A380: nice plane, questionable investment ‘Never fall in love with your investments’ is an old adage that’s faithfully followed by David Phillips, the chief operating officer of Investec’s Global Aircraft Fund, which currently leases six planes to airlines around the world, using money raised from the likes of Maritime Super and Auscoal. But Phillips’ favourite big bird, the Airbus A380, is the one operating today that he won’t let his fund go near. “I love the A380, whenever I’m booking a flight it’s the plane I try and get on,” Phillips explains. “But I’m not going to invest in that plane, because I don’t yet have a handle on what it’s going to be worth in five years’ time.” He prefers to leave such speculative leasing to the Macquaries of the world.

Dui Bu Qi: Greg Bright says sorry Family and friends are a little upset over parts of last month’s column (‘Ni hao: letter from Beijing’, page 65 of September 2010’s Investment Magazine). I therefore accept that: My son is not unemployed but, rather, has gained work at Beijing nightclubs called Bling, Mi You and Vicks. And the Vicks gig, complete with professional dancers, was filmed. (Photographic evidence above.) My wife and daughter are not “safely ensconced in leafy Queens Park, Sydney” because this, apparently, implies that they are not doing much. They are actually doing a lot more than they should have to do, given that the family’s main breadwinner has “taken off to China for an extended holiday”. And Sophie, our Chinese uni-student translator, does not “struggle with a knife and fork”, xie xie very much, even though they are implements of Western fascist imperialism. Come to think of it, knives and forks do look a bit fascist. (Greg Bright, the publisher of Investment Magazine, is spending three months in Beijing but will be back in the Western world in late October.)