Jonathan Guthrie writes about ArmorGroup International (ARG/LN or AMGPF/OTC) in the Financial Times:
Armed ex-servicemen deserved their pariah image in the days when they sold firepower to coup plotters and dictators in the developing world. But their involvement in Iraq has placed them in danger of becoming respectable. They have had a good war, 600 fatalities notwithstanding. Up to 20,000 private security men have operated in Iraq at any one time, primarily for the US and UK government and their civilian contractors. The worst furore was triggered in the US when an Iraqi mob lynched American security guards, rather than by old-school mercenaries slaughtering locals.
I find this bit at the end of his piece compelling:
Risk is fluid these days, seeping easily through porous borders. The last ArmorGroup customer who used his defensive driver training for real was attacked in Houston, not Bogotá. And my English suburb? It’s a stone’s throw from neighbourhoods where seven Muslim men were arrested recently on suspicion of plotting kidnapping and murder. Reassured? Me neither.
New reader of Controlled Greed.com? You can read my original rationale for buying ArmorGroup stock last September by clicking on the company's name in the "Current Holdings" menu at the right. The stock is up more than 40% since then.
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