Tower Semiconductors is a chip foundry in Migdal Ha Emek, with 1300 employees, owned by the Ofer Brothers and somehow connected to Vishay. Produces silicon wafer chips according to the customer's design. In the books, the company can be considered bankrupt, owing some 500 million dollars to banks and having had 170 and 250 million dollar losses in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Its shareprice is down from 40$ in 2001 to 1.4 $ today. A little known investment house in Tel Aviv called my attention to Tower (TSEM) saying that the company is in a classic turnaround situation, so I bought about 5,000 $ shares in TASE to see how it behaves.
It did not crash, which is commendable. On the contrary, it is showing signs of stability and growing confidence. The Friday paper had a full page of ad of Tower looking for hiring new people. An interview in Electronics Weekly, Rafi Nave the COT explained what Tower is selling and it seemed reasonable. The startup cost of new chip producing factories (Fabs) is going up and Motorola for example decided to outsource 50% of its requirements. There are fabless consumer product assemblers, who make 100% of their chips in foundries. The ultimate consumer of their chips is a 13 year old girl who buys the latest gadget like iPOD or digital camera. The foundry allows the maker of the new gadget to bring it out to the market in no time and cheaper. The foundry business is growing twice rate of the semiconductor business.
Tower has two fabs, one is working at full capacity and the second expanding. They have new clients and orders. Sales are growing 10% to some 30 million dollar per year. The stock exchange valuation of Tower is a minuscule 100 million dollar.
In my view, to become viable, the company has to earn 50 million $/year just to pay the interest and the capital, and at least an additional 10 million $/y as dividend to the owners to compensate for the risk they are assuming. That is the double of current overall income.
Is Tower an investment opportunity? According to the books, it is not. No responsible analyst is advising to buy TSEM. On the adventure side, Allah Who Akhbar, Elohim Gadol, Tower presents a cheap and almost riskless entrance to the exploding foundry business.
Is there any doubt I am going to jump in ?
Monday, March 20, 2006
Saturday, March 18, 2006
The Case of the Chicken Coop near the Well
Israel has very strict laws for the protection of its scarce drinking water resources and the Ministry of Health has established large protective areas around boreholes to avoid contaminating them. Within these circles, all potentially polluting activities are forbidden.
A year ago I was approached by phone by a Mr Fazoola (pronounced with French accent on the last syllabe) and asked for help to get a permit for a chicken coop in a moshav. I have never heard before about Mr Fazoola but it appeared that he was some kind of political macher with a funny French accent. I understood he owed a favor to a moshavnik that wanted to expand his modest chicken growing business, and he could not understand why those unfeeling bureaucrats would not approve the permit submitted originally six years ago, and were totally unapproachable and unreasonable - the whole moshav is based on chicken farming and has been from its foundation inthe fifties. Maybe you can present our case, design the required protective structures and and get the permit?
Fazoola may have heard that I am an old fat idiot who works for nothing, or maybe he recognized this fact during our first phone conversation. Things being as they are, I accepted the mission impossible. After checking the master map of hydrological restrictions, it became clear that the moshav sits on a major drinking well and it is within the strictest defensive area ("Radius Magen B"). I called Fazoola and explained to him that it was very difficult or impossible to get a permit. Chicken waste is chock-full of soluble nitrates and nitrites which are contaminating water. No way.
Fazoola told me he was desperate, people has to make a living, only public employees have a salary paid on time by the Government but the rest of us has to work for a living, and pointed out that the chicken business was very profitable, and the farmer was ready to invest in any protective infrastructure required, including a pretreatment plant. You are a good wastewater engineer, if not you, no one do anything. Go and find a way to avoid contamination of the well that will satisfy those public health people. And forget about the cost.
Having heard that magic words, as every other engineer invited to design a structure with money not being a criterion, I quickly designed two alternative projects: one was a concrete platform with a rised edge (a basin, in fact) that was sitting on columns. The basin was to be 40 cm over the soil and all possible effluent channeled to a settling tank and then a pretreatment facility and then discharged to the regional sewage network. The other design was a geotextile lined reservoir, filled with impermeable clay, with a complex drainage system and a pretreatment plant. All the area around the chicken facility was to be asphalted and drained into the pretreatment plant. Not a drop was to reach the well.
I submitted a letter to the Ministry of Public Health with my preliminary designs and asked for an opinion. Six month and nothing. I asked if they are going to answer it? and all I could extract from the Regional Chief (Chiefess? Chiefatrix?) that they have received my submission and are studying it. I pushed two or three times more, and informed Fazoola that in my opinion, the Ministry does not want to define what is permissible and what not and has no interest in specifying its demands. They love obscurity which allows them total freedom to demand what they want.
I decided to advance a different argument. I asked Fasoola to document that the farmer had been and is a chicken producer since 1950 something, and all his neighbors are too, and that existing infrastructure had been erected thanks to Ministry of Agriculture loans and technical assistance, and so on. Also the Chicken Producers Cooperative should certify that the man was an old member, with a legal "michsa" (a legacy from Israel's socialist central planning regime, still surviving in agriculture, where each farmer has a permit for producing a certain quantity of eggs, milk, etc. that the Government buys at a subsidized price). Fazoola, I said, flood them with papyrus scrolls, with impressive-looking documents, that may work. Find old documents from the Ministry of Public Health about the moshav, inspections carried out in the past, showing they have permanent contact with the chicken business on the place and the pollution question was always ignored or adequately answered.
Last week, the Regional Bossit (female form of the Hebrew slang Boss) phoned me to meet me at the farm. I have never been there, so I asked Fazoola for directions. I arrived half an hour early and agreed with the farmer about the design that we would prefer. I donned a white surgical suit and mask to actually see the chickens (we have the bird flu in Israel) object of the whole exercise. The tiny yellow things were crowded under infrarred lamps, defecating freely and abundantly on the floor, clearly uninterested in the water contamination problem they may be creating.
The Bossit arrived and we talked about fruit trees, about the Kashrut requirements for chickens, about the Satmer Hassidim (the farm produces ultra super kosher chicken for the ultra-ortodox community) and drunk tea and ate very good Hungarian home-made ozney haman (it is Purim, the Jewish carnaval) and she rised and said good bye. I was disoriented, but the farmer seemed contented. I run out and catched her already in her car. Do you want me to submit detailed engineering design drawings? No need, I do grant the permit. Bye.
But what about me? (in my fantasies, I have looked forward to designing a science-fiction waste pretreatment plant, levitating in the air...). I must have been comical, because the farmer took me gently inside. Dont worry. It is all right.
And once more, it was demonstrated that I am an idiot and effortlessly cheated of my salary. I had been manipulated by Fazoola to get them the difficult permit without ever signing a contract, without ever receiving a down payment, without a written order, without ever - even verbally - mentioning a price for my work.
Oh boy, do I need a partner!
A year ago I was approached by phone by a Mr Fazoola (pronounced with French accent on the last syllabe) and asked for help to get a permit for a chicken coop in a moshav. I have never heard before about Mr Fazoola but it appeared that he was some kind of political macher with a funny French accent. I understood he owed a favor to a moshavnik that wanted to expand his modest chicken growing business, and he could not understand why those unfeeling bureaucrats would not approve the permit submitted originally six years ago, and were totally unapproachable and unreasonable - the whole moshav is based on chicken farming and has been from its foundation inthe fifties. Maybe you can present our case, design the required protective structures and and get the permit?
Fazoola may have heard that I am an old fat idiot who works for nothing, or maybe he recognized this fact during our first phone conversation. Things being as they are, I accepted the mission impossible. After checking the master map of hydrological restrictions, it became clear that the moshav sits on a major drinking well and it is within the strictest defensive area ("Radius Magen B"). I called Fazoola and explained to him that it was very difficult or impossible to get a permit. Chicken waste is chock-full of soluble nitrates and nitrites which are contaminating water. No way.
Fazoola told me he was desperate, people has to make a living, only public employees have a salary paid on time by the Government but the rest of us has to work for a living, and pointed out that the chicken business was very profitable, and the farmer was ready to invest in any protective infrastructure required, including a pretreatment plant. You are a good wastewater engineer, if not you, no one do anything. Go and find a way to avoid contamination of the well that will satisfy those public health people. And forget about the cost.
Having heard that magic words, as every other engineer invited to design a structure with money not being a criterion, I quickly designed two alternative projects: one was a concrete platform with a rised edge (a basin, in fact) that was sitting on columns. The basin was to be 40 cm over the soil and all possible effluent channeled to a settling tank and then a pretreatment facility and then discharged to the regional sewage network. The other design was a geotextile lined reservoir, filled with impermeable clay, with a complex drainage system and a pretreatment plant. All the area around the chicken facility was to be asphalted and drained into the pretreatment plant. Not a drop was to reach the well.
I submitted a letter to the Ministry of Public Health with my preliminary designs and asked for an opinion. Six month and nothing. I asked if they are going to answer it? and all I could extract from the Regional Chief (Chiefess? Chiefatrix?) that they have received my submission and are studying it. I pushed two or three times more, and informed Fazoola that in my opinion, the Ministry does not want to define what is permissible and what not and has no interest in specifying its demands. They love obscurity which allows them total freedom to demand what they want.
I decided to advance a different argument. I asked Fasoola to document that the farmer had been and is a chicken producer since 1950 something, and all his neighbors are too, and that existing infrastructure had been erected thanks to Ministry of Agriculture loans and technical assistance, and so on. Also the Chicken Producers Cooperative should certify that the man was an old member, with a legal "michsa" (a legacy from Israel's socialist central planning regime, still surviving in agriculture, where each farmer has a permit for producing a certain quantity of eggs, milk, etc. that the Government buys at a subsidized price). Fazoola, I said, flood them with papyrus scrolls, with impressive-looking documents, that may work. Find old documents from the Ministry of Public Health about the moshav, inspections carried out in the past, showing they have permanent contact with the chicken business on the place and the pollution question was always ignored or adequately answered.
Last week, the Regional Bossit (female form of the Hebrew slang Boss) phoned me to meet me at the farm. I have never been there, so I asked Fazoola for directions. I arrived half an hour early and agreed with the farmer about the design that we would prefer. I donned a white surgical suit and mask to actually see the chickens (we have the bird flu in Israel) object of the whole exercise. The tiny yellow things were crowded under infrarred lamps, defecating freely and abundantly on the floor, clearly uninterested in the water contamination problem they may be creating.
The Bossit arrived and we talked about fruit trees, about the Kashrut requirements for chickens, about the Satmer Hassidim (the farm produces ultra super kosher chicken for the ultra-ortodox community) and drunk tea and ate very good Hungarian home-made ozney haman (it is Purim, the Jewish carnaval) and she rised and said good bye. I was disoriented, but the farmer seemed contented. I run out and catched her already in her car. Do you want me to submit detailed engineering design drawings? No need, I do grant the permit. Bye.
But what about me? (in my fantasies, I have looked forward to designing a science-fiction waste pretreatment plant, levitating in the air...). I must have been comical, because the farmer took me gently inside. Dont worry. It is all right.
And once more, it was demonstrated that I am an idiot and effortlessly cheated of my salary. I had been manipulated by Fazoola to get them the difficult permit without ever signing a contract, without ever receiving a down payment, without a written order, without ever - even verbally - mentioning a price for my work.
Oh boy, do I need a partner!
Friday, March 17, 2006
The Potash Investment
I have shares of ICL Israel Chemical Industries, locally known as "Kimikalim". The company is a large producer and exporter of potash and phosphorus fertilizers, and is trying to diversify into foo grade phosphorus products. The source is the Dead Sea, which evaporated in large shallow ponds, produces the mineral. They also exploit phosphor rich deposits of ancient marine animals. There is a large factory near the Dead Sea, at Mishor Rotem and Nahal Zinn, owned by the Ofer Brothers (Hevra Le Israel). The main clients are large agricultural countries such as India, China, Brasil.
Kimikalim was my first venture into stocks from mutual funds. I started five years ago, when doing my report on industrial water reuse, and visited the factory in the Biblical desert of Zinn. It is really a forbidding wasteland, dry and menacing. The chief engineer received me in an air conditioned prefab office, as a long lost friend and college and explained their big expansion plans based on their unlimited raw material and much unsatisfied demand. I was very much impressed by the sensible, understandable logic and started to accumulate the paper. It was a very good decision.
All over the world there are no more than 5 or 6 large exporters, as the raw material is concentrated in a few areas of the planet. The largest exporter is Saskatchewan Potash, the only one that has excess capacity. The others, like Jordan Potash, Israel Chemicals, Belarus Potash, are producing at full capacity. Like most commodities, the price of the fertilizer went up 100% in 2005 and so the price of the share. The Canadian Potash has bought into rival companies and strives to build a world cartel of potash fertilizers.
In this very moment Potash is negotiating with China purchasers (compradores?) about this year's supply. Till the new price is fixed and presumably the market divided among the members of the cartel, uncertainty rules and the mineral is being stored in "mountains" in the Dead Sea factory. The price of ICL share is down 10% from its December peak. Potash share is also down.
Everybody is confident that soon the market will be ordered and the share price will reach new peaks. What can the Chinese do, stop fertilizing their poor loess fields? They will pay through their noses.
The chief of Saskatchewan Potash Mr Doyle outlined his strategy to maximize profits: Since every producer is working at full capacity and it takes four years to add capacity, currently only Potash has spare capacity. Potash is the Saudi Arabia of the fertilizer market. How can be this situation applied to increase profits? Withold supply.
Quoting Doyle, CEO of Potash, "In 2005, we completed an expansion at Rocanville that raised our annual capacity to 12.9 million tonnes. Although we were set up and staffed to produce 10 million tonnes last year, we held back 1.2 million tonnes, limiting our total output to 8.8 million tonnes – still a record."
What is more, "even our Russian competitors reduced production when the market slowed. This is a historic precedent." An historic change, indeed. Russia joining the capitalist cartel.
These creates an artificial scarcity and the price goes up. Since the other producers are unable to increase supply, and demand is rigid and ever tighter, Potash can reduce its production and no one will be able to fill the vacuum. Potash knows that this action will rise the price for all, so others may benefit at least like Potash itself and without sacrificing market share. To avoid this parasite effect, Potash needs coordination and policing. But 12 countries export potash and 18% of the production is State managed. It is not easy to build a world cartel. But that is what Mr Doyle is trying to do. Kol Ha Kavod to him!
Monopolies and cartels are hated and "bad" except for its members. As owner of one millionth of Kimikalim, may I count myself as a member of the colonialist exploiter class? I would love to. According to Marx, it would be then in my class interest to pray that Potash has enough power to make order in this market. Not that I can do anything to advance my interest, except say "Potash, Go, go, go!"
Well, I have come to a full circle. Starting out as a leftist teenager, I am a capitalist would-be rentier. I knew I would end like that. We all do.
Kimikalim was my first venture into stocks from mutual funds. I started five years ago, when doing my report on industrial water reuse, and visited the factory in the Biblical desert of Zinn. It is really a forbidding wasteland, dry and menacing. The chief engineer received me in an air conditioned prefab office, as a long lost friend and college and explained their big expansion plans based on their unlimited raw material and much unsatisfied demand. I was very much impressed by the sensible, understandable logic and started to accumulate the paper. It was a very good decision.
All over the world there are no more than 5 or 6 large exporters, as the raw material is concentrated in a few areas of the planet. The largest exporter is Saskatchewan Potash, the only one that has excess capacity. The others, like Jordan Potash, Israel Chemicals, Belarus Potash, are producing at full capacity. Like most commodities, the price of the fertilizer went up 100% in 2005 and so the price of the share. The Canadian Potash has bought into rival companies and strives to build a world cartel of potash fertilizers.
In this very moment Potash is negotiating with China purchasers (compradores?) about this year's supply. Till the new price is fixed and presumably the market divided among the members of the cartel, uncertainty rules and the mineral is being stored in "mountains" in the Dead Sea factory. The price of ICL share is down 10% from its December peak. Potash share is also down.
Everybody is confident that soon the market will be ordered and the share price will reach new peaks. What can the Chinese do, stop fertilizing their poor loess fields? They will pay through their noses.
The chief of Saskatchewan Potash Mr Doyle outlined his strategy to maximize profits: Since every producer is working at full capacity and it takes four years to add capacity, currently only Potash has spare capacity. Potash is the Saudi Arabia of the fertilizer market. How can be this situation applied to increase profits? Withold supply.
Quoting Doyle, CEO of Potash, "In 2005, we completed an expansion at Rocanville that raised our annual capacity to 12.9 million tonnes. Although we were set up and staffed to produce 10 million tonnes last year, we held back 1.2 million tonnes, limiting our total output to 8.8 million tonnes – still a record."
What is more, "even our Russian competitors reduced production when the market slowed. This is a historic precedent." An historic change, indeed. Russia joining the capitalist cartel.
These creates an artificial scarcity and the price goes up. Since the other producers are unable to increase supply, and demand is rigid and ever tighter, Potash can reduce its production and no one will be able to fill the vacuum. Potash knows that this action will rise the price for all, so others may benefit at least like Potash itself and without sacrificing market share. To avoid this parasite effect, Potash needs coordination and policing. But 12 countries export potash and 18% of the production is State managed. It is not easy to build a world cartel. But that is what Mr Doyle is trying to do. Kol Ha Kavod to him!
Monopolies and cartels are hated and "bad" except for its members. As owner of one millionth of Kimikalim, may I count myself as a member of the colonialist exploiter class? I would love to. According to Marx, it would be then in my class interest to pray that Potash has enough power to make order in this market. Not that I can do anything to advance my interest, except say "Potash, Go, go, go!"
Well, I have come to a full circle. Starting out as a leftist teenager, I am a capitalist would-be rentier. I knew I would end like that. We all do.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Speculation in MA Industries stock
One Tel Aviv Stock Exchange paper I hold and follow is Machteshim Agan Industries. It is the world largest generic agro chemical company, with annual sales of 1.7 billion $ and a valuation of 1 billion. 2005 profits were 200 million $ and about half was distributed as dividend. The company has put aside 150 million dollars for a buyback programme. The stock is traded in Tel Aviv at 23.50 shekel and lost 15% in the last three months.
The gradual falling of this paper is a mystery. in December, all the analysts recommended strong buying but around february, Deutsche Bank and later Merryl Linch changed attitudes and qualified Machteshim as a strong sale. The reason given was that the company was having difficulties in the Brazilian agricultural market, the real was revaluated, similar companies such as Dupont, Bayer, etc. were losing sales. The expectitive was that the 4th quarter report will be bad. People sold the paper for 4 dollar and less.
It was not. Sales in 2006 grew 15% and profit was an unprecedented 200 million dollar. The company was preparing itself to expand and buy other companies. But the damage done by the analysts was done, the stock is very cheap.
Why should analysts change directions on the basis of temporary loss of sales (1%) and say that because of that the company is 15% less valuable? Because the analysts have different interests from the investor, analysts get paid by brokerage firms to cause movement in the market - buying and selling. Investors should always bear in mind this truth, the analyst is not a friend, is a person that wants your money. Beware.
These contradictory recommendations caused that Machteshim is selling 15% lower than a couple of months ago and people is selling at loss.
The gradual falling of this paper is a mystery. in December, all the analysts recommended strong buying but around february, Deutsche Bank and later Merryl Linch changed attitudes and qualified Machteshim as a strong sale. The reason given was that the company was having difficulties in the Brazilian agricultural market, the real was revaluated, similar companies such as Dupont, Bayer, etc. were losing sales. The expectitive was that the 4th quarter report will be bad. People sold the paper for 4 dollar and less.
It was not. Sales in 2006 grew 15% and profit was an unprecedented 200 million dollar. The company was preparing itself to expand and buy other companies. But the damage done by the analysts was done, the stock is very cheap.
Why should analysts change directions on the basis of temporary loss of sales (1%) and say that because of that the company is 15% less valuable? Because the analysts have different interests from the investor, analysts get paid by brokerage firms to cause movement in the market - buying and selling. Investors should always bear in mind this truth, the analyst is not a friend, is a person that wants your money. Beware.
These contradictory recommendations caused that Machteshim is selling 15% lower than a couple of months ago and people is selling at loss.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Learning to Use Money to Make More Money
Putting my mind on better allocation of my money has yet to produce better results for me.
I started saving a few years ago putting my money in low-yielding inflation-indexed sovereign bonds. Then I changed to Tel Aviv stock market mutual funds. With the years, I realized that I could do better than mutual funds and could spare myself the pain of their 3 % yearly cut, and that shares in the whole were less risky (inflation, devaluation) and more profitable than bonds or mutual funds.
The next step was taken six months ago, when I decided to take an active role in managing my money, and gradually sold my mutual fund holdings to buy small cap shares in the TASE. I had some successes such as AURA, but all in all I am losing some 5-6% in a generally depressed market.
Since the enemy (the PA) is keeping its hudna (ceasefire), TASE is expected to boom after the elections. I hope to be well positioned then to start flying upwards like a rocket. My lastest adquisition is SAMIT, a real estate firm from Haifa, that is expanding in Europe like many Israeli firms, buying solid rent yielding buildings with cheap European financing. According to SAMIT's release, it bought a 10 million $ building in Cassel, Germany, producing 7% net in rents, with a 3% loan from an European Bank. It seems a good and safe business. Many Israelis are doing the same and maybe me too should travel to Eastern Europe - Hungary, Slovakia, Ukrayna - and do it.
********************
Some investing ideas (stolen from Early Riser blogger) worthy of recording:
Dont rely on money managers (brokers, mutual funds, etc.) whose compensation systems are in conflict your objectives (increasing YOUR capital).
Academic and real-world studied have shown that diversification, low fees and rigorous re-balancing are the three keys to investment success.
There are six core asset classes that every investor should be exposed to: US equities, foreign developed equities, foreign emerging equities, real estate, US treasury bonds, US treasury inflation protected securities (TIPS). Commodities? Every other available asset class (muni's, corporate bonds, mortgage bonds) are simply combinations (from a risk perspective) of the 6 core assets.
You should use very low cost and tax-efficient ETF's or mutual funds to invest in the core asset classes.
It is critical to re-balance (sell a portion of winners to invest in losers) to ensure you do not get too much exposure to a single asset class (think about the 2000 tech collapse).
The vast majority (95%+) of mutual funds are a total scam. High fees, poor after-tax performance and a core misalignment of interests make actively managed mutual funds a loosing proposition for individual investors.
Research is demonstrably worthless. Broker advice is clearly irrelevant.
I started saving a few years ago putting my money in low-yielding inflation-indexed sovereign bonds. Then I changed to Tel Aviv stock market mutual funds. With the years, I realized that I could do better than mutual funds and could spare myself the pain of their 3 % yearly cut, and that shares in the whole were less risky (inflation, devaluation) and more profitable than bonds or mutual funds.
The next step was taken six months ago, when I decided to take an active role in managing my money, and gradually sold my mutual fund holdings to buy small cap shares in the TASE. I had some successes such as AURA, but all in all I am losing some 5-6% in a generally depressed market.
Since the enemy (the PA) is keeping its hudna (ceasefire), TASE is expected to boom after the elections. I hope to be well positioned then to start flying upwards like a rocket. My lastest adquisition is SAMIT, a real estate firm from Haifa, that is expanding in Europe like many Israeli firms, buying solid rent yielding buildings with cheap European financing. According to SAMIT's release, it bought a 10 million $ building in Cassel, Germany, producing 7% net in rents, with a 3% loan from an European Bank. It seems a good and safe business. Many Israelis are doing the same and maybe me too should travel to Eastern Europe - Hungary, Slovakia, Ukrayna - and do it.
********************
Some investing ideas (stolen from Early Riser blogger) worthy of recording:
Dont rely on money managers (brokers, mutual funds, etc.) whose compensation systems are in conflict your objectives (increasing YOUR capital).
Academic and real-world studied have shown that diversification, low fees and rigorous re-balancing are the three keys to investment success.
There are six core asset classes that every investor should be exposed to: US equities, foreign developed equities, foreign emerging equities, real estate, US treasury bonds, US treasury inflation protected securities (TIPS). Commodities? Every other available asset class (muni's, corporate bonds, mortgage bonds) are simply combinations (from a risk perspective) of the 6 core assets.
You should use very low cost and tax-efficient ETF's or mutual funds to invest in the core asset classes.
It is critical to re-balance (sell a portion of winners to invest in losers) to ensure you do not get too much exposure to a single asset class (think about the 2000 tech collapse).
The vast majority (95%+) of mutual funds are a total scam. High fees, poor after-tax performance and a core misalignment of interests make actively managed mutual funds a loosing proposition for individual investors.
Research is demonstrably worthless. Broker advice is clearly irrelevant.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Failure in the Pump Room
I am starting to be known as consulting water engineer. Yesterday called someone I never heard of, asking if I am ready to do for them an evaluation of a one year old 17 floor building. The condominium committee (Vaad Habait) did not sign the acceptance document (mesira) and were preparing a big fight against the contractor. My mission: To detect and to document installation failures and defects, so they can sue the contractor.
One of the persons in the committee receiving me and my employer's civil engineer was a shammay - a professional evaluator. We formed a group of 5 - 6 people walking in and out of the beautiful building, going up like monkeys to the roof and its solar water heaters, and exploring the deep dark humid crypts of underground pumping rooms.
The shammay expert insisted that the pump room was planned and built all wrong and it had been flooded and the machinery severely harmed. I did not find the typical revealing signs of flooding - no horizontal line on the walls, no water marks nor nothing. The room seemed rather small and crowded but nothing terribly wrong, and all the pumps and electrical boards - eveything in fact - was in good working condition. I started one pump and it made a fearful howling noise, but that is normal for unused empty pumps. The paint was peeling off the walls because of capillary inflitration of humidity caused by defectous or no isolation, and the rainy winter (the building is in a former swamp). Sorry, Mr Shammay, no flooding here.
The shammayman did not accept my opinion. He was getting loud and insistent. I know a thing or two about flooded pumping stations, so I stated that he was wrong and that I shall never write an expert iopinion I dont believe in. Or an obvious lie. The man had hoped that I shall provide him solid, professional, expert testimony that the pumping room was badly built and had been flooded and the machinery damaged, forcing the contractor to pay compensation for damages. He became heated, he was probably feeling that he had hired me and I was not delivering. Moreover, I was humiliating him in front of his neighbors. He went out and came back saying that he had phoned to Uri and they agreed I should stop my work. Thank you, have a nice day.
At the time of this thing happening, I was quite unaware of them, being so busy defending my professional opinion. But Stanislav, Uri´s Russian civil engineer, understood exactly the situation. Once outside, he commented that he felt lucky to be a salaried employee and not a free lance consultant. He had worked as such for 10 years and it did not suit him because he was a honest man. In fact, I ealize, he may have been talking about me in an indirect, Jewish way.
l lost half a day. Net income - Nil. Zero. Nada. Klum.
I am feeling such a failure, so unsuited for this environment.
***************
PS: I told the story to my architect friend and she said (1) She appreciates me more (2) Why not call the contractor and tell him of the conspiracy being hatched against him? He may want me to be an expert witness for him!
One of the persons in the committee receiving me and my employer's civil engineer was a shammay - a professional evaluator. We formed a group of 5 - 6 people walking in and out of the beautiful building, going up like monkeys to the roof and its solar water heaters, and exploring the deep dark humid crypts of underground pumping rooms.
The shammay expert insisted that the pump room was planned and built all wrong and it had been flooded and the machinery severely harmed. I did not find the typical revealing signs of flooding - no horizontal line on the walls, no water marks nor nothing. The room seemed rather small and crowded but nothing terribly wrong, and all the pumps and electrical boards - eveything in fact - was in good working condition. I started one pump and it made a fearful howling noise, but that is normal for unused empty pumps. The paint was peeling off the walls because of capillary inflitration of humidity caused by defectous or no isolation, and the rainy winter (the building is in a former swamp). Sorry, Mr Shammay, no flooding here.
The shammayman did not accept my opinion. He was getting loud and insistent. I know a thing or two about flooded pumping stations, so I stated that he was wrong and that I shall never write an expert iopinion I dont believe in. Or an obvious lie. The man had hoped that I shall provide him solid, professional, expert testimony that the pumping room was badly built and had been flooded and the machinery damaged, forcing the contractor to pay compensation for damages. He became heated, he was probably feeling that he had hired me and I was not delivering. Moreover, I was humiliating him in front of his neighbors. He went out and came back saying that he had phoned to Uri and they agreed I should stop my work. Thank you, have a nice day.
At the time of this thing happening, I was quite unaware of them, being so busy defending my professional opinion. But Stanislav, Uri´s Russian civil engineer, understood exactly the situation. Once outside, he commented that he felt lucky to be a salaried employee and not a free lance consultant. He had worked as such for 10 years and it did not suit him because he was a honest man. In fact, I ealize, he may have been talking about me in an indirect, Jewish way.
l lost half a day. Net income - Nil. Zero. Nada. Klum.
I am feeling such a failure, so unsuited for this environment.
***************
PS: I told the story to my architect friend and she said (1) She appreciates me more (2) Why not call the contractor and tell him of the conspiracy being hatched against him? He may want me to be an expert witness for him!
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