We reported on the Citi World Radar Screen in  Global today; it also tipped GI  pro selections Kingboard among Asia tech and Wendel among Euro conglomerates.

   What to do now from Europe? Some ideas:buy infrastructure says Gen. JoeShaefer.

   Buy  U.S. smaller cap industrials to gain from the dollar weakness impact on sales and to perhaps get a takeover premium says Paris-based mney mgr.  Mayri Voute.

   Buy  discounted funds says FT adventurous investor David Stevenson who recommends a list:: PME African Infrastructure, a new fund mainly in cash valued at a 20% discount;  Hirco, a London-listed play from India's  Hirandari homebuilders Hirco which brokers Panmure Gordon  values at 4x its current  level of 2.6-2.8 pence/sh by 2010; and Cyprus, Turkey and  Dominican Republic property developer Dolphin traded at 85 pence in London when its forward yearend  estimated NAV is GBP 2.85 and it current NAV is GBP 2.27 according to brokers Colliers. Its mgr is Miltos Kambouride who used to work for George Soros whopersonallyboughtGBp2  mn worth of shares last month. Half its valuation is cash on the balance sheet.

   Buying now is pure contrarianism, a high risk strategy also called bottom fishing.

    Raise high your beer steins filled with Pilsener to Elbit Medical which has just closed on a 3-year old deal to sell its Plzen Plaza shopping and entertainment center to French real estate company Klepierre. Thanks to an unheard of 100% occupancy level and the resulting high income level, the price paid by the French firm was euros 61.4 mn, a substantial boost from results from the negotiated contract levels of euro 42.8 mn. EMITF.Q is an Israel developer of real estate sites in Russia, Israel, and Eastern Europe. Is main focus is shopping centers but it is also building gambling dens for Las Vegas on Danube in Budapest.

   A reader, NZ, asked for a summary of our real estate portfolios at GIP so here goes:

    For India, Ascendas India Trust, ACNDF.PK, out of Singapore. The share is a penny stock but well regulated by the Singaporeans. Also trades as AINT.SI.

    For Russia and eastern Europe, Elbit Imaging, EMITF.Q, Israeli oddball stock listed on Nasdaq. It is developing a Las Vegas on Danube in Budapest among other ventures. 

    For China, in the main GI portfolio, Xinyuan Real Estate Co., a developer (incorporated in Cayman Islands) of apartments and commerce in the outskirts of second tier Chinese cities. I visited one such and it is absolutely appealing even for a U.S. homebuyer. NYSE.XIN.

     In hotels and commercial property in Britain and the U.S., Guoco Leisure, GUORY.PK,  based in New Zealand and Singapore. Insiders poured into this stock last week via London.

     Our Israeli conglomerate Berkshire-Hathaway clone, an insurance company which is not doing very well on the stock market despite insider buying last week, also has property holdings. DLKGF.TASE. Delek trades only in Tel Aviv despite a U.S.-like ticker symbol. Unfortunately the IR for the firm refuses to answer my inquiries because they do not want U.S. retail investors in their group. I bought the stock without deceiving them, using Fidelity, but they have now cut me off. Conglomerates tend to trade at a discount to their assets particularly if they don't talk to the press. They fear reporting requirements will be imposed if enough of you buy their shares.

   An insider at Guoco Leisure (a real esate group) invested GBP 2.5 mn last week to acquire nearly 9 mn shares of the Singapore-New Zealand group, the 2nd largest stock purchase by directors in any British-listed firm (after HBOS, a special situation where 15 directors together barely beat the GUORY level.). This is a singular mark of confidence. Directors now own GBP 30 mn worth of the shares. The price of the ADR has risen to $5.50 from below $5 partly as a result, but it is still only 40% of its12-mo high.

    Delek Group Ltd. (TASE. DLEKG) disclosed that Israel Development B ank has become "a party at interest" having acquired just over 5% of the stock; Delek added 3.9% in Sunday Tel Aviv trading and its real estate sub, Delek Real Estate Ltd. (TASE.DLKR) jumped 15% following a revaluation of its holdings by Giza Singer, a brokerage and consulting,  saying that its portfolio is sharply undervalued because of the property crisis.

   However, Israel Chemicals fell back (ISCHF.PK), still tracking its Canadian part owner Potash of Saskatchewan (POT). There is a problem with this copycatting however. POT is down because of a strike which, if anythng, will provide opportunities for ISCHF to sell more potash to America.

      Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE; TSX: POT), which holds 10% of Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ISCHF.PK)  published record Q2 earnings which boosted fertilizer stock. POT reported a profit of C$905.1 mn, a 220% jump year over year and 62% sequentially. Earnings per share totaled $2.82, and gross profit soared 187% to $1.4 bn. Israeli potash is produced along the Dead Sea near Sodom and Gemorrah.

     An Arab version of ISCHF exists, Jordan Chemicals, producing potash across the mineral-laden water. The trouble is that there are fewer available Jordanian stocks so it is much more expensive in P/E terms than the Israeli version.

  *Ascendas India Trust, the Singapore REIT, reported Q1 (ended June) income rose 25% to S$28.6 mn. Net income rose 20% to S$18mn; and distributable income rose 12% to S$12.4 mn or 1.65 Singapore cents per share. This is an excellent result from a REIT investing in Indian property regulated in Singapore. Based on the current stock price the yieldis 9.3% paid out twice a year, not quarterly as in the U.S. It trades here as ACNDF on the pink sheets.

     *A DC area reader suggests Sistema HALS JSC if we want to play Russian real estate. I am not as enthusiatic. It has 144A GDRs traded in London as HALS and a occasional ADRs as SEMAL with cusip 82977M101. HALS is part of the vast Sistema conglomerate with interests in everything from spas (Kamellia)  to media, from technology to finance, from telecoms to finance, from petrochemical products to healthcare. The RE side of the busines is run by Feliks Vladimirovich Evtushenko, son of the head of parent Sistema. (Evtushenko is the preferred Russian spelling of a Ukrainian name.) The conglomerate SISTEMA which trades in London as SIS and in Russia as SSA owns 71% of HALS so only 29% is public

   There are lots of potential synergies and inside deals between the Sistema group and its housing sub HALS which first listed late in 2006. However, as a stock, the HALS share has problems. My favorite project is apparently independent of SIS. This is to modernize the Detskoy Mir (Children's World) toystore for which HALS got a $20 mn financing package from Deutsche Bank two months ago. It is my favorite is beause, improbably enough, this children's emporium sits directly opposite the Lubiayanka HQ and prison of the Russian security forces (KGB; MKVD). Of course that is the best place to buy presents for my underage grandchildren.

   However, the DB financing package is not enough for analysts. Fitch down rated the bonds of HALS because of liquidity concerns. It had a truly rotten 2007 with negative 71 percent operating and profit margins, and a minus 19.5% return on assets. This is really bad.

   Apart from Lubyianka, it has projects all over Moscow like reviving the Moscow City Telephone Network HQ property held by a related company; rebuilding the Peking Hotel; and reconstructing the huge twin towers Leninskaya project in St Petersburg which incudes the Siemens HQ. Siemens has deals with parent Sistema. As with other Russian GDRs, HALS trades in dollars and at all of $5.80 is well below half its 12-month high. The share also trades in Germany and on two Russian markets, MSE and MICEX. Cushman and Wakefield figure the portfolio closed 2007 at $3.764 bn but it is hard to sort out what is HALS and what is SSA.

   While my reader owns stock in both HALS and SSA I found that the latter is not available for retail investors; and I am dubious about the outlook for the former. But if you absolutately must own real estate in Russia consider a more accessible share, Elbit Imaging, an Israeli firm invested in property around Eastern Europe. EMITF.Q.