

On Monday Union Bancaire Privee (UBP) said it has taken down exposure to 20-25 percent from 30 percent at the end of last year.

Again, it says returns - running almost into double digits losses so far this year for the industry - have been disappointing.

Wealthy clients were the foundation on which much of the $2.6 trillion hedge fund industry’s early growth has been based.

UBP says the industry could shrink by one-third over the coming quarters as investors withdraw assets.

But if other wealthy clients are doing what BBVA is, then the shrinkage could be much more dramatic.

 Lim Boh Soon, chief executive officer of Kuwait Finance House in Singapore said at the Reuters Wealth Management Summit that he sees the period of downturn in the global economy lasting 18-24 months.

However, he thinks the market sell-off over the past two weeks has thrown up good value and said the Middle Eastern bank will look to raise up to $600 million for three Asia-focused funds next year.  Kuwait Finance House is the Gulf third-largest lender.

What do you make of Lim’s assessment on the global economy? Do you think it is a good idea to start buying into the market?

Click here and hear to listen on Lim’s assessment of the global economy.

The credit crisis may be hitting the man on the street hard, but spending by the “other half” on the latest super yacht or Damien Hirst work of art looks set to carry on relatively unaffected.

Super-wealthy individuals in commodity-rich areas such as Russia and the Middle East are reaping the benefits of a five-year boom in oil and other commodity prices.

Even though oil and commodity prices are now coming off sharply, the boom is still feeding through into their spending power, provided they haven’t done anything too risky with their cash in the meantime.

And it’s happening just when everyone else is cutting back on non-essentials.

“It’s like philosophy,” explains ING’s Deputy CEO of Private Banking Bernard Coucke.

“Philosophy always comes after a century of economic prosperity, never before. Spending always comes after prosperity, never before.”