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CEO confidence plunges, long recession seen

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-28 18:09

"I think the experience and some of the research shows that it will take a number of years," said Thunell, who helped mastermind a "bad bank" in Sweden during a 1990s crisis.

Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley's Asia chairman attends a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 28, 2009. [Agencies]

Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley's Asia chairman, agreed the next three years would be very tough.

"We have to face up to the fact that the recovery, when it comes, later this year or early next year, is going to be anaemic," he said.

"The concept of a vigorous 'V'-shaped recovery is for business cycles of the past but not for this post-bubble, post-crisis business cycle. It is going to be a long slog in 2010, in 2011."

That grim scenario has left sovereign fund Dubai International Capital wary of making big long-term investments even though it sees asset prices at reasonable levels.

"There going to be a great opportunity in the next year or two to acquire assets at historically unprecedented levels," Chief Executive Sameer al-Ansari said.

But he added: "We're still very nervous about making some big bets -- we see the financial crisis getting worse. There's not going to be a magic wand solution to the problem."

Lehman Fallout

PwC's Poulter said the situation had deteriorated significantly since September, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch.

Back in September, only 46 percent of business leaders interviewed thought the banking crisis would affect them but by December that had risen to 67 percent.

Even this gloomy picture -- with confidence the lowest in the survey's seven-year history -- may be over-optimistic, given the slew of bad news since it was completed in early December with recession across much of the world now confirmed.

In contrast to last year, corporations based in previously hot emerging markets were equally gloomy, a fact which PwC said had exposed the idea of the "decoupling" of developed and developing world markets as a myth.

The Washington-based Institute for International Finance, a grouping of the world's biggest banks, said on Tuesday it expects private capital flows to emerging markets to drop by nearly two-thirds to $165 billion this year.

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