BEIRUT — Throughout history, men braved the odds to perform great feats. Outmatched generals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Titans of industry gambled on bold innovations to reap jackpots. Athletes tested the limits of human endurance in quests for glory.
Riad Toufic Salame, the governor of Lebanon's central bank, is not one of those men.
Instead, the silver-haired banker became a hero by playing it very, very safe. In 2005, he defied pressure from the Lebanese business community and bucked international trends to issue what now looks like a prophetic decree: a blanket order barring any bank in his country from investing in mortgage-backed securities, which contributed to the most dramatic collapse of financial institutions since the Great Depression.
So as major banks in America and Europe were shuttered or partly nationalized and thousands of people in the U.S. financial sector were laid off, Lebanon's banks had one of their best years ever.
Billions in cash continue to pour in to the relative safety of Lebanese savings accounts, with comfy but not extravagant yields of 6%. A nation shunned for years as the quintessential failed state has become a pretty safe bet, or as safe a bet as investors are likely to find in this climate.
"Being able to survive and to do well in this crisis," Salame said, savoring a deep sigh. "I can tell you I was proud of this achievement."
Most outsiders associate Lebanon with one of two extremes: machine-gun-wielding militants in fatigues firing weapons into the air or scantily clad merrymakers downing cocktails until dawn.
But a more sedate and moderate segment of the Lebanese population has also emerged from the political and economic wreckage of the last few decades. They are engineers and dentists, lawyers and bankers. They envision their country as neither hedonistic nirvana nor capital of mayhem, but as a safe harbor for low-key, middle-class ambitions. They have begun to quietly assert themselves.
Salame, who is Lebanon's equivalent of the Federal Reserve chairman, exemplifies such geeks. He toiled for nearly two decades as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch before taking over as central bank governor 15 years ago. He's a man of few extravagances, indulging in pricey Cuban cigars he pulls out of a wooden humidor in his spacious office. Unlike most Lebanese bigwigs, he drives himself to work, albeit in an armored BMW.
