author - oman observer

After three weeks invested in writing about international matters, I want to come back to the Sultanate of Oman. This is going to be a classic SME column based on the experience of one of the readers...

The South China Morning Post has recently released a report that highlights how the China tech space has changed since last year, and how it will likely evolve. On the one hand the underlying market...

Last week we introduced the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) framework as an evaluation – not valuation – criteria to potentially predict sudden drops in price shares due to scandals or...

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is a framework that has become increasingly popular in the business world. While for decades we had Profit as the only indicator for the success of a...

If you thought now is too soon to start holiday shopping, think again.A huge backlog out at sea, with over 60 container ships carrying millions of consumer goods wait to unload in California, at the...

When we think of Samsung, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a mobile phone or a TV set. But the greatness of the Korean giant goes beyond the latest consumer products.In 1938, at age 28,...

After the latest column on business valuation, I was contacted by Yahya, a young Omani entrepreneur who asked me if the valuation criteria presented could be applicable to his start-up. A bit of...

The valuation of small businesses seems to be one of the topics preferred by the regular readers of my weekly column on the Observer. So today I am sharing what are in my opinion the top 5 valuation...

We all love our cars. Big in the Middle East. Tiny in Europe. Fancy looking in Asia. Environmentally friendly in the US. And what about India?In India, 95 per cent of cars are priced below $20,000. An...

Today we continue exploring three business valuation methods that I have suggested to Hilal, a property investor who lost a significant part of his income due to Covid-19. Many of his tenants have...

In the past few years writing for the Observer, I have managed to attract a pool of readers that occasionally writes me questions on various topics. Recently the topic of assigning a value to small...

We started exploring the doubts that Mahfoudha was experiencing with her SME.A quick recap: in mid 2020 she lost her job and decided to start a food business. She signed a one-year rental agreement...

In my weekly brainstorming around the topic to cover in my upcoming column for the Observer, I need to gauge the various interests of the readers. At times I write about global economy: having lived...

Last week we have seen how Sultan and Jen made both the same mistake of misjudging Add-backs into their business valuation, ending up in Sultan selling out cheap and Jen struggling to find a buyer.We...

stefano@virgilli.com I have dedicated the past few weeks to the comparison of some of the largest companies in the world. In the next two weeks I will go back to talk about small businesses in a...

stefano@virgilli.com - This week I want to conclude my analysis — started last week — on the economic and financial dynamics linked to the ranking of the top 100 companies in the world by...

When we hear others talking about billions and trillions, we at times struggle to put figures in context. So this is the first column of a short series that I would like to introduce exclusively to...

stefano@virgilli.com -A troubling case of bad healthcare in China brought the media attention to the multi-billion dollar industry of cosmetic surgery. A relatively unknown social media influencer...

There are many good news coming from both economy and finance in Oman. Recently published figures are better than expected in many areas of concern, especially in finance. This is still not a full...

In its Vision 2040, Oman has drafted a plan to boost and develop the Sultanate society into a knowledge-based economy, able to compete on a global scale. Oman’s finance and economy were both...