title
stringlengths 0
104
| author
stringlengths 0
127
| datetime
stringlengths 6
75
| url
stringlengths 20
37.4k
| month
stringclasses 12
values | day
stringlengths 1
2
| doc_id
stringlengths 32
40
| text
stringlengths 0
73.2k
| year
stringclasses 8
values | doc_title
stringlengths 1
102
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
India May Beat U.S. in Wind Installations for First Time | By Natalie Obiko Pearson | 2013-08-28T05:03:54Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/india-may-beat-u-s-in-wind-installations-for-first-time.html | 8 | 28 | da6b71346f60620226d03ae014dcc5c0768141f7 | India may install more wind capacity
than the U.S. this year for the first time as a tax-benefit
window extending to 2015 prompts U.S. developers to delay
setting up new projects. India is forecast to put up 2,050 megawatts of wind
capacity in 2013, compared with the 2,000 megawatts expected in
the U.S., according to the latest figures from Bloomberg New
Energy Finance due to be published next week. “The decline in the U.S. is mainly due to the complacency
of the project developers,” which can claim federal tax
benefits through 2015, said Shantanu Jaiswal, a New Delhi-based
BNEF wind analyst. While all major wind markets, including China , are expected
to slow this year, the U.S. is set to experience the sharpest
decline with annual installations plunging 85 percent. India’s
lead could be short-lived with U.S. installations expected to
surge again starting 2014, Jaiswal said. India has installed 19,662 megawatts of wind power,
according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy , about
one-fifth of the nation’s estimated potential, he said. “There exists a substantial upside potential for Indian
wind installations in the coming years,” he said. The country’s 10 largest developers, including Mytrah
Energy Ltd. (MYT) , Green Infra Ltd. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.-
backed ReNew Wind Power Pvt., have plans to put up 15,000
megawatts of capacity in the next 10 years, driven by increasing
demand for electricity and wind power prices that are
competitive with new coal plants. To contact the reporter on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
[email protected] | 2013 | india-may-beat-u-s-in-wind-installations-for-first-time |
Ito Backs Japan Sales-Tax Plan as Hamada Calls for Gradual Rise | By Andy Sharp and James Mayger | 2013-08-28T00:42:59Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ito-backs-japan-sales-tax-plan-as-hamada-calls-for-gradual-rise.html | 8 | 28 | 67a035ae368b020d18571ce916568fb61363ec2b | Tokyo University Professor Takatoshi Ito said Japan’s sales tax should be increased as planned as a
panel of economists and financial experts considering the levy
split on the issue. “Economic indicators show the economy isn’t in a bad state
and raising the sales tax wouldn’t slow the economy or the bid
to end deflation,” Ito, a former finance ministry official,
told reporters yesterday after the meeting in Tokyo. Not
proceeding in line with the plan could lead to falling stocks, a
stronger yen and a spike in bond yields, Ito wrote in a
statement submitted to the panel. Ito was among five of the nine people on the panel to agree
with the plan to increase the tax to 8 percent in April from the
current 5 percent, Economy Minister Akira Amari told reporters
after the meeting. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s adviser Koichi Hamada was one of two panel members to call for an incremental
rise by 1 percentage point a year, according to Amari. Yesterday’s panel was the second of seven being held this
week, providing 60 people including business leaders and
academics a platform to relay their views on the tax to the
government. Japan ’s leaders are trying to fuel growth without
worsening a public debt more than twice the size of the economy. Ito said the incremental tax-increase proposal “would have
huge costs in terms of the time taken to create and pass laws
and the political energy required.” He said in June that a
sales tax of at least 15 percent was needed for fiscal reform. Gradual Increase Hamada, an architect of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s
economic strategy known as Abenomics, wrote in his statement to
yesterday’s panel that the tax-increase should be postponed for
a year or, if technically possible, raised incrementally. Former Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kazumasa Iwata earlier
this week also urged a gradual approach, and called for 5
trillion yen ($51 billion) in stimulus spending if the tax is
raised as planned. Finance Minister Taro Aso and Bank of Japan Governor
Haruhiko Kuroda are among those attending the meetings. Aso said
yesterday that a failure to stem rising social welfare costs
might make it necessary to further increase the tax. Abe will make the final decision on the tax “at the
latest” by early October, Amari said earlier this week. The
prime minister can postpone or cancel the increase should he
determine the economy can’t bear the impact. Abe will take into account the views of the expert panels
and data including revised gross domestic product for the second
quarter, due Sept. 9. To contact the reporters on this story:
Andy Sharp in Tokyo at
[email protected] ;
James Mayger in Tokyo at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Paul Panckhurst at
[email protected] | 2013 | ito-backs-japan-sales-tax-plan-as-hamada-calls-for-gradual-rise |
Infosys Americas Head Vemuri Resigns as Demand Recovers in U.S. | By Kartikay Mehrotra | 2013-08-28T12:46:39Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/infosys-americas-head-vemuri-resigns-as-demand-recovers-in-u-s-.html | 8 | 28 | c72f116f06abaa09d495d8f7790bb5242e2b99a7 | Infosys Ltd., India ’s second-largest
software services exporter, said Ashok Vemuri has resigned from
the company, the board and as head of Americas and global
manufacturing services. Sanjay Jalona, currently overseeing manufacturing in North
America, will take the role of global head of manufacturing, the
Bangalore-based company said in a stock exchange filing today.
No replacement was named for the U.S. operations. Vemuri’s departure after a 15-year stint comes amid signs
of a recovery in information technology services demand in the
U.S., the company’s largest market . Strong bookings data from
International Business Machines Corp. and comments from offshore
companies point to increased spending in consulting and
discretionary work in the second half, according to Anurag Rana,
an analyst at Bloomberg Industries. “It’s a big loss for the company,” Hardik Shah, an
analyst with KR Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt. in Mumbai, said
by phone referring to Vemuri’s resignation. “He had been with
them for 15 years, such a person can’t be easily replaced.” Two calls to a number listed for Vemuri in New Jersey
weren’t answered. Infosys (INFO) rose 2 percent to 3,116.25 rupees at the close in
Mumbai trading, before the company’s announcement. The stock has
surged 34 percent this year, making it the third-best performer
on the 30-company S&P BSE Sensex Index. The benchmark has
declined 7.4 percent in the period. To contact the reporter on this story:
Kartikay Mehrotra in New Delhi at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Tighe at
[email protected] | 2013 | infosys-americas-head-vemuri-resigns-as-demand-recovers-in-u-s- |
Former Ballerina Duval Pulls Off Biggest U.S. Open Upset at 17 | By Erik Matuszewski | 2013-08-28T04:20:21Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/former-ballerina-duval-pulls-off-biggest-u-s-open-upset-at-17.html | 8 | 28 | 5db3b1b0f2af4cd180abff0929ac34f5 | Victoria Duval walked into the
interview room under Arthur Ashe Stadium about two hours after
her upset win against 2011 U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur,
looked at her name on the placard at the front of the table and
giggled in disbelief. “Is this for real?” Duval said in a high-pitched voice
that makes her sound even younger than her age of 17. Less than three weeks after losing in the quarterfinals of
the U.S. Tennis Association’s Girls’ 18-and-under national
championship, Duval last night pulled off the biggest women’s
upset so far at the season’s final Grand Slam tournament in
eliminating the 11th-seeded Stosur. Duval, who came to the U.S. from Haiti with her family when
she was eight, celebrated like a teenager after her victory in
Louis Armstrong Stadium, throwing her arms in the air and
jumping with joy. Afterward, Duval said she received a text
message of congratulations from Billie Jean King , a four-time
U.S. Open champion after whom the National Tennis Center in New
York is named. “I don’t even remember match point,” said Duval, who was
buoyed by chants of ‘U-S-A’ during the third set. “I guess I
was really happy. You could tell by all the jumping I did.” Duval closed out the 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 win on her fourth match
point, sending Australia ’s Stosur to her first opening-round
loss at the U.S. Open since 2008. Duval’s victory came a year
after she lost in the first round of her Grand Slam debut to
another former champion, Kim Clijsters . Duval said facing
Clijsters a year ago was a valuable experience. Not Overwhelmed “The crowd didn’t seem so overwhelming because I felt like
I was in that position before,” she said. The 5-foot-10 Duval was a ballerina before she turned to
tennis at the age of seven and won the first tournament she ever
participated in, a 10-and-under event in Santo Domingo ,
Dominican Republic , where her brother played each year. “After that, my mom said, ‘Okay, you have to choose
now,’” Duval said. “Tennis seemed to be appropriate.” Duval, whose father was injured in the 2010 earthquake that
struck Haiti, won the 2012 USTA’s Girls 18-and-under national
championship and earned a wild-card entry into the U.S. Open.
She made this year’s field as a qualifier and had a world
ranking of 296 entering her match against Stosur. Duval said while she’s a goofy child at heart, she has a
warrior’s mentality on the court that helped her stay focused in
the closing stages of her win last night. She also took
advantage of Stosur’s 56 unforced errors. Duval made 35. “She played well,” Stosur said. “I certainly helped her
along the way.” Hantuchova Next Next up for Duval is a second-round meeting with Slovakia’s
Daniela Hantuchova. While Duval said she doesn’t know what the future holds,
she hopes to follow the lead of a player like 20-year-old Sloane Stephens in continuing the success of U.S. women in the sport
when sisters Serena and Venus Williams , who have 23 Grand Slam
singles titles between them, eventually retire. “We’re trying to make American tennis become what it used
to be,” Duval said. “We’re all working toward the same goal. I
think we’re on an amazing path.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Matuszewski in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Sillup at
[email protected] | 2013 | former-ballerina-duval-pulls-off-biggest-u-s-open-upset-at-17 |
Namibia Cattle Exports to South Africa Soar as Drought Worsens | By Felix Njini | 2013-08-28T14:13:51Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/namibia-cattle-exports-to-south-africa-soar-as-drought-worsens.html | 8 | 28 | 8156d96fe93b4f6d9c8db79b9d399828f0f68119 | Namibia’s exports of calves to South
Africa may jump by two-thirds to 250,000 this year as farmers in
the southern African country seek to stave off the effects of
drought, even as higher sales lead to lower prices. “We have been encouraging all our farmers to sell
livestock to get them off the grazing,” Sakkie Coetzee, the
executive executive manager of the Namibia Agricultural Union ,
said in a phone interview on August 23. The country is in the grip of the worst drought in 30 years
and many farms no longer have grazing or water, Coetzee said.
The NAU, which represents more than 2,400 commercial farmers,
says livestock prices have dropped to 14 Namibian dollars
($1.35) per kilogram liveweight, down as much as 30 percent from
last year. The country’s agricultural output is forecast to decline by
5.5 percent this year before expanding by 6.1 percent in 2014,
according to the latest quarterly review issued by the Bank of
Namibia on August 21. Crop production will shrink by 9.3 percent
this year and grow 5.2 percent next year. The NAU says it will take as long as five years for farmers
to recoup their losses and to operate profitably. “The impact
of this drought will be felt for the next two years but as
farmers it will take us about five years to restock,” Coetzee
said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Felix Njini in Johannesburg at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Antony Sguazzin at
[email protected] | 2013 | namibia-cattle-exports-to-south-africa-soar-as-drought-worsens |
Swiss Agree on Program for Banks to Settle U.S. Dispute | By Giles Broom, Catherine Bosley and David Voreacos | 2013-08-28T16:03:21Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/swiss-give-green-light-for-banks-to-settle-u-s-dispute.html | 8 | 28 | 5f37eee3d70546a29404535fcb14c32c | Switzerland said it has agreed to a draft plan with the U.S. for the country’s banks to settle a tax-evasion dispute after years of diplomatic wrangling. The Swiss Finance Ministry has been instructed to complete work on a joint statement with the U.S., the Bern-based government said in an announcement today. “It shouldn’t be too long” before the statement is signed, Andre Simonazzi, a government spokesman, told reporters in the Swiss capital. The agreement is the result of more than two years of negotiations over U.S. probes of at least a dozen banks, including Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Julius Baer Group Ltd. (BAER) , which allegedly helped Americans evade taxes. While some of those banks are already in settlement talks, the U.S. Justice Department wants to widen its crackdown by forcing other Swiss wealth managers to disclose data on cross-border accounts. “I would imagine the Justice Department would want the end game to be a voluntary disclosure program for banks where they can come forward, admit their wrongdoing, if any, avoid prosecution, and not subject themselves to further scrutiny by the United States ,” said Jeffrey Neiman, a former U.S. tax prosecutor based in Fort Lauderdale , Florida . The Swiss Bankers Association , which represents more than 300 banks, welcomed the government’s announcement. Legal Certainty “The program enables all banks in Switzerland to settle their U.S. past quickly and conclusively and creates the necessary legal certainty,” the Basel-based association said in a statement today. Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore financial center with about $2.2 trillion of assets, wants to prevent another bank suffering the fate of Wegelin & Co., which was indicted last year. Wegelin, the country’s oldest bank, pleaded guilty in January to helping U.S. taxpayers hide assets and has since closed its doors. Wegelin took over undeclared American clients from UBS AG. The biggest Swiss bank avoided prosecution in 2009 by admitting it aided tax evasion, paying $780 million and handing over client names. The U.S. wants lists of suspected tax evaders who shifted accounts from one bank to another, the Swiss government has said. Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice , didn’t immediately respond to a call and e-mail seeking comment. Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) ’s Swiss private bank have said they expect to pay a fine to settle their disputes with the U.S. Welcome Step “We welcome this as a step towards a resolution of the issue as a whole,” said Andres Luther, a spokesman for Credit Suisse, commenting on the Swiss government statement. Today’s announcement doesn’t affect HSBC as it’s already under investigation, according to David Bruegger, a Zurich-based spokesman for the bank. “We are continuing our discussions,” he said. “We are in close contact with the authorities and will stay in touch until a solution is found.” Julius Baer declined to comment. The announcement comes after the Swiss Parliament in June rejected a bill that would have given banks a yearlong legal reprieve and allowed them to settle with the U.S. by handing over information on employees and third parties who worked with American clients. It would also have established legal protection for bank employees. Sidestepping Secrecy “The Swiss have finally decided to deal with the issue of creating an exception to Swiss bank secrecy by employing an administrative procedure to avoid legal challenges and a public referendum, which could otherwise defeat any settlement,” said Milan Patel, a former Internal Revenue Service trial attorney who is now a partner at Zurich-based law firm Anaford AG. “It also avoids the long diplomatic procedures.” The banks under investigation by the Justice Department can use a 1996 tax agreement to respond to requests for names of American clients, the Swiss government said on May 29. That depends on the U.S. authorities providing a sufficiently detailed description of the matter to establish suspicion of fraud or similar offenses. The U.S. Senate has yet to ratify a 2009 protocol revising the 1996 accord to make it easier for Swiss banks to hand over data on clients suspected of tax evasion to the IRS. Banks that aren’t currently under investigation that may have breached U.S. laws with undeclared assets would have to pay fines on accounts exceeding 50,000 francs ($54,407) under the proposal, Tages-Anzeiger reported earlier today. To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Bosley in Zurich at [email protected] ; Giles Broom in Geneva at [email protected] David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at [email protected] | 2013 | swiss-give-green-light-for-banks-to-settle-u-s-dispute |
London Gets Half of Mideast Commercial Property Cash in Europe | By Zainab Fattah | 2013-08-28T10:32:40Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/london-gets-half-of-mideast-commercial-property-cash-in-europe.html | 8 | 28 | 495e7bf2fb68b9bc783975fb0269010622dcff16 | London was the destination for
almost 50 percent of Middle East investment in European
commercial property in the first half as political stability and
growth prospects attracted buyers, CBRE Group Inc. (CBG) said. The Middle East accounted for 9 percent of all commercial
real estate bought in Europe during the period, up from 6
percent a year earlier. The region’s share of foreign investment
on the continent increased to 21 percent from 12 percent. North
America was the biggest investor, with 13 percent of the total
and 24 percent of the forieign share. “London remains the destination of choice for foreign
investors due to its solid growth potential and its status as a
global financial hub, alongside its stable political environment
and a transparent legal system,” Nick Maclean, Middle East
managing director at CBRE, wrote in the report. Almost half of the Middle East investment in Europe comes
from the region’s sovereign wealth funds, according to the
report. Foriegn investors accounted for 44 percent of all
European commercial property transactions, up from 40 percent a
year earlier. Cross-border investments within Europe declined to
16 percent of transactions, compared with 20 percent through
2011 and 2012, CBRE said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Zainab Fattah in Dubai at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Andrew Blackman at
[email protected] | 2013 | ondon-gets-half-of-mideast-commercial-property-cash-in-europe |
Crude Calls Surge a Second Day as Syria Concern Sparks Oil Rally | By Barbara Powell | 2013-08-28T20:15:43Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/crude-calls-surge-a-second-day-as-syria-concern-sparks-oil-rally.html | 8 | 28 | a4c0a7a373484f4999d9de119ad45af9 | Crude oil calls surged for a second
day as futures reached a two-year high on concern that Middle
East oil shipments will be curtailed if the U.S. and its allies
strike Syria . Implied volatility of October calls protecting against a 10
percent rise in futures prices on the New York Mercantile
Exchange jumped to 34.02 percent at 3:25 p.m. from 29.16
yesterday and 22.73 percent Aug. 26. The most active options in electronic trading today were
October $125 calls, which rose 17 cents to 31 cents a barrel at
3:33 p.m. on volume of 5,870 contracts. October $115 calls were
the second-most active, advancing 46 cents to $1.25 a barrel on
volume of 5,035 lots traded. “There’s two kinds of buyers of these,” said Phil Flynn ,
senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago . “One
is buying cheap insurance for the worst-case scenario. The
others are speculators buying out-of-the-money options thinking
they can double their money or triple their money if there is a
spike and walk away.” At-the-money volatility for October options, a measure of
expected futures swings and a key gauge of value, was 28.05
percent, the highest level this year, up from 24.67 percent
yesterday. Volatility for puts covering a 10 percent drop
climbed to 28.16 percent after being little changed at 25.89
percent yesterday. “There’s still definitely a lot of concern and a lot of
people that want to be protected from a spike in price,” Flynn
said. “Now, options players that were looking at covering the
upside risks yesterday are trying to protect from some of the
downside risks that after the attack prices would fall.” West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery
increased $1.09 to $110.10 a barrel on the Nymex, the highest
settlement since May 3, 2011. The U.S. and the U.K. said today they are prepared to take
military action against Syria without authorization from the
United Nations Security Council . After Russia objected to a UN
resolution offered by the U.K. authorizing action to protect
civilians, a State Department spokeswoman said the U.S. will
take “appropriate” action without the international body’s
approval. Calls accounted for 57 percent of electronic trading
volume, and made up five of the six most-active contracts. In
the previous session, bullish bets made up 61 percent of the
226,077 lots traded. October $125 calls were also the most-active options
yesterday with 10,059 contracts changing hands as they gained 11
cents to 14 cents a barrel. October $115 calls, the next-most
active, rose 62 cents to 79 cents on 9,769 lots. Open interest was highest for December $80 puts, with
40,059 contracts. Next were December $90 puts with 36,543 lots
and December $100 calls with 34,801. The exchange distributes real-time data for electronic
trading and releases information the next business day on open-outcry volume, where the bulk of options activity occurs. To contact the reporter on this story:
Barbara Powell in Dallas at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at
[email protected] | 2013 | crude-calls-surge-a-second-day-as-syria-concern-sparks-oil-rally |
Five Reasons Housing Isn’t Ready to Drop Dead | By Caroline Baum | 2013-08-28T22:00:02Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/five-reasons-housing-isn-t-ready-to-drop-dead.html
Hissss! That’s the sound of the air
coming out of the housing market. At least that’s what some
folks thought they heard when the U.S. Census Bureau reported a
13.4 percent dive in new home sales in July, the biggest decline
in more than three years and one that coincided with a sharp
increase in mortgage rates . Don’t start writing housing’s obituary just yet. First, the
residential real-estate market just got going. Only in the last
two years has residential investment contributed in any
significant way to economic growth. It has to make up for lost
time. Second, what might look like a lack of demand may actually
be a dearth of supply. So pour the water out of that half-empty glass. Then refill
it to half full and consider some of the positives: 1. Mortgage rates and the theory of relativity The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.58 percent
last week from 3.53 percent in early May, according to Freddie
Mac . That’s a hefty jump. But after years of consistently
falling rates, the first move off the lows tends to energize the
fence-sitters more than deter potential buyers, according to
Michael Carliner, an economic consultant who specializes in
housing. With house prices finally turning up late last year, that
fence is becoming an increasingly uncomfortable perch. So yes,
mortgage rates have risen more than a full percentage point in
the last four months, and there is going to be a certain amount
of sticker shock for those considering financing options for
their purchase. But in the grand scheme of things, 4.6 percent
is a pretty good rate for a 30-year mortgage. Just ask people
who bought a home in the early 1980s and locked in at a rate of
15 percent or more. At this point, the inability of many potential homeowners
to qualify for a mortgage is still a bigger issue than rates. 2. Someone tell the builders Among the wide array of housing indicators, the National
Association of Home Builders ’ Housing Market Index (USHBMIDX) leads the
pack in both timing (the August report was released Aug. 15) and
predictive ability. The monthly survey asks builders to rate
current sales, traffic of prospective buyers and expectations
for sales six months down the road. Although the survey is
qualitative | 8 | 28 | 60ed56106f6a479eb903f476c50d02f0 | started” and “under construction” categories, not in
“completed” homes. “Builders aren’t stuck with a lot of
unsold homes,” Carliner says. The inventory of completed homes stood at 36,000 in July,
compared with 43,000 six months ago. And the median time on the
market was 3.5 months, which was typical of the bubble years. It
does seem as if softer sales are a reflection of supply
constraints. 4. Rising prices, less distress Home prices have been on a tear, especially in certain
areas of the country, but the rate of increase may be slowing,
according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for
June. All 20 cities tracked by Case-Shiller posted increases
both monthly and from a year earlier in June; only six rose at a
faster pace than in May. The national home price index rose 10 percent in the second
quarter of this year from the same quarter in 2012; home prices
rose almost 25 percent in Las Vegas and San Francisco , which
sounds positively bubbly. Should we be concerned? Carliner says no. Prices are rebounding from lows that were
depressed by the large share of distressed sales. “Now
distressed sales are a smaller share of sales, so prices are
going back up,” he says. “Relative to 2007, prices aren’t that
high.” Just enough to tempt a potential buyer without turning him
off. 5. Help wanted: Carpentry skills a plus You would have thought that the housing boom, bust and slow
recovery would have created a surfeit of construction workers.
Wrong. Reports of regional labor shortages in hot markets such
as Seattle and Phoenix are popping up in the Federal Reserve ’s
Beige Book, in NAHB surveys and in reports from trade
associations. There are 2 million fewer construction workers
today than at the 2006 peak. Some have retired and moved on. The
supply of new entrants isn’t sufficient to satisfy builder needs
in certain areas of the country. Add it all up, and it seems a bit too early to sound the
death knell for housing. ( Caroline Baum , author of “Just What I Said,” is a
Bloomberg View columnist.) To contact the writer of this article:
Caroline Baum in New York at
[email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this article:
James Greiff at [email protected] . | 2013 | five-reasons-housing-isn-t-ready-to-drop-dead |
High-Speed Rail Dispute Goes to U.K. Supreme Court in October | By Jeremy Hodges | 2013-08-28T10:30:17Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/high-speed-rail-dispute-goes-to-u-k-supreme-court-in-october.html | 8 | 28 | dd016a0e3e350ddeb5ee75036219236eaa27a995 | Opponents of a U.K. government plan
to construct a 33 billion-pound ($51 billion) high-speed rail
line through England will take their case to the Supreme Court
in October. A group of local councils, residents and activists will
challenge the plan at a two-day hearing starting Oct. 15, the
Supreme Court said in an e-mail today. The opponents say the
rail line violates environmental law and the government failed
to take into consideration the concerns of people living near
the project. HS2 trains could reach speeds as high as 225 miles (362
kilometers) per hour and would run between London and
Birmingham, with future spurs to Leeds and Manchester. The line
would run through the Chiltern hills, designated as an area of
outstanding natural beauty. Local governments, residents and a
golf club near the route oppose it as noisy and intrusive. Two lower courts have already dismissed most of the claims
made by HS2 Action Alliance, a not-for-profit umbrella group
working against the project. To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeremy Hodges in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Anthony Aarons at
[email protected] | 2013 | igh-speed-rail-dispute-goes-to-u-k-supreme-court-in-october |
Treasury Five-Year Notes May Yield 1.618% at Auction, Survey Say | By Cordell Eddings | 2013-08-28T16:45:10Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/treasury-five-year-notes-may-yield-1-618-at-auction-survey-say.html | 8 | 28 | f6292d7e6d104f1253f821cce8a22f513c76d2fc | The Treasury Department’s $35
billion sale of five-year notes may draw a yield of 1.618
percent, according to the average forecast in a Bloomberg News
survey of eight of the Federal Reserve ’s 21 primary dealers. The securities, which mature in August 2018, yielded 1.62
percent in pre-auction trading. Bids are due by 1 p.m. New York
time. Last month’s sale of the securities yielded 1.41 percent,
compared with 1.48 percent the month before, the highest since
July 2011. The size of today’s offering is the same as the past
35 sales of five-year notes after peaking at $42 billion from
November 2009 through April 2010. The July 24 offering’s bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges
demand by comparing the amount bid with the amount offered, was
2.46. The average for the past 10 auctions was 2.74. Indirect bidders, a class of investor that includes foreign
central banks, bought 53.9 percent of the notes at the July
sale, the most since November 2009. The average for the past 10
auctions is 44.2 percent. Direct bidders, non-primary-dealer investors that place
their bids directly with the Treasury, purchased 8.3 percent of
the notes at the last sale, compared with an average of 15.9
percent at the past 10. Five-year notes have lost 2.6 percent this year, versus a
loss of 3.1 percent for Treasuries overall, according to Bank of
America Merrill Lynch indexes. The five-year securities returned
2.3 percent in 2012, while Treasuries overall rose 2.2 percent. Today’s offering is the second of three note auctions this
week totaling $98 billion. The government sold $34 billion in
two-year debt yesterday at a yield of 0.386 percent, and will
sell $29 billion in seven-year securities tomorrow. The sales will raise $38.1 billion of new cash, as maturing
securities held by the public total $59.9 billion, according to
the U.S. Treasury . The Fed’s primary dealers trade government securities with
the central bank and are obligated to bid in Treasury auctions. To contact the reporter on this story:
Cordell Eddings in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dave Liedtka at
[email protected] | 2013 | reasury-five-year-notes-may-yield-1-618-at-auction-survey-say |
Iraq to Cut September Basrah Light Crude Exports to 20-Month Low | By Sherry Su | 2013-08-28T09:13:29Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/iraq-to-cut-september-basrah-light-crude-exports-to-20-month-low.html | 8 | 28 | 6a2ad20e852d2dd997d63ec93bd2444a4e151bd2 | Iraq will reduce daily exports of
Basrah Light crude from the Persian Gulf in September to the
lowest in at least 20 months, according to a loading program
obtained by Bloomberg News . The Middle Eastern producer, the largest in the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi
Arabia , will ship about 52.86 million barrels, or 1.76 million
barrels a day, from the Basrah Oil Terminal, according to the
plan. This is the lowest since at least February 2012 when
Bloomberg started tracking the data and compares with 2.09
million a day this month. Basrah Light shipments were forecast to drop by about
500,000 barrels a day in September because of planned
infrastructure work at the terminals by State Oil Marketing
Organization, the International Energy Agency said in its
monthly report on Aug. 9. Iraq will boost exports next month, an
Oil Ministry official said Aug. 16. Brent crude jumped 7.3
percent to about $115.50 a barrel today on supply cuts in Iraq
and Libya, and speculation that fighting in Syria may escalate. “Volumes will be curtailed only in September but the fear
is the shut-in could drag on for months given the scope of the
work as well as the country’s poor record of delivering projects
on time,” the IEA said. “The plans call for one of the two
floating Single Point Moorings to be shut for between 30 and 45
days so that work can proceed on connecting a newly installed
metering and manifold platform.” The maintenance works are routine and won’t affect export
levels, said Asim Jihad , an Iraq oil ministry spokesman. The shipping schedule comprises 20 cargoes of 2 million
barrels each, 10 consignments of 1 million barrels and four of
715,000 barrels. Iraqi exports of Kirkuk blend via the Turkish port of
Ceyhan will drop to the lowest in two years, according to a
separate loading schedule. Loading programs are schedules of crude shipments compiled
by field operators to allow buyers and sellers to plan their
supply and trading activities. To contact the reporter on this story:
Sherry Su in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss at
[email protected] | 2013 | iraq-to-cut-september-basrah-light-crude-exports-to-20-month-low |
Merkel Rejects D-Mark Nostalgia, Says Euro Symbolizes Unity | By Patrick Donahue | 2013-08-28T18:05:04Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/merkel-rejects-d-mark-nostalgia-says-euro-symbolizes-unity.html
Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected
nostalgia for the deutsche mark, telling a crowd of supporters
today that “under no circumstance” would Germany be better off
if it had held on to its post-World War II currency. Speaking at an election rally in Ulm in southern Germany
next to the city’s signature cathedral, Merkel said the single
euro-zone currency eliminated currency-fluctuation risk and
symbolized the achievement of European unity and peace. “The euro is more than a currency, it’s a political
testament,” Merkel told a crowd of several thousand, including
a small group of protesters from the anti-euro Alternative for
Germany party, or AfD. “The world believes that we’ve achieved
something wonderful | 8 | 28 | 418d6082bfe155ac6c3b7f7a15695b06e18f96c4 | Democratic-led bloc has been concerned that the AfD’s message of
unwinding the single currency could draw voters from her flank.
Her Social Democratic Party opponent, Peer Steinbrueck , went on
the attack this week, accusing Merkel of not being upfront over
the cost to German taxpayers in resolving the European debt
crisis . Speaking to rally participants, some waving orange placards
emblazoned with “Angie,” Merkel said indebted nations in the
17-member euro must overhaul their economies just as Germany has
in the last decade to pull out of the slump. “Today we’re the growth engine and the anchor of stability
in Europe and we know that painful reforms have their success,”
Merkel said. Leading Polls With 25 days to go before the Sept. 22 election, Merkel has
maintained her lead in the polls over the SPD. Support for her
CDU-led bloc was unchanged at 41 percent in a weekly Forsa poll
for today’s Stern magazine. While her Free Democratic coalition
partner dropped a percentage point to 5 percent, their combined
tally of 46 percent would still be enough for a repeat of the
current coalition, Stern said. The AfD, whose protesters in Ulm carried signs reading
“Don’t Let Europe Fall on the Euro,” gained a percentage point
to 3 percent in the poll, missing the 5 percent threshold to
enter parliament. Still, pollsters have said the AfD’s support
might be under-reported because of possible reluctance among its
backers to reveal how they’ll vote next month. The SPD held at 22 percent and its Green party ally dropped
two percentage points to 11 percent, the lowest level this year.
Forsa polled 2,501 voters from Aug. 20 to Aug. 26. The margin of
error was as much as 2.5 percentage points. Merkel yesterday sought to pin the blame for the euro-region’s debt turmoil on her SPD predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder,
telling a rally in Rendsburg that he should never have let
Greece into the single-currency area. “Chancellor Schroeder accepted Greece in and weakened the
stability pact and both decisions were fundamentally wrong, and
one of the starting points for our current troubles,” she said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Patrick Donahue in Ulm, Germany at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Hertling at
[email protected] | 2013 | erkel-rejects-d-mark-nostalgia-says-euro-symbolizes-unity |
Property Stocks Decline on Latest Housing Curbs | By Kyunghee Park | 2013-08-28T09:43:52Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/singapore-tightens-loans-on-public-housing-to-stabilize-market.html | 8 | 28 | c41921f37b9e42fe89272c29f270827f | Singapore ’s property stocks fell, driving an index tracking developers to a one-year low, after the government tightened its public housing policy by reducing tenures for new loans and restricting purchases by foreigners. The Singapore property index tracking 43 stocks fell 1.4 percent to 692.64 at the close in Singapore trading, the lowest since Sept. 11. Singapore will cut the maximum tenure for new loans to purchase homes built by the state to 25 years from 30 years, the Housing & Development Board said in a statement on its website. Mortgage payments are capped at 30 percent of their gross monthly income, down from 35 percent. With 82 percent of Singaporeans living in government-built apartments, housing rules have been used to encourage the development of families and other government policies. Public housing regulations also affect private developers because the companies rely on these homeowners to upgrade to condominiums. “These measures continue to be negative for the Singapore private residential market, given that upgrader demand has contributed to a significant portion of mass-market private residential housing demand,” Citigroup Inc. analysts Adrian Chua and Ivan K. Lim said in a report yesterday. “A weaker HDB resale will impinge on upgrader households’ ability to monetize their flats.” CapitaLand Ltd. (CAPL) , the city’s biggest developer, lost 2.3 percent to S$2.93, the lowest since July 24, 2012. City Developments Ltd., the second largest, dropped 2.2 percent to S$9.76. Foreigner Restrictions Foreigners will be allowed to buy existing HDB flats three years after they obtain permanent residential status in the island city, the board said. Previously, they could buy the apartments after becoming permanent residents. The measure took effect 5:30 p.m. local time yesterday. “We are introducing two measures to further stabilize the HDB resale market,” the board said in the statement. “These measures are in line with those introduced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to encourage financial prudence among borrowers, which is especially important given the current low interest rate environment is unlikely to be sustained.” The city’s private home sales in July slid to the lowest since December 2009 as investors balked at new curbs on property loans and developers marketed fewer projects. Home sales fell to 481 units last month, 73 percent lower from a month earlier, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority on Aug. 15. The NUS Singapore Residential Property Index rose 0.2 percent in July from the previous month after declining 0.1 percent in June, data showed today. ‘Weak Market’ “In an already weak market, we expect the incremental measure to be taken negatively by the market,” Credit Suisse Group AG analysts Yvonne Voon and Sing Ping Chok said in a research report today. “We still expect near-term property prices to be flattish supported by low vacancy and healthy balance sheet.” Record home prices amid low interest rates raised concerns of a housing bubble and prompted the government to widen a four-year campaign in January to curb speculation in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. Singapore in June also unveiled new rules governing how financial institutions grant property loans to individuals, extending the efforts. Singapore has been attempting to rein in prices since 2009, when the government barred interest-only loans for some housing projects and stopped allowing developers to absorb interest payments for apartments still being built. To contact the reporter on this story: Kyunghee Park in Singapore at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at [email protected] | 2013 | singapore-tightens-loans-on-public-housing-to-stabilize-marke |
S. African Strikes Threaten to Spread to 335,000 Workers | By Kamlesh Bhuckory, Paul Burkhardt and Rene Vollgraaff | 2013-08-28T14:51:03Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/s-african-strikes-threaten-to-spread-to-335-000-workers.html | 8 | 28 | 7347a778d56f43f5b750e54b9469a0ce | South Africa may face strikes
involving as many as 335,000 workers after deadlocks in wage
talks between employers and the country’s biggest labor unions
spread to gas stations and car dealerships . About 72,000 motor-industry workers will walk out on Sept.
2 after a breakdown in wage talks between the National Union of
Metalworkers of South Africa , the Fuel Retailers Association and
Retail Motor Industry Organization, the union said yesterday.
They will join employees in the auto-manufacturing, construction
and aviation industries that are already on strike, while gold
mines face the threat of labor action. Numsa “has taken a conscious decision to exercise our hard
fought democratic and constitutional right to embark on an
indefinite strike action ,” spokesman Castro Ngobese said in an
e-mailed statement. “The strike action has not been on our
agenda, but it has been imposed on us” after the motor industry
didn’t meet union demands. South Africa has been plagued by labor disputes for more
than a year, hurting economic growth. Inflation in Africa’s
biggest economy accelerated to 6.3 percent in July, the highest
in 15 months. Gross domestic product rose an annualized 3
percent in the second quarter, a slower pace than the median
estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Rand Decline The rand has slumped 18 percent against the dollar this
year, the worst performer of 16 major currencies tracked by
Bloomberg. The currency strengthened 0.2 percent to 10.3706 per
dollar by 4:42 p.m. in Johannesburg. There is a 70 percent chance of strikes in the gold
industry after the biggest unions rejected the last offer by
producers, Mark Rosenberg, an Africa analyst at New York-based
Eurasia Group, said in an e-mailed note today. The stoppage in
the auto industry will probably be resolved within a week and
the construction strike within two weeks, he said. The automotive-manufacturing industry, accounting for about
7 percent of GDP, has been at a standstill since Aug. 19, when
about 30,000 workers downed tools. Car manufacturers including
Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) , Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) and Volkswagen
AG (VOW) collectively proposed a new offer on Aug. 22, representing a
10 percent increase over three years. “We are still on strike,” Numsa Treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo
said by phone today. “The workers have not accepted the 10
percent offer from the employers.” Construction Industry The National Union of Mineworkers and the Building,
Construction and Allied Workers Union rejected a 7.5 percent
increase offer from the South African Federation of Civil
Engineering Contractors. “We remain hopeful that the strike will not be of a long-term nature,” Annemie Cowley, manager for communications and
marketing at the South African Federation of Civil Engineering
Contractors, or Safcec, said in an e-mailed response to
questions. “About 90,000 workers are employed in the civil
engineering contracting industry.” Safcec has about 400 employer members including Murray &
Roberts Holdings Ltd. (MUR) and Aveng Ltd. (AEG) , the country’s biggest
construction companies, according to the federation. Talks are at “a standstill now,” Lesiba Seshoka , a
spokesman for the NUM, said by phone today. The seven-member FTSE/JSE Africa Construction and Building
Materials Index , fell for a second day, declining 1.9 percent to
41.89, the lowest level since Aug. 5. Murray & Roberts led the
retreat, decreasing as much as 5.6 percent, and traded 3.8
percent lower at 24.33 rand. Specially Trained No violent protests related to the strikes have been
reported in Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located,
according to Lieutenant Colonel Katlego Mogale, a spokeswoman
for the Gauteng Police Service. The police are ready for any
disruption, she said. “There’s a unit which is specially trained to deal with
strikes,” Mogale said by phone. “The public order policing
will be dealing with all the protests.” The NUM, the biggest union in the gold-mining industry,
attended a meeting on wages on Aug. 26 and reached a point of
non-resolution with mining companies. The union has rejected the
last offer by the Chamber of Mines and may decide on a strike in
that industry as early as Aug. 31. The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, the
second-largest representative of employees at bullion producers,
also rejected a revised offer and has applied for a certificate
of non-resolution, Elize Strydom, the chief negotiator for gold
companies at the chamber, said on Johannesburg-based SAFM today.
The permit gives the union’s members permission to start an
authorized strike. ‘Highly Likely’ The chance of a workers strike is “highly likely,”
Solidarity Union General Secretary Gideon du Plessis said in
speech in Johannesburg today. A gold-mining strike would result in 142,000 people
stopping work in an industry already affected by a 15 percent
decline in the price of the metal this year. The six-member
FTSE/JSE Africa Gold Mining Index has fallen 41 percent this
year compared with a 7.8 percent increase in the FTSE/JSE Africa
All-Share Index. “Strikes are not the end of the world,” Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan said at a mining conference in Johannesburg
yesterday. “Let the workers and the employers find the right
balance. At the end of the day there must be enough cooperation
to create normality in our environment.” To contact the reporters on this story:
Kamlesh Bhuckory in Johannesburg at
[email protected] ;
Rene Vollgraaff in Johannesburg at
[email protected] ;
Paul Burkhardt in Johannesburg at
[email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story:
John Viljoen at
[email protected] ;
Simon Thiel at
[email protected] | 2013 | s-african-strikes-threaten-to-spread-to-335-000-workers |
Alcatel-Lucent Names Ex-Goldman Banker Raby Finance Chief | By Marie Mawad | 2013-08-28T07:52:33Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/alcatel-lucent-hires-former-goldman-banker-raby-as-finance-chief.html | 8 | 28 | 8ccb78d12144f175b044785b34e33015043fdfec | Alcatel-Lucent SA named former
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) banker Jean Raby as chief financial and
legal officer as part of the networking-equipment maker’s
reorganization under Chief Executive Officer Michel Combes . Raby, who was a partner and managing director at Goldman’s
investment-banking division until last year, will start in the
new role next month and move to Paris, Alcatel-Lucent said today
in a statement. The 49-year-old will take on responsibilities
left by outgoing CFO Paul Tufano. Combes, who took over in April after predecessor Ben Verwaayen’s asset sales and firings failed to turn around the
company, is trying to keep Alcatel-Lucent’s cash from dwindling
further after seven consecutive years of declines. Raby brings
investment-banking expertise as the company tries to cut debt by
2 billion euros ($2.7 billion) by the end of 2015 by selling
shares on the stock market or through further asset sales . “His extensive knowledge of the industry and his deep
understanding of global financial markets in the widest sense
will be of great value as we drive ahead with the implementation
of the Shift Plan announced in June,” Combes said in the
statement. Shares of Alcatel-Lucent fell 1 percent to 1.90 euros at
9:51 a.m. in Paris. They had jumped 92 percent this year through
yesterday. Loans Rate Raby, born in Canada and trained as a lawyer, holds a
Bachelor of Laws from the Universite Laval in Quebec City , a
Master of Philosophy in International Relations from the
University of Cambridge in the U.K. and a Master of Laws from
Harvard Law School . Alcatel-Lucent in December pledged its 39,000-strong patent
portfolio as collateral for a 2-billion-euro loan deal
underwritten by Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs. The Paris-based equipment maker is now seeking to reduce
the rate on part of these loans, with Morgan Stanley, Credit
Suisse and Deutsche Bank AG arranging the transaction, a person
with knowledge of the matter said this month. In the coming months, Combes will have to deal with job
cuts and asset sales as part of his bid to reorganize a company
that has lost more than $10 billion since it was created through
a 2006 merger. The Frenchman is also in talks with potential
research partners, which could become Alcatel-Lucent investors.
Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) already agreed to buy a minority stake. To contact the reporter on this story:
Marie Mawad in Paris at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Kenneth Wong at
[email protected] | 2013 | alcatel-lucent-hires-former-goldman-banker-raby-as-finance-chief |
Mighty River Says N.Z. Power Demand to Flatten as Economy Grows | By Tracy Withers | 2013-08-28T00:34:59Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/mighty-river-says-n-z-power-demand-to-flatten-as-economy-grows.html | 8 | 28 | 72480a40003d0c3ca7ed9604dc29ca4ef75a0dd5 | Power demand in New Zealand , which
is selling stakes in generators, is forecast to remain flat even
as construction-led economic growth heads toward 3 percent, said
Mighty River Power Ltd. “I don’t see economic conditions where you are going to
return to the same correlation between gross domestic product
and electricity that we’ve had historically,” Mighty River’s
Chief Executive Officer Doug Heffernan said today on a
conference call. “We are in for a period that’s going to keep
demand running at relatively flat level for the future.” Power demand in New Zealand has fallen in four of the past
five years after a decade when power consumption grew at about
the same pace as gross domestic product, Heffernan said. Subdued
power consumption is overshadowing Prime Minister John Key’s
plan to raise at least NZ$5 billion ($3.9 billion) from the sale
of stakes in government-owned power companies. About 48 percent of Mighty River, the nation’s fourth-biggest power company, was sold in May, raising NZ$1.7 billion
after its shares were offered at NZ$2.50 apiece. Key will offer
shares in Meridian Energy Ltd., the nation’s largest generator,
next month, and Genesis Power Ltd. next year. Mighty River shares , which dropped to a record low last
week, rose as much as 1.8 percent to NZ$2.23 after the company
said full-year net income was NZ$114.8 million, beating the
NZ$94.8 million forecast made at the time of the initial public
offering. Construction-led The current economic recovery is linked to construction and
“that is not a leading indicator of electricity consumption,”
Heffernan said. It has no new developments planned in New
Zealand for at least three-to-five years. Power demand has declined as large industrial users such as
the paper industry have reduced capacity and as appliances used
in homes have become more efficient, Heffernan said. Consumption
at Rio Tinto Group’s aluminum smelter at Tiwai Point near the
southern tip of New Zealand has also declined, he said. The
plant uses about 14 percent of the nation’s power. Meridian this month agreed with Rio to sell it power at a
lower price in return for a commitment to keep operating the
smelter until at least January 2017. “The deal announced is better than the prognosis we
outlined in the offer document,” Heffernan said. “If the
smelter gives notice that will impact on thermal generators,
there’s no two ways about it.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Tracy Withers in Wellington at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Matthew Brockett at
[email protected] | 2013 | ighty-river-says-n-z-power-demand-to-flatten-as-economy-grows |
German Bonds Rise for Third Day After Consumer-Confidence Report | By Morgane Lapeyre | 2013-08-28T06:22:35Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/german-bonds-rise-for-third-day-after-consumer-confidence-report.html | 8 | 28 | 7783c0f6a2f866553ba0f5d491491dede9e65935 | Germany’s 10-year government bonds
rose for a third day as a report showed a gauge of consumer
confidence in Europe ’s largest economy will decline for the
first time in eight months in September. Benchmark 10-year yields approached a two-week low after
market-research company GfK SE (GFK) said its consumer-sentiment
index , based on a survey of about 2,000 people, will drop to 6.9
from 7 in August. Economists forecast a gain to 7.1, according
to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Italy is
scheduled to sell 8.5 billion euros ($11.4 billion) of six-month
bills as Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s government meets to
approve the reduction of a real-estate tax. Germany’s 10-year bund yield dropped two basis points, or
0.02 percentage point, to 1.83 percent as of 7:19 a.m. London
time. The rate fell to 1.80 percent on Aug. 15. The 1.5 percent
security due in May 2023 rose 0.16, or 1.60 euros per 1,000-euro
face amount, to 97.10. Italy last sold 184-day bills on July 29 at an average
yield of 0.799 percent, compared with a rate of 0.599 percent at
a previous auction on July 10. German bonds lost 2.1 percent this year through yesterday,
according to Bloomberg World Bond Indexes. Italian securities
returned 3.3 percent, while Spain’s earned 7.6 percent. To contact the reporter on this story:
Morgane Lapeyre in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Paul Dobson at
[email protected] | 2013 | german-bonds-rise-for-third-day-after-consumer-confidence-repor |
Goldman Sachs’ Jason Lee Indicted on Rape Charge | By Chris Dolmetsch | 2013-08-28T22:07:31Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/goldman-sachs-jason-lee-indicted-on-rape-charge-in.html | 8 | 28 | ea118fba341c3862cdc5cd2d56c9b3c3bb4330a3 | Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) managing
director Jason Lee was indicted by a grand jury on a rape charge
stemming from the alleged assault on a 20-year-old woman at a
Long Island, New York, home, court records show. Lee, 37, was arrested and charged with first-degree rape on
Aug. 21 in the town of East Hampton after police went to his
Clover Leaf Lane vacation home and learned that a woman had been
sexually assaulted inside the residence, where several people
had gathered, according to a police statement. A grand jury indicted Lee on three charges: one count of
first-degree rape, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years
in prison, and two misdemeanor counts of assault and sexual
misconduct, according to online state court records. Lee, who is
free on $20,000 cash bail, is scheduled to be arraigned before
Judge Barbara R. Kahn in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on
Sept. 20, court records show. The police statement didn’t identify Lee’s employer. Lee,
who lives in New York, is head of convertibles at Goldman Sachs
and has been placed on leave, according to a person familiar
with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about a
private personnel matter and asked not to be named. Rented Home Brian Desesa, an attorney representing Lee, said in an
interview last week that the case is a “huge travesty” and an
“injustice” and that Lee will be cleared of the charges “once
the story comes out.” “Mr. Lee adamantly denies these allegations,” Risa
Heller , a spokeswoman for Lee, said in an e-mailed statement.
“He is a very accomplished individual who has never been in
trouble with the law. His wife supports him and he looks forward
to clearing his name in court.” The alleged assault occurred at a home of the defendant,
police said. A description of a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom 2,700-square-foot house on the street where Lee was arrested, posted
on the website of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, said it was
available from Aug. 1 until Labor Day for $33,000. Lee, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, has been
with Goldman Sachs since March 1998, according to the Financial
Industry Regulatory Authority. He led “many of the firm’s most
complicated financing and risk-management transactions for
corporate clients” while managing convertible and equity
derivative origination for financial, health-care and consumer
companies, according to a biography posted on the website of a
2009 Milken Institute conference where he was a scheduled
speaker. Bond Dealers According to the biography, he was the firm’s
representative in 1999 at BrokerTec Global, a gathering of
Treasury bond dealers, and helped create the first inter-dealer
electronic futures exchange and clearinghouse. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office didn’t
immediately return a call seeking comment on the indictment and
East Hampton police haven’t returned multiple messages seeking
further comment on the case. The case is New York v. Lee, 02053/2013, Suffolk County
Court - Criminal Term. To contact the reporter on this story:
Chris Dolmetsch in New York State Supreme Court at
8969 or [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Hytha at [email protected] | 2013 | goldman-sachs-jason-lee-indicted-on-rape-charge-in |
TOP Oil Market News: WTI Crude to Two-Year High on Syria Concern | By Alexander Kwiatkowski | 2013-08-28T06:58:20Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/top-oil-market-news-wti-crude-to-two-year-high-on-syria-concern.html
The following is a selection of the
most important news affecting the oil market. WTI Crude Rises to Two-Year High on Syria; SocGen Sees $150 Risk West Texas Intermediate crude surged to the highest price
since May 2011 on concern that conflict in Syria may spread and
threaten oil supplies from the Middle East. Gas Price Jump Seen in Record Europe Stockpiling: Energy Markets Europe’s utilities are replenishing natural gas reserves at
the fastest pace on record, risking a surge in prices as the
region’s winter heating season looms. Brent Crude May Spike to $150 on Syria Spillover, SocGen Says Brent crude may “spike briefly” to $150 a barrel if a
U.S.-led attack on Syria sparks further conflict in the Middle
East and leads to supply disruptions, Societe Generale SA said
in a report e-mailed today. Asia Fuel Oil Crack at Two-Year Low, Gasoil Rises: Oil Products Asia fuel oil falls to largest discount to Dubai crude in
more than two years, indicating wider losses from producing the
residual product. Gasoil crack rises. Oil Inventories Rose 2.47 Million Barrels Last Week, API Reports Oil supplies rose 2.47 million barrels last week, the
American Petroleum Institute said. CNPC’s Jilin, Liaohe Oil Fields Halt on Worst Floods Since 1998 295 oil wells in Jilin field halt production as of Aug. 7
as floods hit northeast China , co. says in newsletter posted on
website. Petronas Said to Sell October Tapis at $7.50 to $7.80 Premium Petroliam Nasional Bhd., the Malaysian state oil company
known as Petronas, sold 300,000 barrels of Tapis crude for Oct.
10 to Oct. 20 loading at $7.50 to $7.80 a barrel above Dated
Brent, said two people who participate in the market. Engen Petroleum Said to Buy Reliance’s Gasoil at $5.30 Premium South Africa’s Engen Petroleum Ltd. bought 35,000 metric
tons of gasoil for September loading from Reliance Industries
Ltd., owner of the world’s largest refining complex, said two
traders who asked not to be identified because the information
is confidential. Petters, Detroit, Capmark, AMR, Lehman, Rotech: Bankruptcy (1) General Electric Capital Corp. temporarily defeated eight
of nine fraud claims in a $1 billion lawsuit brought by
creditors of hedge funds swindled by the Thomas Petters , the
architect of the third-largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. REFINERIES Map global refinery outages Syncrude Coker 8-1 Restarts After Planned Maintenance Unit is back in operation, Co. said in statement
distributed by Marketwired. Crude Supply Rises First Week in Four in Survey: Energy Markets U.S. crude supplies probably rose for the first time in
four weeks after refineries reduced operating rates as the end
of the peak-driving season approached, a Bloomberg survey
showed. Shell Scotford Refinery Conducting Planned Maintenance No material impact to production from unspecified
maintenance at the Shell Scotford refinery in Alberta , Co. says
in community hotline message. Delek Tyler Refinery Said to Shut Unit for October Maintenance Delek US Holdings Inc. plans to shut an alkylation unit at
the Tyler, Texas, refinery for maintenance in October, a person
familiar with operations said. N.Y. Gasoline Snaps Rally as Northeast Plant Restarts FCC Unit New York Harbor gasoline fell from the strongest level in
six months as a refinery in the U.S. Northeast restarted a unit
following a shutdown. Crude Supply Rises First Week in Four in Survey: Energy Markets U.S. crude supplies probably rose for the first time in
four weeks after refineries reduced operating rates as the end
of the peak-driving season approached, a Bloomberg survey
showed. Tesoro Says Operations Normal at Golden Eagle After Planned Work Co. said N. California refinery operating normally,
according to spokeswoman Tina Barbee. N.Y. Gasoline Snaps Rally as Northeast Plant Restarts FCC Unit New York Harbor gasoline fell from the strongest level in
six months as a refinery in the U.S. Northeast restarted a unit
following a shutdown. Motiva Says Convent Refinery Operating as Planned After Fire Co. said refinery operating as planned after an Aug. 19
fire in one of the refinery’s process units. OTHER OIL MARKET NEWS Oil Product Shipping Costs to Japan Are Unchanged The cost of shipping a gallon of gasoline, jet fuel or
other so-called clean petroleum products from the Middle East to
Japan was unchanged at 10.36 U.S. cents yesterday, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg. The cost is based on a cargo of
55,000 metric tons. European Jet Fuel Imports Rise to Three-Month High in August (1) Jet fuel shipments to Europe from the Middle East and Asia
are poised to rebound to a three-month high as buyers replenish
inventories after stockpiles dropped to a five-year seasonal
low. TOP ENERGY STORIES Stocks Fall as Oil Reaches 18-Month High on Syria, Gold Rallies Stocks slid the most since June and oil surged to an 18-month high amid concern the U.S. will take military action
against Syria. Treasuries, the yen and gold rose while Turkey ’s
lira and India ’s rupee reached record lows. U.S. Said to Weigh Legal Justification for Attack on Syria (1) The Obama administration is constructing the legal and
political justification for a limited military strike on Syria
that would demonstrate international censure against chemical
weapons, according to a U.S. official. Entergy to Close Vermont’s Only Nuclear Plant on Low Prices (3) Entergy Corp. will permanently shut its Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant in 2014 after battling for years with state
officials to keep the 41-year-old reactor in service. Fuel Fraud Costing Europe More Than $4 Billion in Lost Taxes (2) The watchman at Germany ’s largest oil refinery, the MiRO
plant in Karlsruhe, would wait until a fellow security guard was
out of sight before sending a text message that it was safe to
drive a 10,000-liter tanker of stolen diesel out the gates. Tepco ‘Whack-a-Mole’ Means Government Takeover in Fukushima (1) Japan’s government will lead “emergency measures” to
tackle radioactive water spills at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear
plant, wresting control of the disaster recovery from the
plant’s heavily criticized operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. U.S. Moving With Allies Closer to Military Strike on Syria (1) The U.S., France and Britain are moving closer to
retaliatory military action against Syria, laying out the
justification, putting forces into place and rounding up allies
in the region. Syria Vows Defiance as U.K. Parliament Recalled Over Chemicals Syria vowed defiance as Britain’s Parliament was recalled
to discuss possible military action over an alleged chemical
attack near Damascus and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said U.S.
forces are “ready to go.” China Widens Anti-Graft Drive as PetroChina Ousts Managers (2) China widened its anti-corruption campaign to include the
nation’s biggest company by market value, as PetroChina Co. said
four senior managers had been removed amid an investigation by
authorities. Petrobras Downgrade to Junk Seen in Default Swaps: Brazil Credit Petroleo Brasileiro SA is being treated like junk by
derivatives traders as the most-leveraged major oil producer
goes deeper into debt to finance its record $237 billion
spending spree. Tepco Must Plan for 132 Olympic Pools of Fukushima Water: Energy Tokyo Electric Power Co. has accumulated the largest pool
of radioactive water in the history of nuclear accidents. The
utility must now decide what to do with it: dump in the ocean,
evaporate into the air, or both. OTHER MARKETS Asian Stocks Drop While Crude Climbs on Syria as Rupee Slumps Asian stocks dropped for a second day, credit risk climbed
and oil rose on concern the U.S. will take military action
against Syria. India’s rupee sank to a record and government
bonds in Australia advanced. Yen Holds Biggest Gains in 2 1/2 Months as Syria Tension Mounts The yen held its biggest gains in 2 1/2 months against the
dollar and euro as traders sought haven investments amid
escalating tension in Syria. Yen’s Rising Correlation With Stocks Undermines Abe: Currencies The strongest link in four decades between Japan’s currency
and stocks signals gains for the yen that threaten Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempt to eliminate deflation. Asian Stocks Head for Two-Month Low as Syria Tensions Escalate Asian stocks slumped, with the regional benchmark index
heading for the lowest close in two months, on concern the U.S.
will take military action against Syria for using chemical
weapons. Hyundai to Hynix Top Asia Buying as HSBC Bullish: Korea Markets South Korean stocks have gone from Asia’s most-hated
equities to the favorites of international investors after
valuations fell to a six-year low versus global shares and
exports rebounded. Potash King Becomes Hostage as Belarus Pokes Putin: Commodities As Belarus television showed the Russian head of OAO
Uralkali, the world’s biggest potash producer, being led around
the courtyard of an undisclosed prison, Anatoly Lebedko knew
exactly where it was: Amerikanka. Silver Futures Climb Above $25 as Gold Gains on Syria Concerns Silver for December delivery extends advance, climbing as
much as 1.4% to $25.045/oz, highest for most-active contract
since April 15. Vietnam Rises as Middle Power at Defense Summit: Southeast Asia U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel meets his Vietnamese
counterpart Phung Quang Thanh in Brunei today, as the
competition for oil, fish and influence puts Vietnam in focus as
an emerging middle power in Southeast Asia. Tomahawk Missile Launches Likely in a U.S.-Led Attack on Syria Tomahawk cruise missiles are likely to be launched at night
against hundreds of Syrian targets, including some of President
Bashar al-Assad’s elite military units, if the U.S. and allies
launch a military strike in retaliation for the use of chemical
weapons. SPORTS Liverpool Survives in League Cup as Bristol City Upsets Palace Liverpool and Hull needed extra time to defeat lower-division teams in the second round of the League Cup, while
Fulham advanced in a penalty shootout and Crystal Palace was
upset. Arsenal Secures 16th Straight Champions League Group Stage Berth Arsenal defeated Fenerbahce 2-0 to reach the group stage of
soccer’s Champions League for the 16th consecutive season. Arsenal Beats Fenerbahce to Reach Champions League Group Stage Arsenal defeated Fenerbahce 2-0 to advance to the group
stage of soccer’s Champions League. ENERGY PRICES Last Chg %Chg Exch Contract | 8 | 28 | 973db57bc4994e7e9b31a0e8b4b87fcb | Dollar Index 81.25 +0.1
Gold ($/Oz) 1,420.20 +1.9
MSCI World Index 1,480.44 -0.3 Prices as of 6 a.m. GMT To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Alexander Kwiatkowski in Singapore at
[email protected] | 2013 | op-oil-market-news-wti-crude-to-two-year-high-on-syria-concern |
K+S’s Potash Heritage Under Threat as Investors Question Mine | By Sheenagh Matthews | 2013-08-28T22:00:01Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/k-s-s-potash-heritage-under-threat-as-investors-question-mine.html | 8 | 28 | bf974c3dd4474e3bac15b26d271cf88b | K+S AG (SDF) says a $4 billion Canadian
potash mine is crucial for the 124-year old company which was
among the first to mine the fertilizer. A looming price war has
investors urging it to kill the project. The company plans to develop the Canadian plant, dubbed
Legacy and its biggest investment ever, to augment and replace
declining reserves at its aging, high labor-cost German mines.
The project’s promised return on investment is questioned by
investors after OAO Uralkali, the world’s biggest potash
producer, withdrew from an export sales venture with Belarus to
end output curbs in the $20 billion industry. “It would be sensible for the market if greenfield
projects were delayed or canceled,” said Gerd Schubert, a Deka
Investment fund manager, who helps manage 177 billion euros
($236 billion) including almost 1 percent of K+S, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg. “Management should be flexible.” K+S shares have dropped 29 percent in Frankfurt trading
since Uralkali said July 30 that the fertilizer may tumble to
less than $300 a ton from more than $400 as the Russian company
seeks to ramp up to full production capacity. Still, K+S Chief
Executive Officer Norbert Steiner said he’s planning to push
ahead with Legacy, even as the project needs a price of $420 to
earn its budgeted return. ‘In Our Minds’ Steiner has said he won’t make any hasty decisions on
strategy as there are no clear indications as to whether prices
will drop as Uralkali predicted. Price forecasts in the crop-nutrient industry are “incomprehensible” and most of the
potash turbulence “is only happening in our minds,” he said on
an Aug. 13 analyst call. Indicative prices for potash, a form of potassium that
strengthens plant roots and helps crops resist drought, are set
in periodic negotiations with the biggest importers, including
China and India . China agreed in January on a price of $400 a
ton for shipments in the first half, while India signed
contracts to pay $427 a ton until January 2014. Until the partnership’s breakup, Uralkali’s venture with a
company in Belarus, and a separate group comprising Potash Corp.
of Saskatchewan Inc., Mosaic Co. and Agrium Inc. (AGU) , limited output
and exports to match demand and prevent price swings. “Even if the Russians took everything back as fast as they
announced it, the news is already in the market,” Holger Frey,
a fund manager at Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management, said in
an interview. “I can’t imagine the Chinese will accept a price
of $400 again. The price will certainly suffer.” Cartel Breakup DeAWM has 346 billion euros in assets under management,
including a 2.5 percent stake in K+S, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg. Three days after Uralkali’s announcement, India’s biggest
potash importer said it would seek to renegotiate with all its
suppliers to get the best price. Industry publications
Fertilizer Week and Argus FMB reported deliveries this month
showed a price drop by between $40 and $50 a ton in Brazil . K+S, whose roots go back to the middle of the 19th century
when the first fertilizer factories were established in Germany,
expanded into Canada in 2011 with the acquisition of Potash One
Inc. “On the basis of the price named by the Russians, it’s not
economically feasible,” Deka’s Schubert said of Legacy. Other potash companies are also under pressure from
investors to reconsider investments plans. In Saskatchewan, BHP
Billiton Ltd. (BHP) is developing a mine called Jansen, which
Citigroup Inc. analysts estimate may cost $16 billion. Fertilizer Factories BHP said it will proceed with Jansen even though Blackrock,
the Australian company’s biggest investor, called the plans
“misguided.” CEO Andrew Mackenzie said on Aug. 20 that he
seeks partners for the project and the board had approved
further spending of $2.6 billion over the next four years. This week, Belarus officials detained Uralkali head
Vladislav Baumgertner, who is also chairman of the countries’
joint marketing venture, after inviting him to Minsk for talks.
He is charged with abusing his office and if found guilty, could
face as many as 10 years in prison, according to Pavel Traulko,
a spokesman for Belarus’s Investigative Committee. The stock had slumped 40 percent in the six days following
the Russian CEO’s statement, reaching 15.92 euros on Aug. 6, the
lowest price since October 2006. The company’s market value has
dropped to 3.6 billion euros, making K+S a potential candidate
to drop out of the DAX index in September after five years in
the benchmark index. Highest Costs K+S’s plan to fund the development of its new Canadian mine
with cash flows and debt is looking increasingly difficult, John Klein, an analyst at Berenberg Bank, said in an interview. As a
result, the company needs to consider whether it should focus on
other parts of its bsiness. “It’s time to question whether K+S can, in the long term,
remain a viable potash producer,” Klein, who recommends selling
the shares, said in a note to investors. “The company is the
highest-cost producer among the global export producers. Given
its position on the cost curve, K+S will need to rethink its
strategy. It cannot simply adopt a wait-and-see approach.” A week after Uralkali’s announcement, K+S said it won’t
meet its forecast for earnings to rise “slightly” this year. The company’s name, K+S, stands for Kali and Salz, which
means potash and salt in English. The potash unit brought in
about 60 percent of revenue. The salt division, bolstered by the
$1.7 billion purchase of Morton International from Dow Chemical
Co. (DOW) in 2009, suffered last year after a mild winter led to a
lack of demand for de-icing salt for roads. Even if potash prices recover in the long-term, K+S may be
forced to focus on its salt division, Berenberg’s Klein said “S should be left without its K,” the analyst said.
“Prices in the global market will eventually recover in the
mid-term, as a significant part of planned capacity expansions
will potentially be scrapped or delayed; but this will be too
late for K+S.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Sheenagh Matthews in Frankfurt at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Thiel at
[email protected] | 2013 | k-s-s-potash-heritage-under-threat-as-investors-question-mine |
Qantas Jumps Most Since 2006 After Paring Long-Haul Loss | By David Fickling | 2013-08-29T07:15:47Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/qantas-net-income-misses-estimates-amid-challenge-from-virgin.html | 8 | 28 | e710647827264509aa763d2877297b2a | Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN) , Australia ’s
largest carrier, climbed the most in nearly seven years as
profit doubled on a tie-up with Emirates and the cancellation of
unprofitable routes to Frankfurt and London . The shares surged 14 percent on volumes almost four times
the three-month average to close at A$1.40. That’s the biggest
gain since Nov. 22, 2006. Pre-tax profit excluding one-time
items jumped to A$192 million ($172 million) in the year ended
June 30, from A$95 million a year earlier, the Sydney-based
company said today, exceeding the A$76 million average of seven
analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Qantas has retired older planes, dropped loss-making routes
such as Singapore to Frankfurt and London to Hong Kong , and
allied with Dubai’s Emirates to stem international losses that
mounted to A$484 million in the last financial year. Chief
Executive Officer Alan Joyce also added more domestic flights to
defend the carrier’s 65 percent local market share. “The ability to contain costs and take some bold steps in
the international division is starting to show some positive
signs,” Peter Esho, chief market analyst at Invast Securities
Co., said in a note to clients after the result was announced.
“The diversified group has held up relatively well.” The stock, now at its highest closing level since July 12,
is still down 6 percent this year, compared with a 9.5 percent
gain for the S&P/ASX 200 index . International Division No dividend was declared. The company has only proposed one
such payment since Joyce took over Qantas’s top job in November
2008, with a A$117 million payout announced in February 2009 on
the same day as a A$514 million capital raising. Net income was A$5 million, compared with a loss of A$245
million in the previous 12 months and the A$31 million average
of six analyst estimates. Joyce has promised to return Qantas’s international unit to
profit by the year ending June 2015 by using the Emirates
alliance to drop unprofitable services and extend Qantas’s
network of destinations in Europe and the Middle East . Excluding one-time items, losses before interest and tax at
the international division narrowed to A$246 million from A$484
million a year earlier, the company said. Unit costs in the
division fell by 5 percent from a year earlier, helped by the
closure of maintenance facilities and the route cancellations. That was a “massive achievement,” Nathan Zaia, an analyst
at Morningstar Inc. (MORN) in Sydney, said in a note to clients. “The
international turnaround strategy is paying off.” The reduced losses helped offset a 21 percent drop in the
earnings on Qantas’s domestic routes, where Ebit excluding one-time items came to A$365 million. Second-ranked Virgin Australia
Holdings Ltd. (VAH) has bought bigger planes and added flights and
business class seats to challenge Qantas’s dominance. Virgin’s Expansion Domestic flight capacity rose 8 percent during the year,
Qantas said today, as the carrier matched Virgin’s expansion to
defend its profit-boosting domestic market share. Capacity
growth will slow to a range of 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent in the
six months ending December, the company said. Virgin, whose chief executive officer John Borghetti was a
senior Qantas executive before quitting the company five months
after Joyce took the top job, will post a net loss in the range
of A$95 million to A$110 million when it announces annual
results tomorrow, the Brisbane-based carrier forecast Aug. 5. “On every measure Qantas is ahead significantly in the
domestic market,” Joyce said today. “Our businesses are
performing relatively very strongly against the competition.” Fuel Surcharges The carrier spent A$4.2 billion buying fuel, equivalent to
27 percent of group sales, which rose 1.1 percent to A$15.9
billion. An 11 percent fall in the Australian dollar in the year
raised the price of jet kerosene, prompting Qantas last month to
increase surcharges by as much as A$75 a leg on international
flights. The airline pays U.S. dollars for fuel. At the Jetstar budget carrier, Ebit excluding one-time
items dropped 32 percent to A$138 million. The unit is Asia ’s
second-largest low-cost airline after AirAsia Bhd. (AIRA) with stakes
in Jetstar-branded carriers in Australia, Singapore, Vietnam ,
and Japan . Jetstar is also seeking to win approval for a Hong Kong
venture, which Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. (293) says will damage the
city’s economy and aviation sector. The company paid A$50
million in startup costs for its Jetstar ventures in Japan and
Hong Kong, Chief Financial Officer Gareth Evans said today. He
declined to give a breakdown for each carrier. ‘Real Positive’ The arrival of Jetstar would be “a real positive for the
Hong Kong economy,” Joyce said in an interview with Bloomberg
Television today. It would “create access for low airfares that
people in Hong Kong are crying out for.” Last year, Qantas also benefited from a A$134 million
accounting change which meant revenues that would otherwise have
been recognized during 2014 were factored in during the second
half. The carrier also said it raised A$80 million after the end
of the financial year from selling its defense services business
to Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) Net debt shrank 8 percent to A$3.23 billion over the year,
and fell 10 percent to A$4.82 billion including liabilities for
Qantas’s leased aircraft. Short interest in the stock rose to its highest in a year
Aug. 13, according to exchange data compiled by Bloomberg. The
35 million shares sold short at that point is still just 1.6
percent of all freely-traded shares , suggesting few investors
were willing to bet the stock will drop further. To contact the reporter on this story:
David Fickling in Sydney at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Anand Krishnamoorthy at
[email protected] | 2013 | qantas-net-income-misses-estimates-amid-challenge-from-virgin |
Dollar Advances With U.S. Stocks as Oil, Gold Decline | By Glenys Sim and Stephen Kirkland | 2013-08-29T20:23:12Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/asia-futures-rise-amid-u-s-stock-rebound-as-oil-declines.html | 8 | 28 | 68a6b4b3c65340f997618835d959f653 | The dollar gained with U.S. stocks
as a report showed the American economy grew more than forecast
last quarter. Oil slid from a two-year high while European
shares rose for the first time in four days. The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index, a gauge of the currency
against 10 major peers, climbed 0.5 percent and the Standard &
Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) increased 0.2 percent at 4 p.m. in New York.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.8 percent as Vodafone Group
Plc jumped 8.2 percent to an 11-year high. Crude slipped 1.2
percent and gold dropped 0.4 percent. The yield on 10-year
Treasuries fell less than one basis point to 2.76 percent,
reversing an earlier gain, following a U.S. auction of notes. U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent
annualized rate, up from an initial estimate of 1.7 percent,
Commerce Department figures showed today. The prospect of an
imminent attack on Syria faded as U.K. Prime Minister David
Cameron, the U.S.’s top ally, struggled to win parliamentary
backing for military strikes that critics said echoed the push
to war in Iraq . “We’re back to focusing on economic data, specifically out
of the U.S. and Europe, and the Fed tapering, as the market is
coming around to believe the Syrian conflict poses only a short-term risk,” said Manish Singh, who helps oversee $2 billion as
head of investment at Crossbridge Capital in London . “I am of
the opinion that tapering will happen in September, regardless
of data.” The 2.5 percent growth in GDP compared with a 2.2 percent
median estimate of 79 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
improvement shows the world’s largest economy gaining momentum
after a drought, Superstorm Sandy and budget battles in
Washington stalled growth in the last three months of 2012.
Recent data have shown the labor market is gaining strength
while home prices rise, bolstering household finances. Jobless Claims A separate report today showed the number of Americans
filing applications for unemployment benefits fell more than
forecast last week. The S&P 500 has fallen 2.8 percent in August amid
speculation the Federal Reserve will pare stimulus measures and
concern the U.S. will take military action against Syria . The
benchmark index has retreated 4.2 percent since its last record
on Aug. 2. Minutes of the Fed’s July meeting released on Aug. 21
showed policy makers supported cuts to the central bank’s bond-buying program this year if the economy improves in line with
its forecasts. Fed stimulus helped push the S&P 500 up as much
as 153 percent from its March 2009 low, data compiled by
Bloomberg show. Guess Gains Among stocks moving today, telephone, technology and
consumer shares climbed at least 0.4 percent to lead gains in
eight of the 10 main industry groups in the S&P 500. Guess? Inc. (GES)
surged 13 percent as the clothes maker reported second-quarter
profit that topped estimates and boosted its full-year forecast. Trading volume in S&P 500 stocks was 19 percent below the
30-day average at this time of day, with one session left before
the Labor Day holiday weekend. Trading on U.S. exchanges is
poised for the second-slowest month in at least five years,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg. An average of about 5.5
billion shares changed hands each day this month. That’s about
50 million shares more than last August. Europe Stocks Almost three shares advanced for every one that fell in the
Stoxx 600, and the gauge was up 0.2 percent for the month.
Vodafone (VOD) surged after the mobile-phone company said it’s in
discussions with Verizon Communications (VZ) Inc. over a sale of its
45 percent holding in their Verizon Wireless venture to the U.S.
carrier. Verizon Communications rallied 2.7 percent in U.S.
trading. Carrefour SA climbed 5.6 percent as France ’s largest
retailer posted increased first-half profit. WPP Plc, the
world’s biggest advertising company, advanced 4.2 percent after
reporting a gain in sales. The Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index reached the highest level
in four weeks. The currency gained against 13 of its 16 major
peers, advancing 0.7 percent to $1.3243 per euro. The greenback
advanced 0.6 percent to 98.26 yen after gaining 0.6 percent
yesterday. The yen added 0.1 percent to 130.13 per euro. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index climbed 1.1 percent,
trimming its monthly loss to 2.9 percent. The Philippine Stock
Exchange Index jumped 3.6 percent, snapping a two-day, 6.9
percent slump, as the economy grew for the fourth straight
quarter, beating analysts’ estimates. The Hang Seng China
Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong
added 0.9 percent. Rupee Rises India ’s rupee climbed 3.2 percent and the Sensex gauge of
equities rose 2.3 percent. The central bank said it will sell
dollars to the nation’s biggest oil importers to cool demand for
foreign exchange. The South Korean won climbed 0.2 percent
against the dollar after Finance Minister Hyun Oh Seok said a
widening current-account surplus would buoy the currency. The S&P GSCI (SPGSCI) gauge of 24 commodities dropped 0.8 percent,
the first decline in six days. West Texas Intermediate crude
declined 1.2 percent to $108.80 a barrel as concerns eased over
the prospects of an imminent military strike against Syria. Oil
futures climbed to $110.10 yesterday, the highest close since
May 3, 2011. Britain released an assessment showing it “highly likely”
the Syrian government was behind the mass killing of civilians
with chemical weapons on Aug. 21 near Damascus. Still, Cameron
bowed to opposition demands to await a judgment by on-site
United Nations inspectors. Chemical Attack Likewise, the Obama administration is laboring to marshal
conclusive evidence backing its assertions that Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad was directly responsible for the attack, said
three intelligence officials familiar with the situation. Gold slipped 0.4 percent, the most in more than two weeks,
after reaching a three-month high yesterday. The precious metal
has tumbled 16 percent this year on speculation that the Fed
will slow the pace of the stimulus. Copper fell 1.5 percent. Treasuries erased losses after the U.S. sale of $29 billion
in seven-year notes produced a lower-than-forecast yield. The
notes drew a yield of 2.221 percent, compared with a forecast of
2.232 percent in a Bloomberg News survey of seven of the Federal
Reserve’s 21 primary dealers. Italian 10-year bonds advanced for a second day amid
speculation easing political tension in the nation will boost
investor demand at a 6 billion-euro ($7.96 billion) debt sale
today. Italy’s government, led by Prime Minister Enrico Letta,
yesterday agreed to a compromise on a property tax in a deal
that may mend relations with Silvio Berlusconi, his partner in
the coalition. The yield on the securities fell four basis points to 4.37
percent. Italy sold 6 billion euros ($8 billion) of five and 10-year securities, matching its maximum target. To contact the reporters on this story:
Glenys Sim in Singapore at
[email protected] ;
Stephen Kirkland in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Lynn Thomasson at
[email protected] | 2013 | asia-futures-rise-amid-u-s-stock-rebound-as-oil-declines |
Ways to Fend Off The Wealth-Sapping Costs of a Disability | By Lewis Braham | 2013-08-28T16:10:05Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ways-to-fend-off-the-wealth-sapping-costs-of-a-disability.html
Lynn Francis was worried when her 81-year-old mother Joann started forgetting things a few years ago. Her fear turned to panic as her mother began inviting strangers into her house and giving away bank account information to just about anyone on the other end of the phone. Joann has become increasingly reclusive, afraid even to leave her house to go to the supermarket lest she forget how to find her way back. Lynn, who lives four hours away in Beaverton, Oregon, now takes turns with her sister buying her mother groceries. “Living alone has really become a safety issue for her,” says the 58-year-old yoga instructor. She's trying to convince her mother to move into an assisted living facility. Looking after the aging, especially those with mental and physical incapacities, is almost always emotionally and physically exhausting for families. It can also become a financial nightmare as families struggle to cover the costs of medical care, assisted living facilities and nursing homes | 8 | 28 | a5f7f099a07b43c78800977268c3d417 | 2013 | ways-to-fend-off-the-wealth-sapping-costs-of-a-disability |
|
Commercial Papers Reported: India Money Markets | By Pooja Saraf | 2013-08-28T12:26:40Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/commercial-papers-reported-india-money-markets.html | 8 | 28 | b91cf5bdc4522f8709b257f81d7eb16105746659 | Following is a table showing commercial papers
reported by Companies. The data has been provided by the Fixed Income Money
Market & Derivatives Association of India . ISIN Security Mty Avg Px Avg Yld LT Yld Trds Trds(Crs) 12:17 GMT 28-Aug-13
INE134E14485 POWER FIN CORP 9 99.74 10.60 10.60 2 390.00 06SP13
INE261F14491 NABARD 21 99.38 10.80 10.80 3 300.00 18SP13
INE114A14873 SAIL 27 99.23 10.48 10.48 1 150.00 24SP13
INE912E14EC1 SBI GLO. FACTORS 1 99.97 10.73 10.73 2 150.00 29AG13
INE114A14857 SAIL 23 99.33 10.75 10.75 2 125.00 20SP13
INE134E14527 POWER FIN CORP 47 98.50 11.80 11.80 1 50.00 15OT13
INE233A14BN3 GODREJ IND 9 99.74 10.75 10.75 1 50.00 06SP13
INE977J14890 TRAPTI TRADING 16 99.48 11.90 11.90 1 50.00 13SP13
INE958G14KV6 RELIGARE FINVEST 6 99.79 12.75 12.75 1 25.00 03SP13
INE242A14DS9 IOC LTD. 72 97.73 11.76 11.76 2 25.00 08NV13
INE001A14IX8 HDFC LTD 342 90.41 11.32 11.32 1 25.00 05AG14
INE532F14JF6 EDELWEISS FIN 89 96.81 13.50 13.50 1 25.00 26NV13
INE557F14BP9 NHB 19 99.44 10.75 10.75 1 25.00 16SP13
INE557F14BR5 NHB 27 99.22 10.60 10.60 1 25.00 25SP13
INE891D14GF7 REDINGTON IND 9 99.74 10.75 10.75 1 20.00 06SP13
INE557F14BO2 NHB 2 99.94 10.19 10.19 1 18.00 30AG13
INE774D14EP9 M AND M FIN 14 99.59 10.75 10.75 1 10.00 12SP13
INE091A14279 NIRMA LTD 2 99.94 11.16 11.16 1 10.00 30AG13
INE881J14DZ0 SREI EQUIP 5 99.85 11.30 11.30 1 5.00 03SP13
INE296A14FH3 BAJA FIN LTD 29 99.00 12.65 12.65 1 5.00 27SP13 Contributed via: Bloomberg Publisher WEB Service Provider ID: eee0cab6898f4f9486629cd1c91de43c | 2013 | commercial-papers-reported-india-money-markets |
China Rongsheng Seeks Funding as Ship Order Slump Cuts Cash | By Jasmine Wang | 2013-08-29T10:16:53Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/china-rongsheng-posts-first-half-loss-after-ship-orders-plunge.html | 8 | 28 | 960c4121f23d41b2983789e79be92e76 | China Rongsheng Heavy Industries
Group Holdings Ltd. (1101) , seeking government assistance after a slump
in vessel orders, is pursuing alternative sources of funding
after burning through cash and posting a second straight loss. The biggest private Chinese shipbuilder is in talks with
banks for loan refinancing as it seeks to control costs and
capital expenditure. Shares of Shanghai-based Rongsheng fell. The shipyard will have sufficient funds to meet obligations
over the next one year, based on a review of its cash-flow
projections, the company said yesterday. Rongsheng’s ability to
raise funds and meet payments will determine how much China
needs to intervene in the sector after the government earlier
this month issued a three-year package to support the troubled
shipbuilding industry, the world’s biggest. “These weak financial results will make new orders even
harder to win, given customers will steer clear of a distressed
yard,” Vincent Fernando and Yan Ke, analysts at Religare
Capital Markets Ltd., wrote in a note dated today. They have a
target price of 50 Hong Kong cents for Rongsheng’s stock. “While not our base case, this is the kind of stock that
could potentially go to zero,” they wrote. The stock dropped 4.2 percent to close at 92 Hong Kong
cents. The city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index increased 0.8
percent. Rongsheng shares have declined 26 percent this year. Going Concern Some customers sought to postpone delivery of vessels amid
a sluggish global shipping market and that delayed collection of
receivables, Rongsheng said in a statement yesterday. At the
same time, the company continued to make payments to its
suppliers and workers, crimping cash flows. With sales plunging 71 percent and few new orders coming,
Rongsheng’s cash and cash-equivalents decreased by 1.27 billion
yuan ($208 million) to 871 million yuan as of the end of June.
Total borrowings were 24.85 billion yuan, the company said. “The above conditions indicate the existence of
uncertainties, which may cast doubt on the group’s ability to
continue as a going concern,” Rongsheng said in a note to the
earnings report, reiterating comments made in a March statement. The company posted a first-half net loss of 1.26 billion
yuan, compared with a profit of 215.8 million yuan a year
earlier, it said yesterday. Revenue totaled 1.58 billion yuan
and trade and bills receivables that were due for over 360 days
more than doubled to 3.1 billion yuan from 1.2 billion yuan. Chinese Support China announced its support for the industry as a third of
its shipyards may shut down in about five years amid a global
vessel glut. The country held an order book of 109 million
deadweight tons at the end of June, 13.4 percent lower than a
year earlier, according to government data. Export-Import Bank of China yesterday signed a strategic
cooperation deal worth 100 billion yuan with China State
Shipbuilding Corp., the bank said in a statement on its website. Private yards are facing increased competition from state-backed builders, who have easier access to credit to pay
workers, buy raw materials and provide financing for clients.
China State Shipbuilding, China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. and
other government-run companies won three-quarters of all orders
in the first half. Bulk Carriers Rongsheng has plans and arrangements to repay about 10
billion yuan of short-term debt due in 12 months, Chief
Financial Officer Sean Wang told reporters in Hong Kong
yesterday. He didn’t elaborate. “Since the management has plans to address the key
liquidity issue, we can’t continue to cast doubts on the
company,” said Lawrence Li, a Shanghai-based analyst with UOB
Kay-Hian Holdings Ltd. Still, the lack of new orders is a cause
of concern, he said. In the first half of 2013, new shipbuilding prices were
under severe pressure, with meager profit margin and harsh
contractual terms, the company said. “In this adverse market environment, we adopted a
defensive sales strategy by avoiding low-price orders, or orders
with unfavorable payment terms,” it said. Rongsheng, which won two new orders for bulk carriers and
delivered seven vessels in the first half, will be cautious in
seeking new ship orders as the current prices are low and
payment terms aren’t favorable, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer Chen Qiang said. The company had an orderbook of 86 vessels, with a total
volume of about 11.8 million dead-weight tons, valued at about
$4.6 billion as of the end of June, Rongsheng said. All these
vessels will be delivered by 2016 as per contracts, it said. Number of total employees, including contract workers, has
fallen to about 8,000 from about 10,000 at the end of last year. Rongsheng agreed to sell convertible bonds for HK$1.38
billion to Action Phoenix Ltd., a member of VMS Investment
Group, which is engaged in proprietary investments, asset
management and securities brokerage. To contact the reporter on this story:
Jasmine Wang in Hong Kong at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Anand Krishnamoorthy at
[email protected] | 2013 | china-rongsheng-posts-first-half-loss-after-ship-orders-plunge |
Carney Says BOE Ready to Ease If Market Rates Hurt | By Jennifer Ryan | 2013-08-28T14:37:29Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/carney-says-boe-ready-to-loosen-if-market-rates-hurt-recovery.html | 8 | 28 | a39a8d761dba4df58d156c51c23998a9 | Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said officials are ready to add stimulus if investor expectations for higher interest rates undermine the recovery. “The upward move in market expectations of where bank rate will head in future could, at the margin, feed into the effective financial conditions facing the real economy,” Carney said in a speech to business leaders in Nottingham , England today. “If they tighten, and the recovery seems to be falling short of the strong growth we need, we will consider carefully whether, and how best, to stimulate the recovery further.” Carney introduced forward guidance this month to help the economic recovery, saying that policy makers plan to keep the benchmark interest rate at a record-low 0.5 percent for at least three years. Indications of strengthening U.K. growth and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s signals it may begin trimming its monthly purchases have prompted investors to raise bets that rates will rise sooner and push up gilt yields. “Our forward guidance was clear that, although we would not reduce the stimulus until the recovery is secure, we would if necessary provide more,” Carney said. “We are focused on doing what we can to reduce uncertainty and build resilience so that the recovery can be sustained despite the inevitable shocks ahead.” The pound pared its decline against the dollar after Carney spoke. It was at $1.5522 as of 3:35 p.m. London time, down 0.2 percent from yesterday. Liquidity Rules Carney’s comments today mark his first policy speech since he introduced guidance. He also announced that the BOE will relax liquidity rules on banks that meet capital requirements to help encourage lending and aid the economy. While the recovery is showing signs of being “broad based and set to continue,” growth prospects “are solid not stellar,” he said. The BOE forecasts growth to average 2.5 percent a year over the next three years, compared with an historical average rate of 2.75 percent. In addition, “a recovery in growth does not necessarily mean faster job creation and lower unemployment,” since a pickup in the U.K.’s “anemic” productivity growth could delay a drop in the jobless rate, he said. Guidance Framework Under the new guidance framework, the BOE plans to keep its benchmark rate unchanged until unemployment , currently 7.8 percent, reaches 7 percent. The BOE doesn’t see that happening until the end of 2016. “We are giving confidence that interest rates won’t go up until jobs, incomes and spending are recovering at a sustainable pace,” he said. “Guidance provides you with certainty that interest rates will not rise too soon. Exactly how long they stay low will depend on the progress of the recovery.” While Carney noted the increase in interest-rate expectations, he said this may be partly due to more optimistic forecasts for the jobless rate. BOE projections show just a 1-in-3 chance unemployment will drop to 7 percent by mid-2015. U.K. rate expectations also shouldn’t be guided by U.S. recovery prospects, according to Carney. “The U.S. recovery is much further advanced,” he said. “While much has been made of the special relationship between the U.S. and U.K., it is not so special that the possibility of a reduction in the pace of additional stimulus in the U.S. warrants a current reduction in the degree of monetary stimulus in the U.K.” Inflation Knockout The BOE’s guidance includes so-called knockouts linked to its 2 percent inflation goal . Carney said underlying price pressure is “subdued” and inflation will fall back over the next two years from 2.8 percent. “In these circumstances it would not makes sense to choke off the recovery by raising interest rates prematurely,” he said. The BOE’s inflation mandate “has not changed,” and ‘I can also assure you of my personal commitment to price stability,’’ he said. “I certainly have no hesitation in raising interest rates when required.” The central bank will use its “full suite of policy tools” to ensure a sustainable recovery, he said. That will include monitoring the housing market after some analysts said government measures to encourage demand may stoke a bubble. “The Bank of England is acutely aware of the risk of unsustainable credit,” he said. “We are now fully prepared” to use so-called macroprudential tools to contain risks. The BOE will also ease liquidity rules for lenders that meet capital targets. It will allow the main U.K. lenders to shrink their required holdings of low-yielding, easy-to-sell securities, such as government bonds , once they hold capital reserves equivalent to 7 percent of their risk-weighted assets. “That will help to underpin the supply of credit, since every pound currently held in liquid assets is a pound that could be lent to the real economy,” Carney said. “Taken together, our actions create not just a more resilient system, but also one more able to support and sustain a recovery by serving the real economy.” To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Ryan in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Fergal O’Brien at [email protected] | 2013 | carney-says-boe-ready-to-loosen-if-market-rates-hurt-recovery |
Brothels in Nevada Suffer as Web Disrupts Oldest Trade | By Alison Vekshin | 2013-08-28T07:01:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/brothels-in-nevada-shrivel-as-web-disrupts-oldest-trade.html
In a dim parlor furnished with red velvet couches and a stripper pole, Brooke Taylor is having a sale on herself. “I offer a lot more specials and discounts and incentives for people to come in to see me,” said Taylor, 32, a brunette prostitute in a short, green dress at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch outside Carson City, Nevada . “People are looking for deals.” Nevada’s legal brothels, which took root in the mid-1800s silver-mining boom, are dwindling, down to about 19 from roughly 36 in 1985, according to George Flint, an industry lobbyist. Many have been the highest-profile businesses in their sparsely populated regions, and their decline hurts already-stretched county budgets and marks the end to local institutions | 8 | 28 | 9d7beec2d91d45d18cfbe3dfd0fabba4 | 2013 | brothels-in-nevada-shrivel-as-web-disrupts-oldest-trade |
|
Dubai Airports July Turnover Statistics: Summary | By Rinat Gaynullin | 2013-08-28T12:28:43Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/dubai-airports-july-turnover-statistics-summary-table-.html | 8 | 28 | d0f4ecd60fa055ec035b8d5552814389e053b294 | The following table shows cargo
volumes, passenger traffic and aircraft movements at Dubai’s International
Airport according to a press release from Dubai Airports. Note: Figures are preliminary and subject to change. Source: Dubai Airports To contact the reporter on this story:
Rinat Gaynullin in Moscow at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Marco Babic at [email protected] | 2013 | dubai-airports-july-turnover-statistics-summary-table- |
Obama Seeks Economic Equality in America Changed by King | By Phil Mattingly | 2013-08-28T22:34:21Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/obama-seeks-economic-equality-in-america-changed-by-king.html
President Barack Obama , speaking from the same Washington stage where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a defining speech steering a nation’s course toward civil rights, said that for all the transformation, work remains in countering growing U.S. economic disparities. “To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency,” said Obama, appearing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial , where 50 years ago today King called on Americans to make good on the nation’s founding promise of equality for all. Speaking shortly after bells rang across the U.S. in commemoration of the start of King’s 1963 address , Obama’s remarks served as the culmination of a week-long remembrance of a peaceful “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” and a speech that helped galvanize the civil rights movement of the 1960s and became as memorable as Abraham Lincoln ’s own Gettysburg Address. Slideshow: Lincoln's Front-Row Seat to History King, Obama said, did more than advance the cause of equal rights for black Americans | 8 | 28 | 147ed1d261244290934a6ee4f5799d19 | 2013 | obama-seeks-economic-equality-in-america-changed-by-king |
|
G4S Plans Rights Offer, Asset Sales to Shore Up Finances | By Andrew Noel | 2013-08-28T07:02:11Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/g4s-plans-rights-offer-asset-sales-to-shore-up-finances.html | 8 | 28 | 42db53e93d2362b21310bedbf9aea9e7b52f2e7d | G4S Plc (GFS) , which replaced its chief
executive after bungling the London Olympics security contract,
said it plans a sale of shares and disposals to shore up its
balance sheet and pay down inflated debt. The guard and security company will sell as many as 140.9
million new shares to existing investors, equal to a stake of
9.99 percent, it said in a statement. G4S has also found buyers
for two businesses to raise an additional 100 million pounds,
with an additional 150 million pounds in potential disposals
lined up. The shares fell 3 percent at the open of trading in
London today. G4S is emerging from a strategic review undertaken by Chief
Executive Officer Ashley Almanza, who replacedNick Buckles on
June 1. His priority is to tackle G4S’ net debt to earnings
ratio of 3.2 times before a downgrade of its credit rating that
would cost an estimated 25 million pounds to 30 million pounds a
year, it said. “On the operational front, we plan to introduce systems
and processes to improve efficiency and risk management and we
will be restructuring a number of businesses to ensure that they
are more competitive and able to deliver improved margins,”
Almanza said in the statement. Citigroup, JPMorgan and Barclays Bank Plc are joint
bookrunners. Invesco Asset Management Ltd., which currently
holds about 14.85 percent of G4S, is backing the transaction. G4S also announced the sale of Canadian Cash solutions and
a data solutions business in Colombia. Profit before interest, taxes and amortization was little
changed in the first half at 201 million pounds. Sales climbed
7.2 percent and G4S flagged a contract pipeline worth 4 billion
pounds a year. It generated 218 million pounds in cash from
operations. To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Noel in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Thiel at
[email protected] | 2013 | g4s-plans-rights-offer-asset-sales-to-shore-up-finances |
San Francisco Bay Bridge to Close for Replacement | By James Nash | 2013-08-28T18:01:42Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/san-francisco-bay-bridge-to-close-for-replacement.html | 8 | 28 | f7654cabc62b7ba4dd9f602c61d517566a7b3983 | The San Francisco-Oakland Bay
Bridge , since 1936 the main artery between San Francisco and the
rest of the country, will close tonight as crews ready the $6.4
billion replacement of its earthquake-damaged eastern span. From 8 p.m. tonight until 5 a.m. on Sept. 3, the bridge
carrying about 280,000 vehicles a day along Interstate 80 over
San Francisco Bay will be closed, the California Transportation
Department said in a statement . When the 2.2-mile (3.5-kilometer) span reopens next week, drivers will travel across a
replacement designed to withstand the type of earthquake that
occurs once every 1,500 years. Since 1997, when officials decided to replace the eastern
span of the bridge that partially collapsed in the 1989 Loma
Prieta earthquake, the cost has swelled to about $6.4 billion
from $1.3 billion, while the opening was delayed six years. “Most people would agree with the criticism that it
shouldn’t have taken as long as it did or cost as much as it
did,” Andrew Gordon, a spokesman for the agencies overseeing
the project, said by telephone. “That said, they’re getting a
beautiful new bridge that rivals anything in the Bay Area . More
importantly, they’re also getting one of the most seismically
safe bridges in the world.” Unfinished Work Even after the span opens to traffic, it won’t be done. In
December, Caltrans crews plan to remove plates installed in the
undercarriage as a temporary seismic fix after steel rods
snapped during testing this year, Gordon said. The plates are
designed to move during an earthquake. After they’re removed,
the bridge will be reinforced with steel saddles, Gordon said. Meanwhile, Caltrans will test hundreds of bolts similar to
32 that snapped in March during testing after they became
brittle on exposure to hydrogen, he said. There’s no reason to
believe the other bolts are vulnerable, he said, though some may
degrade over time due to corrosion. The bridge is California’s most traveled. The eastern and
western sections meet at Yerba Buena Island, site of the former
Treasure Island U.S. Navy base. The new section will have two
parallel spans, each with five traffic lanes, 10-foot shoulders
and a bicycle path on the eastbound side. When construction began in 2002, planners forecast
completion in five years. In 2005, lawmakers passed a $1 toll
increase to cover overruns. During the Labor Day weekend closing, Bay Area Rapid
Transit, the regional subway and rail network, will expand
service to 24 hours a day, according to a press release . To contact the reporter on this story:
James Nash in Los Angeles at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Merelman at
[email protected] | 2013 | san-francisco-bay-bridge-to-close-for-replacemen |
Cotton Glut Expands to Record as Hanes Profit Gains: Commodities | By Luzi Ann Javier and Marvin Perez | 2013-08-29T20:19:35Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/cotton-glut-expands-to-record-as-hanes-profit-gains-commodities.html | 8 | 28 | 05f7add1b6974e4a82edc8f6e51f66e6 | The fourth straight year of surplus
cotton output and the biggest drop in Chinese imports since 2000
are creating record global inventories, signaling higher profits
for the makers of Hanes underwear. Stockpiles will jump 8.6 percent to 93.765 million bales in
the 12 months ending in July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
said in an Aug. 12 report. There are enough inventories to make
three pairs of jeans for every person in the world and reserves
doubled since reaching a 13-year low in 2010. Prices may fall 8
percent to 76.6 cents a pound by the end of 2013, according to
the average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. China , which uses about a third of the world’s cotton, will
reduce imports by 46 percent, or 9.33 million bales, from last
year as it focuses on supporting local producers. It is
accumulating the biggest stockpiles ever after the government
bought supply to aid farmers as economic growth slowed. The
USDA’s prediction for Chinese imports is about twice the drop it
expects in global output, at a time when crops are improving
across the U.S., India , Brazil and Australia . “We expect weak Chinese demand and high global production
to continue weighing on prices,” said Paul Christopher, the St.
Louis-based chief international strategist at Wells Fargo
Advisors, which oversees about $1.3 trillion of assets. “The
Chinese economy is slowing and export growth has been weaker
than we expected for textile mills and other manufacturers.” Demand Expands Cotton rose 11 percent this year to close today at 83.24
cents on ICE Futures U.S. in New York . Prices are down from a
five-month high in March as improving field conditions reduced
concern that drought would damage the U.S. crop. The Standard &
Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 commodities advanced 2.6 percent
since the end of December, and the MSCI All-Country World Index
of equities added 7.6 percent. The Bloomberg Treasury Bond Index
lost 3.3 percent. Global production will drop 3.9 percent to 116.38 million
bales in the 12 months that began Aug. 1 as demand expands 2.3
percent to 109.85 million bales, the USDA says. A bale weighs
480 pounds (218 kilograms). China’s stockpiles will surge 16
percent to 58.26 million bales, more than five times what it
held in 2011 and 62 percent of estimated world inventory. The glut emerged after prices almost doubled in 2010 and
reached an all-time high of $2.197 in March 2011. Production
expanded to a record 125.14 million bales the following year.
Demand fell 11 percent since peaking in 2007 as the global
recession curbed sales of clothing, bedding and textiles. Lower Costs “The market cannot ignore the fact that huge stocks
exist,” said Jordan Lea, the chairman of Eastern Trading Co.,
an exporter in Greenville, South Carolina . The inventories
“will come to the market at some time, at some price,” he
said. “That is how they will threaten a rally.” Hanesbrands Inc. (HBI) , the Winston Salem, North Carolina-based
maker of Hanes underwear and Playtex bras, said July 30 that its
cotton costs dropped 49 percent in the second quarter. The
company raised its full-year earnings-per-share forecast to
$3.50 to $3.65, from $3.25 to $3.40. Net income at Levi Strauss & Co., the San Francisco-based
maker of Levi’s jeans and Dockers apparel, more than tripled to
$48 million in the second quarter, “mainly due to lower cotton
costs,” along with higher sales and more-profitable products,
Chief Financial Officer Harmit J. Singh said on a July 9
conference call. China Buying The predicted drop in prices may be curbed by China, where
the government plans to buy from farmers for a third year. The
program runs from September through March 2014 and pays 20,400
yuan ($3,332) a metric ton, the China Cotton Association said in
April. That’s about $1.51 a pound, or 80 percent more than New
York futures. While the government may halt purchases in favor
of direct subsidies to farmers, that won’t occur until at least
the middle of next year, Robert Yang, assistant president of the
China National Textile & Apparel Council, said June 28. China’s imports , which accounted for 43 percent of global
purchases last year, fell 21 percent in the first seven months
to 2.74 million tons, from 3.46 million a year earlier, customs
data show. Hedge funds and other large speculators more than doubled
their net-long position, or bets on higher prices, since early
June and are the most bullish since the U.S. government began
tracking the data in 2006. Long positions outnumbered shorts by
82,715 futures and options contracts as of Aug. 20, U.S.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. A contract
represents 50,000 pounds. Texas Drought The outlook for the U.S. harvest has worsened. On Aug. 12,
the government said that production will drop 25 percent to a
four-year low of 13.05 million bales. In May, it forecast 14
million. Drought in Texas , the biggest grower, will reduce the
state’s crop by 18 percent to 4.12 million bales, the USDA says. Heavy showers returned to parts of the Southeast in the
week ended Aug. 25 and some of the wettest areas received more
than 4 inches (10.2 centimeters), hampering fieldwork and
hurting crops, according to the USDA. While the region is dry
now, rain will return Sept. 2 to Sept. 6, according to Commodity
Weather Group LLC. About 47 percent of the U.S. crop was in good
or excellent condition by Aug. 25, from 46 percent a week
earlier, the government says. In India, the second-largest exporter, rainfall has boosted
the outlook for the domestic crop, which the Cotton Association
of India estimated Aug. 20 would reach 37.2 million bales, or
3.6 percent more than the USDA forecast this month. A bale in
India weighs 170 kilograms. Selling Reserves While China is buying from farmers, it is unloading
government-owned inventories that the International Cotton
Advisory Committee estimated at 7.8 million tons as of July 31,
or almost as much as the nation consumes in a year. The state
sold 2 million tons from reserves this year through June 6,
according to the China National Cotton Reserves Corp. That’s
reducing the need for mills to import from foreign suppliers. Australia, the third-largest exporter, may reap as much as
5.5 million bales this year, more than the 4.5 million forecast
by the USDA, Rabobank International said Aug. 8. Production also
will rise in Pakistan and Brazil, the biggest producers behind
China, India and the U.S., according to Cotlook Ltd., the
publisher of a benchmark cotton index. “The world has too much cotton and not enough demand,”
said John Flanagan , the president of Flanagan Trading in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina . “Only lower prices can shut acres
enough so that we can start seeing a multi year reduction in
inventories, which are huge.” To contact the reporters on this story:
Luzi Ann Javier in New York at
[email protected] ;
Marvin G. Perez in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Steve Stroth at
[email protected] | 2013 | cotton-glut-expands-to-record-as-hanes-profit-gains-commodities |
USDA Boxed Beef Cutout Closing Prices for August 28 | By Michael Carone | 2013-08-28T20:21:36Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/usda-boxed-beef-cutout-closing-prices-for-august-28-table-.html
August 28 (Bloomberg) | 8 | 28 | 4c5989dd525f445db960ea5d9531c9b4 | from cattle carcasses weighing 550-850 pounds. Cutout values are
separated into three main product types. Fabricated loads are beef cuts
taken from an animal's ribs, chuck, round, loin, brisket, short plate
and flank; 50 percent loads are 50 percent lean beef trimmings. Ground
loads may contain 73, 75, or 80 percent ground beef. A typical
refrigerated truckload carries 40,000 pounds. Choice 1-3 grade is a better grade than Select 1-3, partly because
Choice cuts have more fat, or marbling, than Select cuts. Grade quality is determined using a 1-5 yield grade scale. A rating
of 1 is the highest ratio of muscle to fat, while 5 is the lowest.
Marbling is an important flavor factor. | 2013 | usda-boxed-beef-cutout-closing-prices-for-august-28-table- |
Why Obama's Speech Won't Go Down in History | By the Editors | 2013-08-28T23:07:57Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/why-obama-s-speech-won-t-go-down-in-history.html
It is the privilege of every
generation to think itself more enlightened than the one that
preceded it. Occasionally, this thought is even true. So in anticipation of President Barack Obama’s speech
marking the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the
commentary has been all about how far and how little the nation
has traveled since that day in August 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. described his dream of racial and economic equality. No, blacks are no longer forced to ride in the back of the
bus | 8 | 28 | a44ded0a1a4244308c339da1d6dbec26 | wonkery in a day full of gauzy rhetoric. And yet it was there for a reason. The former president is
scheduled to give another speech next week on Obama’s health-care law, reprising his role as explainer-in-chief for this
administration’s policies, much as he did at the 2012 Democratic
National Convention. Obama’s speech certainly matched the occasion; a golden
anniversary is a time to pause and reflect. Unlike the possible
end of a presidential candidacy or the killing of a young black
man, it does not lend itself to passionate oratory. Obama
himself acknowledged as much when he said “no one can match
King’s brilliance” of 50 years ago. Part of what will make Obama’s presidency historic is what
it achieves. And its signature domestic accomplishment, thus far
and probably for all time, is health-care reform. Fifty years from now, when commentators are filling
computer screens with analyses of America’s racial progress in
the century since Martin Luther King first described his dream,
Barack Obama ’s presidency will play a prominent part. Maybe they
also will be struck by how it took the U.S. until the second
decade of the 21st century to realize that health care also has
its place on the arc of social and economic justice. To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board:
[email protected] . | 2013 | why-obama-s-speech-won-t-go-down-in-history |
U.S. Syria Strikes Won’t Be Limited to Single Day, Official Says | By Leon Mangasarian | 2013-08-28T11:42:52Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/u-s-still-seeking-to-define-syria-strike-goals-official-says.html
U.S. officials planning potential military strike on Syria are not limited to a one-day operation, an administration official said, as the U.K. drafted a United Nations resolution to condemn last week’s suspected chemical attack. The U.S. and its allies are still working to define goals for a military strike on Syria, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss war planning efforts. Having ruled out a regime change and overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, the Obama administration is seeking to clarify the objectives, plan for potential fallout of Assad striking out against allies and neighbors and establish legal justification for an attack before committing itself to military action, the official said. The U.S. is concerned that allowing the Syrian government to go unpunished after four episodes of chemical weapons use would send a signal to other countries including North Korea that have large inventories of such weapons, the official said. Obama officials are still in consultations with NATO allies including the U.K., France , Germany , and Turkey as well as Arab nations to determine which countries would participate in a military strike on Syria, the official said. Deter, Degrade Among the options being explored are how to deter and degrade Syria’s chemical weapons capability and defeating the Assad government’s defense capability, another U.S. official said. The U.K. drafted a United Nations resolution to condemn last week’s suspected chemical attacks in Syria and authorize action to protect civilians, as the head of the UN said its inspectors need time to establish the facts. The resolution will allow the use of “all necessary measures under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter to protect civilians from chemical weapons,” Prime Minister David Cameron ’s office said in an e-mailed statement. The draft resolution will be discussed with the other four permanent UN Security Council members | 8 | 28 | b585054d70a81cfc681f23cdad0a34c7945f74b5 | 2013 | u-s-still-seeking-to-define-syria-strike-goals-official-says |
|
How to Make a Limited Strike on Syria a Bigger Victory | By the Editors | 2013-08-28T22:00:03Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/how-to-make-a-limited-strike-on-syria-a-bigger-victory.html
The U.S. government now says it has
little doubt that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
used chemical weapons against its own people on a “massive
scale.” This makes a military response imperative but not
necessarily urgent. If the purpose of a retaliatory strike on Syria is to
uphold an established international norm against the use of
chemical weapons | 8 | 28 | 4708732dc0094772934df0081bd69c32 | garnering global support. So, too, is allowing U.S. allies such
as the U.K. and France the time for their own public debates,
which are just starting. More time and public evidence might
also enable the U.S. to persuade the Arab League to move from
condemning Assad to endorsing action against him. More broadly, we would hope that before any operation gets
under way, Syria’s transgressions are given a prominent place on
the agenda of next week’s Group of 20 meetings, and that it
produces a debate that shames Russia’s Vladimir Putin for arming
Assad and, so far, blocking effective action against Syria at
the UN Security Council. Russia and China will doubtless keep vetoing Security
Council resolutions that justify a use of force against Syria.
Yet there is substantial precedent in international law for
taking action nonetheless, especially if the U.S. succeeds in
attracting wide support. And documenting and publicizing Assad’s
brutality will raise the reputational cost of defending him, a
penalty that China may soon grow unwilling to pay: Unlike
Russia, it has no naval bases to lose and needs Middle Eastern
oil. The more convincingly the case against Assad is made, the
more likely he will be held to account for what Secretary of
State John Kerry has called a “moral obscenity.” In that
respect, a speedy military response is likely to be a less
effective one. We have no expectation that a limited military
strike will be of huge strategic value: The civil war will grind
on, in part because the opposition has yet to offer up any clear
alternative leadership. But in defending what should be one of
the international system’s bedrock values, the U.S. and its
allies will have achieved a victory. To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board:
[email protected] . | 2013 | ow-to-make-a-limited-strike-on-syria-a-bigger-victory |
Ecopetrol Rises to Four-Month High on Oil Advance: Bogota Mover | By Christine Jenkins | 2013-08-28T18:26:25Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ecopetrol-rises-to-four-month-high-on-oil-advance-bogota-mover.html | 8 | 28 | 63dd0f87aedb0f7cbab876dc5936a89efd5863ca | Ecopetrol SA (ECOPETL) , Colombia’s state-controlled oil company, rallied to its highest level in four
months as crude advanced on speculation that the U.S. will take
military action in Syria . Shares gained 2.2 percent to 4,465 pesos at 12:51 p.m. in
Bogota, which would be the highest on a closing basis since
April 11. Ecopetrol was the biggest contributor to a 1.1 percent
gain in the Colcap index. Oil reached a two-year high on speculation the conflict in
Syria will threaten supplies from the Middle East. West Texas
Intermediate oil climbed 1 percent to $110.07 a barrel in New
York after jumping as much as 3 percent earlier in the day. The correlation between oil prices and Ecopetrol shares
means there’s an “upside risk to the stock under a bullish oil
price scenario,” HSBC Holdings Plc analysts led by Luiz Carvalho wrote in an Aug. 26 report. “Ecopetrol is one of the
most oil-leveraged names worldwide.” Ecopetrol shares have an R squared of 0.66 to rising oil, a
measure of the stock’s movements that can be explained by crude
prices, according to the HSBC report. A coefficient of 1
represents perfect correlation. To contact the reporter on this story:
Christine Jenkins in Bogota at
[email protected] ; To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Papadopoulos at
[email protected] | 2013 | ecopetrol-rises-to-four-month-high-on-oil-advance-bogota-mover |
CEO Pay Rules at German Landlords Dubbed Worst by Green Street | By Dalia Fahmy | 2013-08-28T08:34:02Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ceo-pay-rules-at-german-landlords-dubbed-worst-by-green-street.html | 8 | 28 | fd6081ccc12742a8bfe200a21f9544d7 | German landlords have some of the
worst pay policies for chief executive officers among European
real estate companies when it comes to ensuring the best returns
for shareholders, a study by Green Street Advisors Inc. showed. Deutsche Wohnen AG (DWN) , Germany ’s second-largest rental-home
owner, and retail property company Deutsche Euroshop AG (DEQ) have
“poor” compensation policies because their CEOs don’t receive
a significant portion of their pay in stock and compensation
isn’t tied to per-share performance, Green Street said in a
report. British companies such as Great Portland Estates Plc (GPOR) and
Derwent London Plc (DLN) ranked near the top, according to the Newport
Beach , California-based real estate research firm. “The CEO is the primary actor in delivering returns for
the shareholder,” said John Lutzius, managing director at Green
Street in London . “It’s important that CEOs’ personal
compensation is aligned with what shareholders really care
about.” Executive compensation is coming under scrutiny across
Europe as the continent’s share of global real estate investment
shrinks. The U.K. and Swiss governments have backed tougher
rules including shareholder votes on compensation and France and
Germany plan to implement similar controls. The market value of
European property stocks is 14 percent of the global total, down
from 18 percent five years ago, according to data compiled by
the European Public Real Estate Association . ‘Absolutely Transparent’ “We are absolutely transparent,” Deutsche Wohnen
spokeswoman Manuela Damianakis said. “We use a variety of
metrics to measure long-term incentives, including the share
price.” Deutsche Euroshop declined to comment. Compensation policies cited as poor in the report include a
lack of disclosure on how bonuses are calculated, performance
measures that aren’t linked to per-share results, and rewards
paid in cash instead of stock, according to the report. Songbird Estates Plc (SBD) in the U.K. and Swiss Prime Site AG (SPSN)
are among the companies that have the least transparent bonus
policies, Green Street said. That can hurt shareholders because
they’re unable to tell whether the CEO’s interests are aligned
with their own. Songbird declined to comment. Swiss Prime Site chief financial officer Peter Wullschleger
said by email the company’s pay policies comply with Swiss law
and International Financial Reporting Standards. Swiss Prime
Site, which signed new contracts with its top executives that
took effect on Jan. 1, plans to publish the new compensation
details in its 2013 annual report to be released next year, he
said. Faster Updates Green Street’s Lutzius said the company should update
shareholders sooner. “CEO compensation is such an important element of a
company’s overall strategy,” he said. The company should
disclose the key elements of the compensation package now.’’ Deutsche Euroshop, Deutsche Wohnen and TAG Immobilien AG (TEG) ,
also of Germany, rank low because they link payments to absolute
profit growth and not to per-share results. That can encourage
executives to issue more shares to finance acquisitions, Green
Street said. TAG Immobilien declined to comment. “Measures like funds from operations are not always well
correlated with total shareholder returns,” said Lutzius. “You
can manufacture FFO growth artificially, for example by loading
up on debt or buying lesser-quality properties that have higher
yields.” Share Awards Giving CEOs a large portion of their pay in shares is
another way to ensure alignment of interests, Green Street said. “Skin in the game really matters,” said Lutzius. “The
best way to ensure alignment is to require significant share
ownership.” In the U.S., real estate investment trust CEOs own shares
valued at about 20 times their base salaries on average, the
Green Street report found. That ratio was 4.8 in the U.K. and
0.5 in continental Europe. “On the continent, we were surprised to see so many CEOs
have so little investment in the companies they lead,” Lutzius
said. “Ideally, we’d like to see that CEOs have a material
ownership in the company, ownership that’s material to their own
personal net worth.” U.K. companies were praised for making a large portion of
CEO pay dependent on the company’s performance. At Great
Portland, about 73 percent of the CEO’s 2.6 million-euro average
pay over three years depended on results he produced. At Corio
NV (CORA) of the Netherlands, only 24 percent was linked, according to
Green Street. Stock Performance Some companies can benefit from changes that would lead to
“quick wins,” while others require more extensive reforms,
according to Green Street. At Eurocommercial Properties NV (ECMPA) , where 50 percent of the
annual bonus is based on dividend growth, Green Street says
investors should request that bonuses follow total shareholder
returns. Vicki Bradley, a spokeswoman for Eurocommercial, confirmed
the basis of the bonus and said dividends are subject to
shareholder approval. At TAG, where there is no long-term incentive plan, Green
Street recommends implementing one that’s linked to share
performance. “Getting CEO pay right is an important ingredient to
delivering appropriate returns over a full real estate cycle,”
Green Street said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Dalia Fahmy in Berlin at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Andrew Blackman at
[email protected] | 2013 | ceo-pay-rules-at-german-landlords-dubbed-worst-by-green-stree |
Malaysia Splits With Asean Claimants on China Sea Threat | By Sharon Chen | 2013-08-29T09:43:50Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/malaysia-splits-with-other-asean-claimants-over-china-sea-threat.html | 8 | 28 | c70464a8b3034cc4a1b2d64ea383343a | Malaysia differed with fellow
Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea on the threat
posed by China, dismissing concerns about patrols off its coast. Malaysia is not worried about how often Chinese ships
patrol the areas it claims in the waters, Defence Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein said in an interview in Brunei yesterday.
Chinese Navy ships in March visited James Shoal off Malaysia,
near where Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Petroliam Nasional Bhd.
have oil and gas operations. “Just because you have enemies, doesn’t mean your enemies
are my enemies,” Hishammuddin said on the sidelines of meetings
with counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations as well as the U.S. The Chinese “can patrol every day,
but if their intention is not to go to war” it is of less
concern, he said. “I think we have enough level of trust that
we will not be moved by day-to-day politics or emotions.” Malaysia is one of six claimants to land features in the
South China Sea , an area where competition for gas and fish has
led to boats being rammed and survey cables cut. The Philippines
and Vietnam reject China’s map of the sea, first published in
the 1940s, as a basis for joint exploration. “Asean is divided on the South China Sea dispute because
all the members have different interests in the South China Sea
and their relationships with China also differ,” said Ian
Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies in Singapore . “Vietnam and the Philippines see the
dispute as a major national security concern while Malaysia and
Brunei always downplay tensions.” U.S. Concerns U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met Hishammuddin today,
alongside defense ministers from Asean, China, Japan and South
Korea , for the second ADMM-Plus security summit. Hagel told
ministers he was concerned by a rise in maritime incidents and
tensions in the waters. “Actions at sea to advance territorial claims do not
strengthen any party’s legal claim,” Hagel said, according to
remarks prepared for delivery. “Instead, they increase the risk
of confrontation, undermine regional stability, and dim the
prospects for diplomacy.” The situation in the South China Sea is “stable,” said
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, after meeting his Thai
counterpart Surapong Tovichakchaikul in Beijing today. “Such a
stable situation does not come easily and we should dearly
cherish it,” he said. “There is no real problem with freedom
of navigation in the South China Sea, nor will there be a
problem in the future.” Defense Spending An increase in defense spending in the region is “of
serious concern to all of us,” Singapore Defence Minister Ng
Eng Hen told reporters in Brunei today, adding he had raised the
matter during talks with other ministers. Spending by Asian
countries rose 75 percent from 2002 to 2012, compared with 12
percent for the same period in Europe , he said. “The trend is likely to continue because Asian countries
will modernize their militaries as their economies grow,” Ng
said. He said Singapore had talked about the need to assure
other countries in Asia that this process “will add stability
to the region.” Collaboration Option Malaysia could consider collaborating on the development of
oil and gas resources with China in the area, Hishammuddin said
in the interview. “Provided our friends in Asean know, those who have an
interest in the region know, and if they want to object, I would
like to know why?” Hishammuddin said. “If they’re just
objecting for the sake of objecting, that doesn’t make sense.” China National Offshore Oil Corp. estimates the South China
Sea may hold about five times more undiscovered natural gas than
the country’s current proved reserves, according to the U.S.
Energy Information Administration. In June, Malaysia Prime
Minister Najib Razak called for parties to jointly develop
resources to avoid conflict and prevent “extra-regional
states” from becoming involved. Najib cited a joint development zone in waters claimed by
Thailand and Malaysia as a precedent that could be applied in
the South China Sea. China has agreed to talks on a code of
conduct for the area, with discussions to begin in September. Code of Conduct “China is somewhat reluctant to reach a consensus on the
code of conduct with Asean members, if the area covered by the
code of conduct is in certain portions of the South China Sea
claimed by China,” said Arthur Ding, a research fellow at the
Institute of International Relations in Taiwan . China still calls for disputes to be handled directly by
the countries in involved, Defense Minister Chang Wanquan said
in Brunei today, speaking through a translator. China opposes any effort to internationalize, “escalate or
complicate the disputes,” Chang said. “These disputes should
not and will not undermine the overall relationship between
China and Asean.” Hagel will visit Vietnam next year at the invitation of
Vietnam’s defense minister, said a senior U.S. defense official
who can’t be named according to government policy. Hagel also
met his counterpart from Myanmar for talks in Brunei yesterday,
the first meeting of top defense figures from the two countries
in 20 years, the official said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Sharon Chen in Singapore at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Rosalind Mathieson at
[email protected] | 2013 | alaysia-splits-with-other-asean-claimants-over-china-sea-threa |
U.K. Drafts Syria Resolution Authorizing Measures | By Robert Hutton | 2013-08-28T09:35:34Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/u-k-drafts-syria-resolution-authorizing-measures.html | 8 | 28 | 7a556b388b911306212746c2e099e3f569d3ab0c | Prime Minister David Cameron said
the U.K. will put forward a draft resolution at the United
Nations today authorizing action to protect civilians after last
week’s suspected chemical-weapons attack near Damascus, for
which it’s blamed the Syrian government. “We have always made clear that we want the UN Security
Council to live up to its responsibilities on Syria,” Cameron
said on his Twitter feed. “Today we are giving its permanent
members the opportunity to do that.” The U.S., France and Britain have put forces into
place after the attack near Damascus, which killed as many as
1,300 people, according to opposition groups. The U.K. opposition Labour Party has said it wants the UN
to be consulted before it supports a vote in Parliament tomorrow
night on the possible use of force. In Britain, decisions about
action are overshadowed by the 2003 invasion of Iraq , which took
place without UN support. On Aug. 26, Cameron spoke by phone to Russian President
Vladimir Putin . The two men disagreed whether there’s enough
evidence to support Britain’s view that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s government was responsible for the attack, according
to Cameron’s office. Russia has a veto in the Security Council
and can block any resolution. According to Cameron’s office, the resolution will be one
“authorizing all necessary measures under Chapter 7 of the UN
Charter to protect civilians from chemical weapons.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Robert Hutton in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Hertling at
[email protected] | 2013 | u-k-drafts-syria-resolution-authorizing-measures |
Barclays’s Azar Sees Middle East M&A Driven by Sovereigns | By Stefania Bianchi | 2013-08-28T13:19:07Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/barclays-s-azar-sees-middle-east-m-a-driven-by-sovereign-funds.html | 8 | 28 | c4249cd6f8c670bc1daf0eecbda14835c3cfbd5e | Middle East mergers and
acquisitions, at a six-year high, will be driven by sovereign
wealth funds and regional transactions amid an economic recovery
in the Persian Gulf , according to a Barclays Plc (BARC) executive. “M&A is back. Money is cheap and companies are feeling
better about growth through acquisitions,” Makram Azar, vice
chairman of investment banking , said in an interview yesterday.
“There are two types of M&A happening in this region -
sovereigns looking at acquisitions abroad to diversify and
regional consolidation.” Deals valued at $39.1 billion have been announced in the
Middle East and Africa this year, the highest since the same
period in 2007 and a 15 percent increase from a year earlier,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some of the biggest
transactions involve companies in the United Arab Emirates
consolidating as they seek to benefit from a revival in property
prices, tourism and retail. Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala Development Co. said in
June it will buy a stake in state-owned Dubai Aluminium Co. in a
$15 billion joint venture. Aldar Properties PJSC (ALDAR) , Abu Dhabi’s
biggest developer, in the same month completed the acquisition
of Sorouh Real Estate Co., creating a developer with $13 billion
in assets. Ooredoo QSC, the company formerly known as Qatar Telecom
QSC, bought about 200 million shares in Kuwait ’s National Mobile
Telecommunications Co., known as Wataniya, in October for 519
million dinars ($1.8 billion), raising its stake to 92 percent
from 53 percent. U.A.E. Deals “There are also a lot of companies in the Gulf that
operate in the same industry who are realizing that integration
would provide them with the scale and competitive advantage to
reach the next level,” Azar said. “We’ve already seen examples
of such transactions with QTel/Wataniya, Dubal/Emal and
Aldar/Sorouh, and we expect to see more of these intra-regional
transactions.” Dubai and state-linked companies are preparing to repay
about $20 billion in debt in 2014 in what Moody’s Investors
Service has called a “pivotal year” for the emirate. A
property crash spurred by the 2008 global credit crisis drove
Dubai to the brink of default almost four years ago, before it
was rescued with a $20 billion bailout from Abu Dhabi and the
U.A.E. central bank. Dubai Confidence Confidence in Dubai, home to the world’s tallest tower, has
improved since state-linked companies refinanced or paid $3.75
billion of debt last year. An upturn in domestic real estate sales has coincided with
a recovery in the economy, which expanded 4.4 percent last year,
the most since 2007 as tourism and retail figures improved,
according to government data. Barclays, the third-largest arranger of M&A deals in the
region, was an international adviser on a plan by Egyptian
construction and fertilizer company Orascom Construction
Industries to transfer shares from Cairo and London to Amsterdam
in a deal valued at about $10.5 billion, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. It also advised Bahrain’s Investcorp Bank
BSC when it sold its majority stake in British online payment
company Skrill Group this month to CVC Capital Partners Ltd. in
a 600 million-euro ($802 million) transaction. Barclays rose 1.3 percent to 284.3 pence in London as of
2:17 p.m. local time and has gained about 8 percent this year. The bank plans further expansion in the Middle East on
rising demand for wealth management and investment banking
services, John Vitalo, the bank’s chief executive officer for
Middle East and North Africa, said in March. The bank, which
employees about 1,000 people in the region, expects to hire
about 100 more this year and has a “healthy pipeline” of debt
capital market and M&A deal mandates, he said at the time. To contact the reporter on this story:
Stefania Bianchi in Dubai at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dale Crofts at
[email protected] | 2013 | barclays-s-azar-sees-middle-east-m-a-driven-by-sovereign-funds |
Spurs Agree to Sign Lamela With Bale Poised for Real Madrid Move | By Alex Duff | 2013-08-28T23:41:32Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/tottenham-may-fine-bale-for-missing-training-villas-boas-says.html | 8 | 28 | 2dc7074797b047e4346e01f534312c03eeeddf27 | Tottenham Hotspur agreed to sign AS
Roma winger Erik Lamela for 30 million euros ($40 million) as it
seeks to complete the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for
what may be a world-record fee. Roma will receive a further 5 million euros from Spurs if
Argentina’s Lamela meets undisclosed sporting objectives, the
Italian team said yesterday in a statement . Bale’s transfer to
Real could happen “very, very soon,” Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas said in a televised news conference. Lamela, 21, scored 15 times in 33 league games last season.
Roma paid Argentine team River Plate 12 million euros to sign
him in 2011, as well as 4.8 million euros to Netherlands-based
third parties, the Italian club said at the time. Tottenham has already signed Roberto Soldado, Paulinho,
Nacer Chadli and Etienne Capoue in this transfer window for
about 60 million pounds ($93 million). Villas-Boas said Tottenham may fine Bale, 24, after the
winger didn’t attend training the past two days. He’s been
linked with a possible 100 million-euro transfer to Real before
the Sept. 2 trade deadline. That would exceed the 80 million pounds the Spanish club
paid Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009. “He is involved in a big transfer move to Real Madrid and
in the end if it happens, we wish him all the best, but the fact
that he hasn’t turned up is not the correct behavior,” Villas-Boas said in yesterday’s press conference. He added that “it’s up to the club to decide if it’s a
fine-able offense.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Duff in Madrid at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Christopher Elser at
[email protected] . | 2013 | ottenham-may-fine-bale-for-missing-training-villas-boas-says |
BofA Settles Black Advisers’ Bias Suit for $160 Million | By Joel Rosenblatt and Hugh Son | 2013-08-28T04:30:27Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/bofa-settles-black-brokers-bias-suit-for-160-million.html | 8 | 28 | f8c642b1efb14e59aced609062f508fd | Bank of America Corp .’s Merrill
Lynch unit agreed to pay $160 million to settle a discrimination
lawsuit filed by black financial advisers, a lawyer for the
plaintiffs said. The case, filed in 2005, was brought on behalf of one
employee and grew to as many as 1,200 class representatives who
“persevered through some long odds in this case,” said Suzanne
Bish, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The agreement is scheduled to be considered by a federal
judge in Chicago on Sept. 3, Bish said yesterday in a phone
interview. “We are working toward a very positive resolution of a
lawsuit filed in 2005 and enhancing opportunities for African-American financial advisers,” Bill Halldin , a Bank of America
spokesman, said in an e-mail. Bank of America , the second-biggest U.S. lender by assets,
acquired Merrill for $33 billion in 2009. The Charlotte , North
Carolina-based bank plans to dissolve the unit as early as the
fourth quarter while keeping the Merrill Lynch brand for its
retail brokerage and investment bank, according to an Aug. 2
filing . Merrill Lynch had about 14,000 financial advisers as of
June 30, excluding those working at bank branches. Bank of
America’s entire staff was 257,158. Nashville Adviser The lead plaintiff, George McReynolds of Nashville,
Tennessee , still works for Merrill Lynch, Bish said. McReynolds
and the firm maintained a professional attitude throughout the
litigation based on a common “passion for their clients,” she
said. The central claim of the suit was that blacks weren’t given
the same business opportunities as whites in participating on
investment teams and in account distribution, Bish said. The
formation of adviser teams is one of Merrill’s most important
business strategies, she said, and black advisers were
segregated and excluded from the teams and the benefits and
business resources they afforded, she said. U.S. District Robert Gettleman in Chicago rejected the case
as a class action three times before a federal appeals court
approved it. Bish said the black advisers won class
certification based on a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
women suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) for gender bias on behalf of
1.5 million co-workers failed to prove the company had a
nationwide policy that led to gender discrimination. Centralized Control The advisers’ suit was based on claims that the
discrimination was due to “very centralized control by Merrill
Lynch,” Bish said. Any individual claims permitted to advance
would have to be tried repeatedly in federal courts across the
U.S., arguing for class certification, she said. After the February 2012 appeals court ruling, Gettleman
issued an order certifying the class of “all African-Americans
employed by Merrill Lynch at any time since July 10, 2004, as
financial advisers or financial adviser trainees” in the U.S.
retail brokerage unit of the firm’s global private client
division. The New York Times reported the settlement earlier. “Their goal in filing this was to try to make Wall Street
a friendlier place where their kids would have the same
opportunities to do this job that they love so much,” Bish
said. “Our clients are going to help Merrill and help Wall
Street be a more open place for everyone.” The cases are McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch, 11-01957, U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Chicago), and
McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc., 05-cv-06583, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
(Chicago). To contact the reporters on this story:
Joel Rosenblatt in San Francisco at
[email protected] ;
Hugh Son in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Michael Hytha at
[email protected] ;
David Scheer at
[email protected] | 2013 | bofa-settles-black-brokers-bias-suit-for-160-million |
Gasoline Gains as Looming Syria Strike Sends Crude Above $112 | By Barbara Powell | 2013-08-28T14:00:58Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/gasoline-gains-as-looming-syria-strike-sends-crude-above-112.html | 8 | 28 | 345949a1602e4901bc1aff52c163ab59 | Gasoline jumped to a five-week high,
following crude’s rally, amid concern that any U.S. military
strikes against Syria will lead to a widespread Middle East
conflict and oil supply disruptions. Futures rose as much as 2.3 percent. West Texas
Intermediate crude surged to the highest level since May 2011.
U.S. officials aren’t limited to a one-day operation, an
administration official said as the U.K. drafted a United
Nations resolution to condemn last week’s suspected chemical
attack in Syria. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said
yesterday “we have the means to defend ourselves, and we will
surprise people with them.” “We’re off the highs, but until we have a clear feeling on
how the aftermath of this potential strike in Syria will go, you
can’t afford to be short,” said Phil Flynn , senior market
analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago . “All the major oil
producers are on opposite sides of the conflict.” Gasoline for September delivery rose 3.89 cents, or 1.3
percent, to $3.073 a gallon at 9:46 a.m. on the New York
Mercantile Exchange . Prices touched $3.1033, the highest
intraday price since July 22. Trading volume was 10 percent
above the 100-day average. Syria Discussions The U.S. and its allies are still working to define goals
for a military strike on Syria, said the official, who was
speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss war-planning
efforts. U.S. and British officials say there’s little doubt
that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are responsible
for the chemical attacks near Damascus that opposition groups
say killed more than 1,300 people. WTI for October delivery increased 83 cents to $109.84 a
barrel on the Nymex, after touching $112.24. October Brent crude
on the London ICE Futures Exchange advanced $1.25 to $115.61
after touching a six-month high of $117.34. The motor fuel’s crack spread versus West Texas
Intermediate crude rose 36 cents to $13.68 a barrel. The fuel’s
premium over Brent narrowed 5 cents to $7.93. Pump prices , averaged nationwide, rose 0.4 cent to $3.546 a
gallon, Heathrow, Florida-based AAA said today on its website.
Prices are 21 cents below a year earlier. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel for September delivery rose 1.72
cents, or 0.5 percent, to $3.1781 a gallon, after touching a
six-month high of $3.216. Trading volume was 33 percent above
the 100-day average. ULSD’s crack spread versus WTI narrowed 2 cents to $23.93 a
barrel. The premium over Brent fell 35 cents to $18.25. To contact the reporter on this story:
Barbara Powell in Dallas at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at
[email protected] | 2013 | gasoline-gains-as-looming-syria-strike-sends-crude-above-112 |
U.S. Bank Legal Bills Exceed $100 Billion | By Donal Griffin and Dakin Campbell | 2013-08-28T16:02:42Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/u-s-bank-legal-bills-exceed-100-billion.html | 8 | 28 | 032a7165b01b44f58d4cdaeada18823e | The six biggest U.S. banks, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. , have piled up $103 billion in legal costs since the financial crisis, more than all dividends paid to shareholders in the past five years. That’s the amount allotted to lawyers and litigation, as well as for settling claims about shoddy mortgages and foreclosures , according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The sum, equivalent to spending $51 million a day, is enough to erase everything the banks earned for 2012. The mounting bills have vexed bankers who are counting on expense cuts to make up for slow revenue growth and make room for higher payouts. About 40 percent of the legal and litigation outlays arose since January 2012, and banks are warning the tally may surge as regulators, prosecutors and investors press new claims. The prospect is clouding outlooks for stock prices , and by some estimates the damage could last another decade. “They’ve crossed the point of no return when it comes to the effects that these expenses are going to have on earnings,” said Jeffrey Sica, who helps oversee more than $1 billion as head of Sica Wealth Management LLC in Morristown, New Jersey, and doesn’t recommend bank stocks. “This is going to keep on hurting them, and people will start paying more attention.” JPMorgan and Bank of America bore about 75 percent of the total costs, according to the figures compiled from company reports. JPMorgan devoted $21.3 billion to legal fees and litigation since the start of 2008, more than any other lender, and added $8.1 billion to reserves for mortgage buybacks, filings show. More Cases Five years after the financial crisis shook global markets, banks are facing accusations that they misled buyers of mortgage-backed securities, rigged interest rates used to price loans worldwide and manipulated markets for credit derivatives and commodities. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the Wall Street Journal this month that he’ll bring new cases tied to the financial crisis in the months ahead. Investigators may be stepping up efforts now that the economy has recovered and the solvency of the nation’s banks is no longer in doubt, according to Daniel Hurson, a former U.S. prosecutor and Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who runs his own Washington practice. “There may be a sense that financial institutions have gotten away with a lot and maybe now is the time to catch up,” Hurson said. Fed Reports The data were compiled from quarterly reports to the Federal Reserve , the SEC and investors covering January 2008 through June 2013. The reports from Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. (C) , Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) , Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley (MS) included Y-9C forms that bank holding companies with more than $500 million of assets must file with the Fed. The forms disclose specific costs, such as legal fees, that exceed 3 percent of total non-interest expenses. Some of the banks distinguished between litigation costs and legal fees, which could include routine expenses of running a business, such as drawing up contracts, rather than lawsuits. Still, most outlays at JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup were tied specifically to litigation, the filings show. Spokesmen for the six banks declined to comment about their legal costs. Legal fees and litigation costs accounted for $56 billion of Bloomberg’s $103 billion tally, with $7.2 billion incurred just for the first six months of this year. The rest, $47 billion, was for payments to mortgage investors. JPMorgan’s Calendar Bank of America, led by Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan , 53, increased its legal costs by $3.3 billion in the first half to a total of $19.1 billion. JPMorgan added $1.5 billion in the period. The other four lenders added about $2.4 billion combined in the six months. Jamie Dimon , 57, JPMorgan’s CEO, is contending with criminal probes into his New York-based bank’s energy-trading and mortgage-backed securities operations while grappling with investigations into anti-money-laundering safeguards, foreclosures, credit-card collections, and the $6.2 billion London Whale trading loss last year. A U.S. housing regulator is seeking at least $6 billion to settle claims JPMorgan sold bad mortgage bonds to government-backed finance companies Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac , a person briefed on the matter said this week. The bank is fighting the request, the person said. Moved Markets Penalties in the London Whale episode, named for a U.K. trader whose big bets moved markets, may reach $600 million, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Regulators also are preparing enforcement actions against JPMorgan for its treatment of consumers during the recession that could result in fines of about $80 million, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter. JPMorgan’s spokesmen had no comment on any of the cases. Some of JPMorgan’s legal bills and repurchase costs stem from practices at Bears Stearns Cos. and Washington Mutual Inc.’s bank, which JPMorgan acquired as those firms headed toward collapse during the financial crisis. Bank of America also has been hobbled by defaults on loans created at the subprime lender it bought in 2008, Countrywide Financial Corp. Investors mostly have ignored the mounting legal tab, focusing more on the potential for higher dividends as earnings recover. JPMorgan and San Francisco-based Wells Fargo have reported record profits since the crisis, and the 24-company KBW Bank Index (BKX) has jumped 22 percent this year, outpacing the 14 percent return for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Collectively, the six banks earned $59.5 billion in 2012. Dividend Hunger They also paid $98.6 billion for common and preferred stock dividends from the end of 2007 through the first half of this year. Wells Fargo led with $24.2 billion, followed by JPMorgan at $23.9 billion, the data show. Stockholders have pushed banks to raise payouts that were scrapped or reduced to token amounts during the financial crisis, and punished top managers who didn’t follow through. Bank of America shares plunged 58 percent in 2011 after Moynihan failed to get U.S. approval for an increase, and regulators rejected a request from Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit in 2012, leading to his ouster as CEO. Executives at JPMorgan, whose stock pays 38 cents a quarter, want to boost returns to shareholders, Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said this year. John Stumpf , CEO of fourth-biggest lender Wells Fargo, has raised the dividend twice this year and included more stock buybacks in its capital plan. ‘Headline Risk’ JPMorgan’s stock has trailed the broader banking index since the beginning of the year, and Chris Mutascio, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp.’s KBW unit, wrote in a note last week that the “headline risk” of government investigations and lawsuits has hurt the shares. The totals would be billions of dollars higher if U.S. cases involving the biggest European banks were counted. HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s largest lender, agreed last year to pay $1.92 billion to settle U.S. money-laundering probes. UBS AG, the largest lender in Switzerland, said in July it would pay $885 million to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FMCC) on claims that it improperly sold them mortgage-backed securities. Barclays Plc, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc were fined a combined $2.5 billion to settle allegations by regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere that that they helped rig the benchmark London interbank offered rate. Criminal Probe While some cases date back several years, others are more recent. The U.S. sued Bank of America this month, alleging the Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm misled investors in a deal for mortgage-backed bonds. JPMorgan disclosed a criminal probe involving similar securities this month. The bank declined to comment at the time, while Bank of America said buyers of its bonds were sophisticated investors with ample access to underlying data. The investigations indicate a “re-energized crusade” from the Justice Department , according to Charles Peabody, an analyst with Portales Partners LLC in New York who recommends investors sell JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup shares. This will contribute to a “material cyclical rise” in the banks’ litigation costs, he told clients last week. Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. bank , added $1.4 billion in legal expenses so far this year, almost double its costs for the first half of 2012. The New York-based lender is facing “legacy issues” tied to mortgage products, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said last month. Future Losses The bank also boosted its estimate for possible future legal losses not covered by reserves to $5 billion as of June from $4 billion a year earlier. JPMorgan raised the upper end of its estimate to $6.8 billion from $5.3 billion. Bank of America reduced its figure to $2.8 billion from $4.1 billion after settling some of its biggest pending cases. “There is wide political support for punitive action against these banks, and it’s not going away,” said Keith Davis, an analyst at Farr, Miller & Washington LLC, which manages about $930 million, including shares of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. “This will last longer than people think.” The legal bills are hindering Wall Street bosses in their campaigns to cut expenses. Citigroup’s total outlays for the first half rose 1 percent to $24.4 billion, even as CEO Michael Corbat , 53, fired thousands of workers and sold businesses to make his bank more efficient. Incorrect Data The top four banks added $1.4 billion to their reserves in the first half to cover repurchases of bad home loans, filings show. These cases typically involve demands for refunds from investors who bought mortgages or mortgage-backed securities and later uncovered flaws in the paperwork, such as incorrect data about the borrowers and properties. Banks typically sell the mortgages with a promise to buy them back if such defects arise. Bank of America has set aside $28.6 billion for repurchases since 2008, more than half of the total for the four lenders, according to filings. When added to legal costs, the firm’s combined tally is about $48 billion. Those reserves probably aren’t enough to cover more recent cases, according to Peabody, the Portales analyst. Bank of America is facing a multibillion-dollar settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency tied to mortgage-backed securities, he wrote in an Aug. 6 note that recommended “aggressively” selling Bank of America shares. Moynihan’s Tenure While the stock is up 22 percent this year, it’s languishing below the $15.06 at the start of Moynihan’s tenure in January 2010 as he oversaw disputes with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, MBIA Inc., Assured Guaranty Ltd., the Fed, U.S. Treasury Department, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, mortgage bond investors and state attorneys general from across the country. Moynihan, a former general counsel, at one point vowed to wage “hand-to-hand combat” in lawsuits about faulty mortgages before agreeing to settlements. In a separate matter, the bank’s Merrill Lynch unit agreed to pay $160 million to end a discrimination lawsuit filed in 2005 by black financial advisers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said yesterday. Investors and analysts have pressed Moynihan on when litigation expenses will subside. In March, he said the firm finished paying the “lion’s share” of costs tied to faulty mortgages. “We now have 103 billion reasons why not doing the right thing is costly to banks,” said Mark T. Williams , a Boston University lecturer and former Fed examiner specializing in risk management. “The risk of noncompliance has finally been appropriately priced.” Longer Horizon The legal process could be extended if the U.S. attorney general brings more cases and unearths information that can be used in new lawsuits. While some cases have a five-year statute of limitations, those involving bank frauds have a deadline that’s twice as long. The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, known as FIRREA, has a 10-year limit, and the U.S. used the law against JPMorgan and Bank of America. “It’s likely the financial institutions don’t yet know of some of these lawsuits,” said Walter J. Mix III, head of financial-institutions consulting at Berkeley Research Group LLC and a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions. “The litigation can go on for 10 years or more.” To contact the reporters on this story: Donal Griffin in New York at [email protected] ; Dakin Campbell in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christine Harper at [email protected] ; David Scheer at [email protected] | 2013 | u-s-bank-legal-bills-exceed-100-billion |
Bouygues Profit Rises 10% After Cutting Costs at Phone Unit | By Francois de Beaupuy | 2013-08-28T13:46:29Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/bouygues-profit-rises-10-after-cutting-costs-at-phone-division.html | 8 | 28 | 7f0b11955485cabea3adc90c560afdd730770847 | Bouygues SA (EN) , the French building,
telecommunications and television company, said second-quarter
profit rose 10 percent, beating analysts’ estimates, after cost
cuts at its mobile-phone and broadcasting divisions. Operating profit increased to 432 million euros ($577
million) from 394 million euros a year earlier, the Paris-based
company said in a statement today. Analysts surveyed by
Bloomberg had forecast 358 million euros, according to the
average of three estimates. The stock rose as much as 8.8
percent in Paris, the biggest gain in six months. Bouygues, which controls France’s third-largest mobile-phone operator and the country’s biggest television network, is
paring jobs and cutting prices to respond to Iliad SA (ILD) , which
started a discount mobile service in January 2012. Bouygues
Telecom also started talks in July with SFR, France ’s second-largest phone operator, to share part of their mobile networks. “The worst seems to be over,” said Josep Pujal, an
analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux. “The recovery in telecom is going
as expected: after a period of adaptation, the group is gaining
clients again and ramping up the cost reductions.” Low Point Last year “should mark the low point” in the group’s
profitability, the company reiterated today, saying that cost
cuts since the start of 2012 at its phone unit will exceed a
target set in May of 400 million euros. It repeated a goal to
stabilize Bouygues Telecom’s earnings before interest, taxes,
depreciation and amortization at 900 million euros in 2013. Bouygues reduced its outlook for full-year sales because of
weaker-than-expected phone revenue. The company said today that
sales may fall as much as 1 percent or be stable at best at 33.4
billion euros, down from an earlier prediction that revenue
would be little changed. The group’s backlog in construction, road works and real
estate fell 4.5 percent to 27.3 billion euros at the end of June
as Europe ’s economic situation remains “tough.” The order book
doesn’t include a 1.15 billion-euro contract announced today to
build an undersea road tunnel in Hong Kong , and an order to
develop commercial and residential real estate in Miami. The
company’s share of the Miami contract is about $260 million. The stock traded 8 percent higher at 24.77 euros as of 3:44
p.m., valuing the company at 7.9 billion euros. The shares have
risen 11 percent this year, while the CAC 40 index added 8.4
percent. Total sales were unchanged at 8.51 billion euros in the
second quarter as falling revenue at Bouygues Telecom and
Television Francaise 1 offset rising construction and real
estate billings. Net income fell 5 percent to 230 million euros. To contact the reporter on this story:
Francois de Beaupuy in Paris at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Thiel at
[email protected] | 2013 | bouygues-profit-rises-10-after-cutting-costs-at-phone-division |
Baird Says ‘Firm International Response’ Is Needed on Syria | By Frederic Tomesco | 2013-08-28T19:55:27Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/baird-says-firm-international-response-is-needed-on-syria.html | 8 | 28 | 73185cc3b7e58cdf90fd851ee8c7b9cd2886bef8 | Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
John Baird said a “firm international response” is needed
against Syria as the U.S. and its NATO allies prepare evidence
the Assad government used chemical weapons on its own people. Baird, speaking today to reporters in Montreal, said Canada
will wait to see what options are chosen before it determines
what assistance it can provide. “We understand that as this struggle drags on, Canada will
need to do more, and we are willing to do so,” Baird said.
“The Syrian regime has charted a dangerous path. The
appropriate consequences will follow.” The U.S. and the U.K. today said they are prepared to take
military action against Syria without authorization from the
United Nations Security Council . To contact the reporter on this story:
Frederic Tomesco in Montreal at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Chris Fournier at
[email protected] | 2013 | baird-says-firm-international-response-is-needed-on-syria |
Johnson Controls to Get State Aid for Slovak Headrest Project | By Radoslav Tomek | 2013-08-28T11:43:39Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/johnson-controls-to-get-state-aid-for-slovak-headrest-project.html | 8 | 28 | d36c9d0639646081a5f64d5e574f246f0a44f6b2 | Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) will receive
state aid from the Slovak government in exchange for a pledge to
create jobs at a time when the economy is slowing. Slovakia’s cabinet in the capital Bratislava approved 3.9
million euros ($5.2 million) in tax breaks and 240,000 euros in
cash subsidies for a venture the U.S. auto-parts maker formed
with Innotec Corp. to make headrests, the government said on
its website today. The costs of the project, which would create
125 jobs, are estimated at 8.2 million euros, according to the
document. State aid combined with labor costs, which are lower than
in western Europe , are helping the eastern euro-area member to
lure investors, mainly from the automotive industry. The
government relies on foreign investment to help cut unemployment
that at 14 percent is among the highest in the European Union. The cabinet also granted 3 million euros in aid for a unit
of caravan-appliance maker Dometic Holding AB, while Austria ’s
car-parts maker Miba Sinter Austria GmbH will receive tax breaks
worth 3.6 million euros. To contact the reporter on this story:
Radoslav Tomek in Brussels at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James M. Gomez at
[email protected] | 2013 | johnson-controls-to-get-state-aid-for-slovak-headrest-projec |
Questor Surges on Stricter Energy Pollution Controls | By Jeremy van Loon | 2013-08-28T20:31:43Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/questor-surges-on-stricter-energy-pollution-controls.html | 8 | 28 | 28fefec797624c29bbc036017e6fbcec | Questor Technology Inc. (QST) , Canada’s
top pollution-control stock in the past three years, said
stricter air quality rules will boost revenue for its flare-gas
incineration systems as North American energy output surges. “The world has changed in the oil and gas industry,”
Questor Chief Executive Officer Audrey Mascarenhas said in an
interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York on Aug. 23.
“Last year, the U.S. put in some tough new rules. The whole
conversation around social license to operate is one of the
greatest risks for the oil and gas industry.” Calgary-based Questor is among companies benefiting from
greater scrutiny of air quality, waste water and carbon
emissions . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year
issued rules requiring natural-gas drillers to capture fumes
such as methane while projects such as TransCanada Corp. (TRP) ’s
planned Keystone XL oil pipeline draws opposition from
environmental groups such as Credo. The tougher rules come as U.S. oil production is set to
rise 48 percent to 11.1 million barrels a day by 2020,
surpassing Saudi Arabia , according to the International Energy
Agency . Canadian crude oil output, including from Alberta ’s oil
sands, will double to 6.7 million barrels a day by 2030 from 3.2
million in 2012, according to Canadian Association of Petroleum
Producers. Destroys Carcinogens Questor, which gets 50 percent of its revenue from the
U.S., is talking with “all the majors” in the North American
energy industry about using the company’s equipment, Mascarenhas
said, without providing names. The incinerators burn vapors and
fumes at high temperatures, destroying carcinogens, toxins and
methane, a greenhouse gas, she said. Questor rose to a record 75 cents on Aug. 26 and has
tripled in the past three years, the biggest increase among 10
Canadian pollution-control stocks tracked by Bloomberg. The
shares closed flat at 74 cents in Toronto today and have risen
80 percent this year. Mascarenhas owns about 15 percent of the
company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Questor’s revenue increased 9.7 percent to C$6.68 million
($6.37 million) last year, while net income before special items
fell 13 percent to C$1.04 million. The company competes with
Houston-based Cameron International Corp. (CAM) and counts Cnooc
Ltd.’s Nexen division and Suncor Energy Inc. among its
customers. ‘Risky Space’ “There’s definitely more regulation to support these
companies,” Khurram Malik, an analyst at Jacob Securities in
Toronto said by phone Aug. 22. “In general though, you’ve got
to be really careful with these stocks because it’s a very risky
space.” Share prices for small, pollution-control companies can
be volatile, he said. Other Canadian pollution-control companies whose shares
have gained this year include GLV Inc. (GLV/A) , a Montreal-based
manufacturer of water-treatment equipment and CO2 Solutions,
Inc. (CST) , a Quebec City developer of carbon capture using enzymes.
Rising water prices and new rules on mercury output from coal
power plants in the U.S. are contributing to the success of some
pollution control companies. GLV has risen 83 percent and CO2 Solutions has gained 92
percent this year. Julie Cusson, a spokeswoman for GLV was not
available to comment on the impact of regulation. Leaky Pipes “In the sense of CO2 capture, the driving force is going
to be regulation,” Thom Skinner, chief financial officer at CO2
Solution, said in an Aug. 26 phone interview. The company is
developing an enzyme-based technology to reduce carbon dioxide
from fossil fuel consumption and is working on a pilot project
for application in Alberta’s oil sands. Pure Technologies Ltd. (PUR) , a Calgary-based company that makes
inspection systems for water and wastewater pipelines, has
increased 4.6 percent this year. The shares rose 0.4 percent to
C$4.82 in Toronto today. The company works with municipalities and companies to
detect leaks and manage pressurized pipeline systems. Paul Moon,
a spokesman for Pure, wasn’t available to discuss regulation
when contacted by Bloomberg News . Cities across North America are upgrading aging water and
sewage networks to cope with natural disasters like Hurricane
Sandy which flooded parts of New York City or this year’s floods
in Calgary which may cost $5 billion to repair the damage,
according to estimates by BMO Capital Markets. Tailings Ponds “There is huge potential for Pure because almost all the
water infrastructure in North America is coming to the end of
its useful life,” Jason Zandberg , an analyst at PI Financial in
Vancouver said Aug. 22 by phone. Zandberg has one of six buy
ratings on the stock; it has one sell. “They are the biggest
player in that segment in North America.” In Canada’s oil-sands region, companies mining bitumen use
on average 2.7 barrels of water for each barrel of bitumen
produced, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum
Producers . Much of that water is abstracted from the Athabasca
River and ends up in man-made lakes called tailings ponds that
require treatment before the water can flow back into the
ecosystem. “The whole oil and gas sector has been coming under
intense scrutiny,” Zandberg said. “That’s definitely a macro
trend and we should expect further regulations on all aspects of
that industry.” Currently producers operating in Alberta determine whether
capturing, burning or releasing gas, known as venting, is
“economically viable,” according to the province’s energy
regulator. New rules to address recent increases in flaring are
expected by the end of the year, the regulator said in June. Big Prize Flaring and vented gas from crude oil and bitumen
production increased 66 percent from 2009 to 2011, according to
the most recent figures available from the Alberta energy
regulator. Globally, about 5.3 trillion cubic feet of gas is flared
annually, the equivalent of 25 percent of U.S. consumption of
the fuel, according to the World Bank . Russia and Nigeria flare
the most, while North American flaring is rising along with oil
production gains. Oil producers can reduce flaring by connecting the produced
gas to pipelines and selling or using the gas. If that’s not
economic or practical, that’s where Questor comes in. Using
high-temperature furnaces, the waste gas is combusted at the
well site using high-efficiency gas incinerators. Cutting emissions from flaring is “low-hanging fruit” for
the industry, Mascarenhas said. “The big prize is using that
wasted energy and heat.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeremy van Loon in Calgary at
[email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Susan Warren at
[email protected] ;
David Scanlan at
[email protected] | 2013 | questor-surges-on-stricter-energy-pollution-controls |
Japan Nuclear Watchdog Casts Doubt on Tepco Tank Monitoring | By Jacob Adelman and Yuji Okada | 2013-08-29T08:07:44Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/japan-nuclear-watchdog-casts-doubt-on-tepco-water-leak-reporting.html | 8 | 28 | 24ff9288a5d2489db0bb1cdaf6f4db1f | Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) ’s inexact
monitoring of contaminated water stored at the Fukushima atomic
plant may have led the utility to overstate last week’s storage
tank leak, according to Japan ’s nuclear regulator. The 300-metric-ton loss reported by the utility known as
Tepco was based on an assumption that the tank had been full
before the leak, Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s Nuclear
Regulation Authority, told reporters yesterday in Tokyo. That
assumption may not have been reliable, since there was no gauge
measuring the individual tank’s water level, he said. “We have no idea whether it’s actually 300 tons that
leaked,” Tanaka said. “We need to look into this issue more.” Tokyo Electric’s management of contaminated water at the
Fukushima plant has already drawn fire from Shinji Kinjo, leader
of a disaster task force at the NRA, who has said the utility
was careless in its monitoring of the storage tanks and failed
to keep records of its inspections. Managing the water, which is increasing at a rate of 400
tons a day, is a fundamental challenge for Tepco as it struggles
with the cleanup of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, a process that
could take as long as 40 years. Tepco’s shares fell 2.6 percent to 497 yen at the close of
Tokyo trading. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.9 percent. Leak Questions Tanaka’s remarks yesterday came hours after the NRA said it
had finalized its ranking of the leak, based on Tepco’s
reckoning, as a level 3 “serious incident” on the seven-stage
International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale , or INES, its
worst assessment of the problems at Fukushima since the
earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused reactors to melt down. The NRA may reconsider its INES ranking should further
studies show different amounts of water loss than those provided
by Tepco, Tanaka said. “It’s up to us to provide accurate data to the nation,”
he said. The leak may have begun some time in July, Mayumi Yoshida,
a Tepco spokeswoman, said yesterday. Tepco characterized the
leak as small when it was first detected on Aug. 19, prompting
the NRA to designate it a 1, or an “anomaly,” on the INES
scale. The higher ranking was assigned after Tepco determined by
the change in the tank’s water level that 300 tons of
contaminated water had escaped. Rating Changes The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement
posted on the NRA website yesterday that the Japanese agency
should explain why last week’s leak merited an INES rating while
previous incidents did not. The leak was the fifth and largest storage tank spill since
January 2012, according to Tepco, which also stopped using
underground basins to store water after several leaks were found
in April 2013. The IAEA also advised the NRA to communicate the severity
of plant incidents more clearly and to avoid confusing the
public with upgrades and downgrades. “Frequent changes in rating will not help to communicate
the actual situation in a clear manner,” the IAEA said in the
statement. David Lochbaum , the director of the Union of Concerned
Scientists in the U.S., faulted the NRA for only responding to
safety problems rather than working to avoid those lapses. Safety Concerns “A good regulator does not wait for bad things to happen
and then write tickets for the offenses,” Lochbaum said in an
e-mail. “A good regulator monitors activities and ensures that
there are multiple barriers in place each with sufficient
reliability to reduce the chances that all barriers fail to a
very small number.” Another of Tepco’s challenges was highlighted yesterday
when Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida said he would continue to
resist the restart of the company’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear
power plant, which is located in his prefecture. “There remain concerns about whether safe operations are
possible or not,” said Izumida, who also accused the NRA of
adopting too narrow a mission that neglects the safety of local
residents. Izumida’s approval is critical before Tepco can go ahead
with plans for the restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the world’s
largest nuclear power station by generating capacity. The governor of Fukushima, who was also in Tokyo yesterday
to meet with Trade Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, asked that Tepco
be strictly monitored by the government as it pursues the
cleanup. Governor Yuhei Sato also asked for a review of ocean
monitoring done by Tepco and the government. Motegi said during an Aug. 26 visit to the plant that the
government would assume leadership of the utility’s water-management efforts. To contact the reporters on this story:
Jacob Adelman in Tokyo at
[email protected] ;
Yuji Okada in Tokyo at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jason Rogers at
[email protected] | 2013 | japan-nuclear-watchdog-casts-doubt-on-tepco-water-leak-reporting |
Ghana Cocoa Board to Cut Subsidized Pesticides as Revenue Falls | By Ekow Dontoh | 2013-08-28T04:49:24Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/ghana-cocoa-board-to-cut-subsidized-pesticides-as-revenue-falls.html | 8 | 28 | d0f4a491d9cfe775911483b017173d649fb07ef8 | Ghana , the world’s second-biggest
cocoa producer, plans to halve the use of subsidized pesticides
next season to cut costs after a drop in prices for the
chocolate ingredient, the industry regulator said. “We cannot maintain the schedule of free spraying with the
dwindling fortunes of cocoa,” Noah Amenyah, a spokesman for the
regulator, known as Cocobod, said yesterday in a phone interview
from the capital, Accra. “We have to reduce these activities to
meet our current low revenue.” The board, which buys all cocoa produced in Ghana, targets
the purchase of 830,000 metric tons in the season starting in
October, from an estimated 800,000 tons in 2012-13. That
compares with record output of 1 million tons in 2010-11. Cocoa for December delivery fell 1.3 percent to $2,450 a
ton on the ICE Futures by 10:35 a.m. yesterday in New York,
bringing its decline over the past year to 2.8 percent. Prices
may advance as much as 15 percent if drought persists in Ghana
and Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, James
Roemer, a meteorologist at WeatherRisk Institute, said Aug. 26.
West Africa accounts for about 70 percent of global production. The main crop of two yearly harvests in Ghana runs October
to June while the second, consisting mostly of smaller beans, is
supplied from July through September. The board will allocate funding for three applications of
pesticides over cocoa farms in 2013-14 from six last year and it
plans to eliminate the financing altogether in five years,
Amenyah said. Fertilizer subsidies are being maintained. The savings may help the board raise the price it pays
farmers, enabling them to buy inputs, Amenyah said. “We are
waiting for cabinet approval before implementation,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Ekow Dontoh in Accra at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Claudia Carpenter at
[email protected] | 2013 | ghana-cocoa-board-to-cut-subsidized-pesticides-as-revenue-falls |
Dominican Minister Forecasts Weaker Peso This Yr: Diario Libre | By Adam Williams | 2013-08-28T20:08:45Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/dominican-minister-forecasts-weaker-peso-this-yr-diario-libre.html | 8 | 28 | 648666e49f4976ba318b67da69db3f6394abb40e | The Dominican Republic ’s peso will
fall to 43.1 per U.S. dollar by December, Economy Minister
Temistocles Montas said, according to Santo Domingo-based Diario
Libre.
* Dominican Republic peso has fallen 6.25% this yr to 42.845
from 40.325 on Jan. 1.
* Devalued peso this yr was planned for, Montas said
* Gvt will send revision of Barrick Gold Corp contract to
congress before Sept. 7, Montas said
* Dominican Republic and Barrick Gold agreed May 8 to make
changes to lease on Pueblo Viejo mine to give more revenue to
gvt
* Complementary budget will be sent to congress after Barrick
revision submitted, Montas said To contact the reporter on this story:
Adam Williams in San Jose, Costa Rica at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Robert Jameson at
[email protected] | 2013 | dominican-minister-forecasts-weaker-peso-this-yr-diario-libre |
Keystone Seen as No Local Job Starter Along Prairie Route | By Jim Snyder and Jim Efstathiou, Jr. | 2013-08-28T04:00:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/keystone-seen-as-no-local-job-starter-along-prairie-route.html
If the Keystone XL oil pipeline gets built, Rick Balcom doubts he’ll see many construction workers at the bar of his No. 3 saloon in Buffalo, a remote town in the northwest corner of South Dakota . Balcom, 44, knows most of the workers building the Canada- Nebraska pipeline will stay at a catered “man-camp” seven miles away and won’t be hoisting brews under the stuffed mountain lion that adorns his bar. On their days off, they’ll probably travel to places such as Deadwood and Spearfish an hour-and-a-half drive south that offer gambling and other attractions, he said. “I can’t think of anybody who would be hugely disappointed if it didn’t go through,” Balcom said. “It’s kind of a deal right now where we could take it or leave it.” His views reflect the hard-to-measure economic impact of a $5.3 billion project that would result in a surge of hundreds of short-term construction jobs, and be followed by a skeletal staff to tend the buried pipe and associated pumps. It would be among the country’s largest building projects, though one centered in states that already have low unemployment and where competition is fierce for skilled workers. Supplies and materials will have to be purchased, though many of the big-ticket items | 8 | 28 | fcab3c0658d743f8ad349eb2ba27ab26 | 2013 | keystone-seen-as-no-local-job-starter-along-prairie-route |
|
Gold Futures Decline From Three-Month High on Stronger Dollar | By Debarati Roy | 2013-08-28T18:47:48Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/gold-trades-near-highest-since-may-as-syria-tensions-spur-demand.html | 8 | 28 | 905751e460eb4c6a251b0801e82e5812bb9b7ef5 | Gold declined from a three-month
high in New York as a stronger dollar crimped demand for the
precious metal as an alternative investment. The Bloomberg Dollar Index , a gauge against 10 major
currencies, rose as much as 0.5 percent. Gold prices have fallen
15 percent this year as the greenback climbed 4.3 percent.
Earlier, prices rose to the highest since May on mounting
speculation that there will be an American-led attack on Syria ,
boosting the appeal of haven assets. “The dollar strength is working against gold,” Phil Streible, a senior commodity broker at R.J. O’Brien & Associates
in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “The market is
taking a pause after the sharp rally.” Gold futures for December delivery fell 0.1 percent to
settle at $1,418.80 an ounce at 1:38 p.m. on Comex in New York,
after touching $1,434, the highest since May 14. Surging demand for jewelry, coins and bars in Asia helped
prices rally 20 percent from a 34-month low of $1,179.40 reached
on June 28. Bullion is still heading for the first annual drop
in 13 years after some investors lost faith in the metal as a
store of value. The rout spurred at least $26 billion of
writedowns in the mining industry and losses for John Paulson ,
the billionaire hedge-fund manager. Silver futures for December delivery fell 1.1 percent to
$24.439 an ounce, after reaching $25.16, the highest since April
15. Trading was more than double the average for the past 100
days at this time of day, data compiled by Bloomberg Platinum futures for October delivery rose 0.5 percent to
$1,540.10 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange .
Palladium futures for December delivery fell 0.4 percent to
$748.25 an ounce on the Nymex. To contact the reporters on this story:
Claudia Carpenter in London at
[email protected] ;
Debarati Roy in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Steve Stroth at
[email protected] | 2013 | gold-trades-near-highest-since-may-as-syria-tensions-spur-demand |
German Inflation Probably Slowed as Euro Area Recovers | By Jeff Black | 2013-08-28T23:01:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/german-inflation-probably-slowed-as-euro-area-recovers.html | 8 | 28 | ae5fb4bb8d6de290e5db56eb9943116b662b2828 | German inflation probably slowed in
August, signaling price pressures remain contained after
Europe ’s largest economy led the euro area out of its longest-ever recession. Germany ’s consumer price index , calculated using a
harmonized European Union method, rose 1.7 percent from a year
earlier, compared with 1.9 percent in July, according to the
median of 31 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey . Prices
probably climbed 0.1 percent from June, the survey shows. The 17-member euro area, Germany’s biggest trading partner,
expanded 0.3 percent in the three months through June to snap
six quarters of contraction. While Germany grew 0.7 percent,
Italy and Spain remained in recession. Loans to companies and
households in the region fell for a 15th month in July,
extending the longest decline on record. “The European economy is still relatively weak, so there
are certainly no grounds for inflation worries,” said Lothar Hessler, an economist at HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG (TUB) in
Dusseldorf. “The economy could well lose some momentum in the
third quarter, but all in all performance is robust.” German states are due to report their own inflation data
throughout today before the Federal Statistics Office in
Wiesbaden publishes national figures at 2 p.m. Low Rates The Bundesbank forecasts the German economy will grow 0.3
percent this year and predicts average inflation of 1.6 percent,
dropping to 1.5 percent in 2014. Prices for imported goods fell
2.6 percent in July from a year earlier, according to government
data yesterday. Prices for imported energy slid 4.1 percent. The euro-area inflation rate remained at 1.6 percent in
July, a report published by the European Union’s statistics
office showed on Aug. 16. The European Central Bank will present
new growth and inflation forecasts on Sept. 5. In June, it
predicted 2013 inflation at 1.4 percent, falling to 1.3 percent
next year, and said the economy will contract 0.6 percent this
year. ECB President Mario Draghi , reacting to concern that a
removal of monetary stimulus in the U.S. would push up market
interest rates and derail the euro-area’s recovery, pledged in
July to keep borrowing costs at the current level or lower for
“an extended period.” He said the reason for taking what he
called the “unprecedented” step was the ECB’s expectation that
the subdued outlook for inflation will extend into the medium-term amid broad-based weakness in the economy. ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen said on Aug. 27
that even though the central bank has pledged low rates for the
foreseeable future, it’s aware of the risks inherent in keeping
them there for too long. The ECB’s benchmark stands at 0.5
percent, a record low. “Inflation in the euro area will remain moderate for quite
some time,” said Ulrike Rondorf, an economist at Commerzbank AG
in Frankfurt . “That said, the rate of core inflation in Germany
is rising faster than the European average, and interest rates
aren’t likely to rise any time soon. We should be keeping an eye
on that.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeff Black in Frankfurt at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Fergal O’Brien at
[email protected] | 2013 | german-inflation-probably-slowed-as-euro-area-recovers |
Summers Pick Fits Obama’s Preference for Beaten Path | By Ezra Klein | 2013-08-28T22:00:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/summers-pick-fits-obama-s-preference-for-beaten-path.html
At this point, Larry Summers isn’t just the favorite for Federal Reserve chairman. He’s the overwhelming favorite. Unless something truly unexpected shows up in the vetting process (a paid toast at Bashar al-Assad’s birthday party, for example) or the administration comes to believe Senate Democrats will revolt against a Summers nomination, he’s going to get the job. That shouldn’t come as a shock. A close look at the rest of President Barack Obama ’s economic appointments makes clear that the shock would be if he didn’t go with Summers. An early surprise of the Obama administration was how much it looked like the Clinton administration, at least on the economics side. Summers was back. So were Tim Geithner , Peter Orszag, Jason Furman, Gene Sperling, Jack Lew and Mike Froman. “Barack Obama has succeeded where Hillary Clinton failed,” wrote Rich Lowry in the National Review. “She hoped to win a third Clinton term, but it is her vanquisher who is reconstituting the Clinton administration.” Obama’s reliance on Clinton-era econ whizzes was sensible. As a relative newcomer to national politics he didn’t have a network of economic experts of his own to choose from, and given the severity of the economic storm, there wasn’t time for his team to learn on the job. Culling experienced crisis managers from the last Democratic administration was the obvious choice. And even as Obama appointed a number of familiar faces, he brought some new voices to his economic team, too. Christina Romer, the famed economist from the University of California at Berkeley, was tapped to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. Obama’s longtime economic adviser Austan Goolsbee was placed in charge of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Jared Bernstein, a labor economist much loved by liberals, was asked to serve as the top economist to Vice President Joe Biden. Clinton Clique Four years later, any newcomers Obama appointed are gone. The top slots on the economic team are all held by members of the Clinton clique. Sperling leads the National Economic Council. Lew is secretary of the Treasury. Furman is chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Sylvia Matthews Burwell, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration, now heads OMB. A glance at Obama’s second-term foreign policy team makes clear how unusual this is. John Kerry was recruited from the Senate to serve as secretary of state. Former Senator Chuck Hagel was named secretary of defense. Samantha Power | 8 | 28 | 8e2bed7b17a74277ba00047daabb96cb | 2013 | summers-pick-fits-obama-s-preference-for-beaten-pa |
|
Texas Woman Charged in Obama Ricin Letter Set for Trial | By Laurel Brubaker Calkins | 2013-08-28T18:51:40Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/texas-woman-charged-in-obama-ricin-letter-set-for-trial.html | 8 | 28 | f3076f44b8248e673d8fae740d24ffbec20dda0f | The Texas woman accused of mailing
ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg will be held without bail until a bond hearing
on Sept. 11. Her trial is set for Oct. 7. Shannon Guess Richardson, 35, a former actress, pleaded not
guilty today to one charge of threatening the U.S. president
“with bodily harm” and two charges of mailing threatening
communications in federal court in Texarkana, Texas. U.S. Magistrate Judge Caroline Craven found Richardson is
competent to stand trial on the recommendation of a government
doctor who evaluated her in prison, according to Lynn Siebel, a
deputy in Craven’s court. Richardson has been detained since her June 7 arrest on
suspicion she was involved with the tainted letters. “She does not contest the competency determination,
although that doesn’t address the issue of sanity if we decide
to bring it up,” Tonda Curry, Richardson’s lawyer, said in a
telephone interview before the hearing. Richardson originally approached law enforcement officials
in late May with purported information implicating her estranged
husband in a plot to send ricin-laced letters to Obama,
Bloomberg and the head of a gun-control group affiliated with
the mayor, according to a criminal complaint filed against her. Letters Intercepted She later changed her story to admit typing the labels and
mailing the letters under what she claims was coercion by her
husband, according to the complaint. The letters were intercepted before they reached their
targets, and no one was injured by the deadly powder. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation found castor beans, used to make
ricin, and other suspicious materials in the couple’s home in
New Boston, near Texarkana, according to the document. “She’s still not charged with anything related to the
ricin,” Curry said. “She’s charged with mailing threatening
communications, with the words on paper, not the contents of the
letters.” Nathaniel Richardson, her husband, has filed for divorce
and was recently awarded temporary custody of the couple’s son,
born four months prematurely while his mother was incarcerated. The husband has publicly stated that law enforcement has
cleared him of suspicion in the ricin-letter plot, the lawyer
said. “But the government has told me that’s in no way true,”
Curry said. Katie Chaumont, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Dallas-based
division, said policy prevented her from commenting on an
investigation in progress. Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News
parent Bloomberg LP. The case is U.S. v. Richardson, 5:13-cr-00013, U.S.
District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Texarkana). To contact the reporter on this story:
Laurel Brubaker Calkins in Houston
at [email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Hytha at [email protected] . | 2013 | exas-woman-charged-in-obama-ricin-letter-set-for-tria |
The High Price of Immigration | By Paul Collier | 2013-08-28T22:00:01Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/the-high-price-of-immigration.html
Why are migrants not only the
winners but also the big losers from migration? The answer is that those who have already migrated lose, at
least in economic terms, through the subsequent migration of
others. Migrants lose because they compete with one another. Migrants aren’t in close competition with indigenous
workers. The advantage the indigenous have may be that they have
better command of the language or that their greater tacit
knowledge of social conventions makes them more productive. Or it may be because employers discriminate against
immigrant workers. Whatever the explanation, the upshot is that
immigrants form a distinct category of worker. Additional
immigrants therefore drive down the earnings of existing
immigrants. This is the only clearly established substantial
effect of immigration on wages. The effects of immigration on the wages of indigenous
workers vary between very small losses and modest gains. If
immigration policy were to be set by its effects upon wages, the
only interest group to campaign for tighter restrictions should
be immigrants. The individual behavior of immigrants evidently belies this
interest: Immigrants typically devote considerable effort to
trying to get visas for their relatives. But these two interests
aren’t inconsistent. An immigrant who enables a relative to join her receives
benefits such as companionship. The increased competition in the
job market generated by the extra migrant is suffered by other
immigrants. In effect, a tightening of immigration restrictions
would be a public good for the existing immigrant community as a
whole. Heightened Intolerance There may be further social reasons that the existing stock
of immigrants has an interest in tighter restrictions. The size
of the immigrant stock also affects attitudes of the indigenous
population. Contrary to the hope that exposure increases
tolerance, the opposite appears to happen. Heightened intolerance is a public bad suffered by
immigrants as a whole, and is thus inadvertently generated by
the individually maximizing migration decisions of each
successive migrant. Hence, the paradox of migration. Individual
migrants succeed in capturing the huge productivity gains from
migration. But migrants collectively have an interest in
precisely what individually is most detrimental: entry barriers. By capturing the lion’s share of the large productivity
gain from migration, migrants repay the initial investment of
the journey. But are there any continuing costs of being an
immigrant in a culturally alien environment? We can use
happiness as an integrating measure of economic gains and social
costs. Research finds that above a modest income threshold,
increases don’t generate sustained increases in happiness,
though they do have transient effects. If you win the lottery,
you feel happier. But the warm glow fades after a few months. If
we apply this to migration, for the typical migrant from a low-income country to a high-income one, the income gain is
overkill. Income increases from well below the threshold to well
above it. According to the economics of happiness, the first few
thousand dollars would increase happiness, but the remainder
would be slack. Above the threshold, by far the most powerful
determinants of happiness appear to be social | 8 | 28 | 61505efb8b854bab85f5dbd3448c9717 | it’s more than $27,000. So the winners of the migration lottery
also metaphorically won a financial lottery. This showed up in
the data: Four years after migrating, the lottery winners had
increased their incomes by almost 400 percent. But the study carefully measured the effects both on
happiness and on the ladder of life. One year after migrating,
there were no significant effects on either. After four years,
there were still no effects on the ladder of life, but people
had become significantly less happy, by 0.8 points on a five-point scale. Cultural Dislocation The other study tracks migrants from villages to cities
within India . It, too, investigates how well-being changed
relative to an almost identical group of people who had stayed
behind. Because its context is migration within India, this
research is far from an ideal guide to international migration,
where both the income change and the cultural change are much
larger. It should, however, provide some indication of what
effects are to be expected. As with migration from Tonga to New Zealand, rural-to-urban
migrants in India substantially increased their income.
Consumption rose by an average of about 22 percent, very much
less than the gain from international migration but enough to
increase well-being as measured by the ladder of life. Both
types of migration incur a degree of social dislocation, but the
migrant moving from a village to a city within India doesn’t
suffer the dislocation of an alien culture. As with the Tongan study, this one finds that migrants
place themselves no higher on the ladder of life than their
siblings who stayed behind. Their higher income comes at the
price of cultural dislocation, manifested by strong nostalgia
for their former village life. An implication is that their
migration incurs a substantial hidden cost that offsets the
readily apparent gain in income. A tentative inference of these studies is that migrants
incur substantial psychological costs that may be broadly
commensurate with their large economic gains. The huge
productivity gains from migration appear not to translate into
additional well-being. Migration doesn’t deliver the anticipated
free lunch. Psychological Costs Nonetheless, migration might eventually raise well-being. In the case of rural-to-urban migration within the same
country, a reasonable presumption is that the children of
migrants grow up without the nostalgia of their parents: For
them, the city is home. This second generation and subsequent
ones have higher incomes than they would have had their parents
remained in the village. And, because they themselves don’t
suffer offsetting psychological costs, they are also happier. Rural-to-urban migration thus conforms to the 19th-century
narrative that migrants move for the benefit of their children
rather than themselves. The psychological costs may be enormous,
wiping out the income gains that accrue to migrants, but they
are unavoidable costs of progress and have the status of
investments. But for international migration from poor to rich
countries, both the income gain and the cultural dislocation are
an order of magnitude greater. Whether the psychological costs
last a single generation or persist depends upon whether
subsequent generations continue to feel dislocated. Whereas the
costs of rural-to-urban migration are highly unlikely to persist
beyond the first generation, the descendants of international
migrants might continue to feel alien. In the worst-case
scenario, continuing psychological costs would offset the gains
for several generations. Migration wouldn’t be an investment; it
would be a mistake. (Paul Collier, a professor of economics and public policy
at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of
Oxford, is the author of “The Plundered Planet,” “Wars, Guns,
and Votes” and “The Bottom Billion.” This is the second in a
series of three excerpts from his new book, “ Exodus: How
Migration Is Changing Our World ,” published by Oxford
University Press . Read Part 1 and Part 3 .) To contact the writer of this article:
Paul Collier at [email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this article:
Max Berley at [email protected] . | 2013 | e-high-price-of-immigration |
Spot Power Gains on Northeast Grids as Demand Tops Forecast | By Naureen S. Malik | 2013-08-28T16:42:14Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/spot-power-gains-on-northeast-grids-as-demand-tops-forecast.html | 8 | 28 | ede96129758d667068b4e0bb45c1a58c037f4e4b | Spot wholesale electricity from New
York to Maine rose as demand topped grid operators’ forecasts. Power consumption in Manhattan and its four neighboring
boroughs was 9,166 megawatts at 11:30 a.m., 4.6 percent higher
than the day-ahead outlook for the hour. New England use was 2.2
percent higher than forecast at 20,117 megawatts. Temperatures from the East Coast into the Midwest will be
above normal over the next week, WSI Corp. in Andover,
Massachusetts , said. The high in Manhattan’s Central Park may
reach 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius), 5 above normal,
according to AccuWeather Inc. in State College , Pennsylvania . Spot electricity for New York rose $6.13, or 13 percent, to
$52.49 a megawatt-hour during the hour ended at noon from the
same time yesterday, grid data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Boston power gained $15.41, or 33 percent, to $62.73. New York on-peak power flipped to a premium versus Boston
of $4.79 from a discount of $14.43 yesterday. Prices at PJM Interconnection LLC’s Western hub, which
includes deliveries to Washington, slipped 6 cents to $37.47 a
megawatt-hour. Demand on the 13-state grid was 119,040 megawatts
at 11:30 a.m., below the day-ahead outlook of 119,399. PPL Corp.’s Susquehanna 1 nuclear reactor near Allentown,
Pennsylvania, is returning to full power after completing
repairs, Joseph Scopelliti, a spokesman for the Co., said in an
e-mail. Production was cut to 65 percent yesterday after the
unit experienced the loss of one of three pumps that feed water
to the reactor, he said. The reactor has a summer capacity of 1,260 megawatts,
Energy Information Administration data show. To contact the reporter on this story:
Naureen S. Malik in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at
[email protected] | 2013 | spot-power-gains-on-northeast-grids-as-demand-tops-forecas |
APR Energy Surge in Contract Wins Offset Lower First-Half Profit | By Eshe Nelson | 2013-08-28T10:35:40Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/apr-energy-surge-in-contract-wins-offset-lower-first-half-profit.html | 8 | 28 | 22d791f68a5a6e4fe5aa3836c8d8da166a02b7fb | APR Energy Plc (APR) , a U.K. supplier of
temporary power generators, won a 72 percent increase in new
contracts in the first half of the year, easing the pain of
lower revenue and profit. The company signed 593MW of new deals in the six months
through June, more than in the whole of 2012, with an additional
111MW in extensions, London-based APR said in a statement today.
The wins included a 200MW addition to a contract in Libya,
bringing total generation capacity in the North African country
to 450MW. Uruguay became the company’s second-largest market
after two 100MW sites went into operation. “This was a transformative period for the company,” Chief
Executive Officer John Campion said in a phone interview today.
“ Libya and Uruguay came online. We put 450MW into Libya in
approximately 90 days. 450MW would be bigger than Battersea
power station was at a time.” APR first-half revenue fell 44 percent to $87.2 million
after the end of a Japanese contract that accounted for 40
percent of 2012 sales, the company said. Operating profit was
more than ten times lower at $400,000. Full-year sales will
probably be $321 million, according to the median estimate of
nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. “While the headline interim results do not look very
pretty, the results in the second half should be materially
better and we are not likely to change our full-year underlying
forecasts,” John Lawson, an analyst at Investec, wrote in a
note to clients. Lawson has a hold recommendation on the stock
with a target price of 900 pence, which is under review. Infrastructure Projects APR shares advanced as much as 6.1 percent, the biggest
intraday gain since July 4, and traded 5.4 percent higher at
1023 pence at 11:30 a.m. in London . The stock has gained 26
percent this year, valuing the company at 799 million pounds
($1.2 billion). APR announced 147MW in new contracts today for power
projects in Mozambique, Indonesia and Senegal . The company is
focused on emerging markets that need electricity to support
long-term infrastructure projects, Campion said. The financial
impact of these awards is not expected to be felt until 2014,
the company said in a statement. To contact the reporter on this story:
Eshe Nelson in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Thiel at
[email protected] | 2013 | apr-energy-surge-in-contract-wins-offset-lower-first-half-profi |
England Players Apologize for ‘Inappropriate’ Behavior at Oval | By Dan Baynes | 2013-08-28T07:51:22Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/england-players-apologize-for-inappropriate-behavior-at-oval.html | 8 | 28 | 62ddff25c741c1643e2ed0e4f973d20ac3f72064 | England ’s cricket team apologized
for any offense caused during its Ashes victory celebrations
following reports that some players urinated on the pitch at the
Oval in London . Players relieved themseleves on the pitch in view of venue
staff and journalists after England sealed a 3-0 series win
against Australia on Aug. 25, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper
reported two days ago. England spin bowler Graeme Swann wrote in
yesterday’s Sun newspaper that “the call of nature might have
come once or twice but it was nothing untoward.” In a statement on the England and Wales Cricket Board’s
website today, the team said that it hadn’t intended to
disrespect ground operator Surrey County Cricket Club, the Oval
or “anyone else involved in the game we love.” “We got carried away amongst the euphoria of winning such
a prestigious series and accept that some of our behavior was
inappropriate,” the team said in the statement. “If that has
caused any offence to anyone, we apologize for that and want to
reassure people that it was a simple error of judgment more than
anything else.” To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Baynes at
[email protected] | 2013 | england-players-apologize-for-inappropriate-behavior-at-ova |
Barclays’s Australian Co-Head of Investment Banking Janes Quits | By Narayanan Somasundaram | 2013-08-28T07:19:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/barclays-s-australian-co-head-of-investment-banking-janes-quits.html | 8 | 28 | 653da6e307edb97e505aefd9761299a4910ac55c | Barclays Plc (BARC) said Daniel Janes, its
Australian co-head of investment banking, resigned and Tim Lindley has taken over as head of the unit. Lindley jointly led the investment banking business in
Australia with Janes, Clare Williams, a Hong Kong-based
spokeswoman for the bank, said without giving a reason for
Janes’s departure. Janes, 39, led Barclays’s mergers and
acquisitions business in the country since joining the London-based bank in November 2009, she said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Narayanan Somasundaram in Sydney at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Chitra Somayaji at
[email protected] | 2013 | barclays-s-australian-co-head-of-investment-banking-janes-quits |
World’s Fastest Train Resumes Trials as Japan Plans Maglev Line | By Chris Cooper and Kiyotaka Matsuda | 2013-08-29T06:07:52Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/world-s-fastest-train-to-resume-trials-as-japan-plans-new-line.html | 8 | 28 | 8754c5d977234e1faca0f96d5adf50e9 | Japan resumed trial runs for the world’s fastest magnetic-levitation train that will complement the Shinkansen bullet-train network when ready in 2027. Central Japan Railway Co. plans to begin work on the 5.1 trillion yen ($52 billion) maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya as early as April. Trials resumed today after the company spent five years building a 24-kilometer extension of a test track. The trains can run at speeds of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles) per hour. The maglevs will whisk passengers to Nagoya , a city of 2.3 million people, from Tokyo in as little as 40 minutes for the 286-kilometer journey, from as short as 95 minutes now, according to JR Central. Faced with the challenge of tunneling under Tokyo’s skyscrapers and the Japanese Alps, the project is unlikely to be completed on time even as Japan’s population is projected to shrink, eroding travel demand . “I think it’s going to be finished very, very late,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo, which manages about $3 billion in assets. “If the population projections are correct, then the use of the bullet train will go down.” Japan’s population may fall to as little as 117 million by 2027 from 127 million now, according to projections by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. By 2060, the overall population may drop to 80 million. Digging Tunnels Maglevs use magnetic power to propel trains that float above the ground, traveling at almost double the 270 kmh of current bullet trains between the two cities. To make the line straight enough for that speed, the company has to dig 248 kilometers of tunnels, or almost five times the length of Europe ’s 50-kilometer Channel Tunnel . “We’re not using radically new technology for the tunnels,” said Teruyoshi Nagashima, a Tokyo-based spokesman for JR Central . “We’ll start work on it when we get permission,” he said, declining to say exactly when the building work would start. Concerns about high construction costs and uncertain demand have fueled resistance to plans for high-speed rail in countries including the U.S. and the U.K. California is struggling to lay tracks for an $86 billion high-speed line after Congress cut off 2012 funds for such projects. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has also been working to settle lawsuits challenging the project. London to Birmingham The U.K. government is facing resistance to plans for a high-speed link between London and Birmingham, scheduled to open in 2026 before being extended to Manchester and Leeds. The U.K. Institute of Directors has called on the government to abandon the plans, arguing that its 50 billion-pound ($78 billion) price tag is too steep. Unlike those projects, JR Central’s maglev line won’t depend on government financing. The company says it will use cash flow , the highest of any railway operator in the world, along with loans and bonds to fund the project. JR Central had free cash flow , or money from operations minus capital spending , of $2.95 billion in the fiscal year ended March. That compares with $2.42 billion at Union Pacific Corp. (UNP) , the largest U.S. railroad by sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Japanese company, whose bullet trains carried more passengers last year than any airline in the world, predicts net income will rise 11 percent to 222 billion yen this fiscal year. It has made a profit every year since it was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1997. ‘Cash Cow’ “JR Central’s bullet train is a cash cow,” said Shinichi Yamazaki, an analyst at Okasan Securities Group Inc. “They have access to enough money, including loans, to pay for the project. They could even build it faster, but looking at their finances, it’s better to aim for 2027.” JR Central will issue 5-year, 10-year and 20-year bonds in equal amounts to help finance the project, according to the company. The rail operator is rated Aa3 (9022) by Moody’s Investors Service, the same as the Japanese government. The company had 2.9 trillion yen in interest-bearing debt at the end of March and has said it plans to ensure total debt doesn’t exceed 5 trillion yen. Its debt peaked at 5.5 trillion yen in fiscal 1991. JR Central fell 0.7 percent to 11,470 yen as the close of trade in Tokyo. The shares have climbed 64 percent this year, compared with a 29 percent gain by Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. Shanghai Maglev Worldwide, two maglev lines are already operating. In Shanghai , a train built with technology developed by Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp AG (TKA) whisks passengers along at 431 kmh from Pudong International Airport to the outskirts of the city’s financial district. A low-speed version called Linimo, with a top speed of 100 kmh , started operations on an 8.9 km track in Nagoya in 2005. The maglev that resumed trial runs today holds a world record for speed at 581 kmh. JR Central’s chairman and president, Japan’s transport minister and local mayors were among officials riding the train, which reached 505 kmh. “Compared with the bullet train, there was a slightly noticeable feeling of speed,” Akihiro Ohta, the transport minister, told reporters after riding the maglev today. “At times, there was the same kind of feeling in my ears as there is when in a plane or elevator, when it goes up quickly.” By fine-tuning the technology and accumulating experience, Japan can build trust in the train, Ohta said. Tokyo’s Growth The new line may benefit from projections showing that even as Japan’s total population declines, Tokyo’s will continue to grow as more people move to the capital. The number of people living in Tokyo prefecture is predicted to increase to 13.4 million by 2020 from 13.2 million in 2010. The greater Tokyo region’s population exceeds 35 million, making it the world’s largest metropolis. With a planned extension from Nagoya to Osaka by 2045, the maglev line would put 64 million people within commuting distance of each other, according to the train operator. JR Central predicts a maglev service will help persuade people to fly less and reduce reliance on highways. Fares between Tokyo and Nagoya will be about 700 yen more than the current bullet train, the company has said. “There may not be a lot of new passengers to Nagoya, but when it’s extended to Osaka there could be a significant business demand,” said Ryota Himeno , an analyst at Barclays Securities Japan Ltd. “Tokyo is becoming more expensive and crowded, and so companies might move some operations to Osaka once it opens. It all depends on the frequency and capacity of the maglev trains.” To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at [email protected] ; Kiyotaka Matsuda in Tokyo at [email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at [email protected] | 2013 | world-s-fastest-train-to-resume-trials-as-japan-plans-new-line |
Egypt May Get More Aid From Persian Gulf, Debt Official Says | By Ahmed A. Namatalla | 2013-08-28T12:08:46Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/egypt-may-get-more-aid-from-persian-gulf-debt-official-says.html | 8 | 28 | 345a4e1c7844d373d31f1d9da8090bb907ec8b4a | Egypt may receive more aid from
Persian Gulf countries which have already pledged billions of
dollars to the North African nation since July, a senior
official from the Finance Ministry said. “We’re seeing signs of further financial support from Gulf
countries in the near future,” Samy Khallaf, head of debt
management at the ministry, said in a phone interview today from
Cairo. The expectation is for aid that is on top of what has
already been committed, he added. Egypt, where political turmoil has prompted the military to
seize power twice in the last three years, got $5 billion in
July out of the $12 billion promised by Saudi Arabia, United
Arab Emirates and Kuwait . The funds helped replenish the
country’s foreign-exchange reserves to $18.9 billion, the
highest level in 20 months, and strengthen the Egyptian pound,
which has depreciated 11 percent since December. The Finance Ministry will issue in September local-currency
notes with a maturity of 18 months, after canceling similar-maturity debt sales in the government’s fiscal first quarter
which started in July. The issuance is part of its plan to raise
a record 200 billion Egyptian pounds ($29 billion) in the three-month period, according to the ministry. The sale of notes, which are mainly bought by local banks,
is the primary source for funding a budget deficit that swelled
to about 14 percent in the 12 months to June, from 10.8 percent
a year earlier. Khallaf, who had resigned in May, resumed his position Aug.
1, without elaborating on the reasons behind his decision. To contact the reporter on this story:
Ahmed A. Namatalla in Cairo at
[email protected] | 2013 | egypt-may-get-more-aid-from-persian-gulf-debt-official-says |
Sanepar Shareholder Domino Loses Veto Right in New Holders Pact | By Helder Marinho | 2013-08-28T13:07:30Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/sanepar-shareholder-domino-loses-veto-right-in-new-holders-pact.html | 8 | 28 | 1e9cdfceb4fbcdb938239c48a2df2e995bbe5e3f | Cia. de Saneamento do Parana, a
water company controlled by the Brazilian state of Parana, said
the state government and Domino Holdings SA, which holds 39.71
percent stake in the company, signed a new shareholders
agreement yesterday. The new agreement ends court disputes between Parana and
Domino, allowing Sanepar to issue 781.1 million reais of shares,
Sanepar said in a regulatory filing. It also provides full
control of the company to Parana, removing veto rights that
Domino had in the previous agreement. To contact the reporter on this story:
Helder Marinho in Sao Paulo at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Katerina Petroff at
[email protected] | 2013 | sanepar-shareholder-domino-loses-veto-right-in-new-holders-pac |
Candover Increases on ‘Encouraging Signs’ of Value Recovery | By Kiel Porter | 2013-08-28T15:39:50Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/candover-jumps-after-seeing-signs-of-recovery-in-value-.html | 8 | 28 | fb7e321999bc936fc8fe2af74bd81368281cc3d0 | Candover Investments Plc (CDI) rose in
London trading after saying it sees “encouraging signs” of a
recovery in value of some of its holdings in the first half. The firm wrote up its holding in Expro International by
13.9 million pounds ($22 million), helping to increase the value
of its portfolio by 8 percent, London-based Candover said in a
statement today. It wrote down the value of its holding in
Stork, which provides inspection, assessment and repair services
to the energy industry , by 12 million pounds. “There are some encouraging signs of a recovery in value
within parts of the portfolio,” Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Fallen said. “Returning cash to shareholders as soon as
practicable remains our overriding objective.” The shares climbed 2.8 percent to 406 pence. To contact the reporter on this story:
Kiel Porter in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Edward Evans at
[email protected] | 2013 | candover-jumps-after-seeing-signs-of-recovery-in-value- |
Kickstarter Lures Startups Seeking Guinea Pigs Over Cash | By Callie Bost and Madeline McMahon | 2013-08-28T04:01:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/kickstarter-lures-startups-seeking-guinea-pigs-over-cash.html
Most entrepreneurs go to Kickstarter Inc. seeking money to turn an idea into a viable product. Already flush with cash, Alex Gizis looked to the crowdfunding site in search of enthusiastic testers. Gizis’s technology startup, Connectify Inc., raised capital in 2011 from a strategic investor to develop technology that improves wireless-Web connections. Gizis then needed to figure out whether anyone would buy a product that he had based on the breakthrough. That’s where crowdfunding came in. “We said, ‘If we can get $50,000 based on videos and nobody even trying the software, we’ll know there is a market of untapped demand,’” Gizis said. Kickstarter and peers such as Indiegogo Inc. are breaking new ground. For a half decade, these crowdfunding sites have helped aspiring filmmakers, comic-book creators and Web entrepreneurs in need of a few thousand bucks get an inaugural product rolling. Now, cash-rich, venture-backed startups are using the sites to find users and reviewers of their technology | 8 | 28 | a8e5dc904a994fd08fbca3dc301f002d | 2013 | kickstarter-lures-startups-seeking-guinea-pigs-over-cas |
|
Murray Cruises to First-Round U.S. Open Win After Three-Day Wait | By Erik Matuszewski and Mason Levinson | 2013-08-29T05:55:26Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/li-na-into-u-s-open-tennis-third-round-as-rain-threatens-play.html | 8 | 28 | ac7887e881c148bf98ba8c6f2978215f | Andy Murray waited three days to
open defense of his title at the U.S. Open tennis championship.
He didn’t let a few extra hours’ delay affect his performance. Murray moved into the second round with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-3
victory against Michael Llodra of France last night at the
National Tennis Center in New York, where his opener started at
almost 10 p.m. local time because of rain delays. Nobody at the
season’s final Grand Slam tournament waited longer to play a
first-round match than Murray and Llodra. “Playing at that time for your first round is not ideal,”
Murray said in a news conference. “You just want to get on the
court and play. Whether it’s Arthur Ashe Stadium or court 15, it
doesn’t really matter.” Two-time champion Venus Williams lost in the second round
at the U.S. Open for the third straight year, while younger
sister and defending champion Serena Williams had her match
pushed back to today because of rain showers that canceled four
afternoon women’s singles matches yesterday. Even with Serena Williams’s match being postponed, Murray’s
wait was extended because 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro
needed four hours and 13 minutes to fight past Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 7-6 (9-7) at Arthur Ashe
Stadium. Murray finally took the court in the main stadium at 9:55
p.m., the third-latest start for a U.S. Open night session,
according to the U.S. Tennis Association. The latest for the
tournament took place in 2009, when James Blake and Tommy Robredo opened night play on Ashe at 10:25 p.m. Blake’s Exit Blake, 33, had his tennis career come to an end early this
morning with a five-set loss to Ivo Karlovic of Croatia in which
he blew a two-set lead. Karlovic won the fifth-set tiebreaker
7-2 against Blake, who said earlier this week that he’d be
retiring after the U.S. Open. After the match, Blake thanked those fans who stayed until
after midnight in Louis Armstrong Stadium and cheered him on
with chants of “Let’s go, James!” “It’s hitting me now that I’ll never have this again in my
life,” Blake said in an on-court interview. “Everything I did,
every bit of hard work was worth it. I have had so many highs
and lows in front of you, it’ll never be forgotten.” Second-seeded Rafael Nadal of Spain, No. 4 David Ferrer of
Spain and No. 7 Roger Federer of Switzerland are scheduled to
play second-round matches today. In addition to Serena Williams,
who meets Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan in the second round
this afternoon in Ashe, other seeded women in action today
include No. 4 Sara Errani of Italy, No. 6 Caroline Wozniacki of
Denmark and No. 9 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia . Williams Ousted Venus Williams lost 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5) to Zheng Jie of
China in a match that took three hours and two minutes, tied for
the fifth-longest women’s match at the U.S. Open since records
started being kept in 1970. Tied at 5-5 in the final-set
tiebreaker, Williams hit a shot into the net and then sent a
backhand wide to end it. “Unfortunately I didn’t play consistently enough,”
Williams said. “I just dug myself into so many holes the whole
match. I just fought as hard as I could to get out of them, but
sometimes it wasn’t enough.” The 56th-ranked Zheng advances to face No. 18 seed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, who beat American qualifier Coco
Vandeweghe 6-3, 6-4. Venus Williams wasn’t seeded this year
after falling to No. 60 in the world rankings. Fifteenth-seeded Sloane Stephens of the U.S. won the final
Day 3 match, rolling to a 6-1, 6-1 rout of Urszula Radwanska of
Poland in 58 minutes after starting at 11:53 p.m. It was the
second-latest for a U.S. Open match, behind only a midnight
start time for a 1987 first-round meeting between Gabriela
Sabatini and Beverly Bowes, according to the USTA. Li Advances Li Na played the first match in Arthur Ashe Stadium
yesterday before the first rain delay, beating Sofia Arvidsson
of Sweden 6-2, 6-2. Li, 31, is the 2011 French Open winner who’s
seeded fifth in the women’s draw. Agnieszka Radwanska, the No. 3 seed from Poland, beat
Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor of Spain 6-0, 7-5 and will face Russia ’s
No. 32-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round.
Pavlyuchenkova beat Australian wild-card entrant Ashleigh Barty
6-4, 6-0. Men’s No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland was a
straight-set winner against Radek Stepanek of the Czech
Republic, while No. 16 Fabio Fognini of Italy and No. 24 Benoit
Paire of France both lost their opening matches. Fognini was
beaten by Rajeev Ram of the U.S. 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, while Paire lost
to Russia’s Alex Bogomolov Jr. 7-5 in a fifth-set tiebreaker. Kevin Anderson, the men’s No. 17 seed from South Africa,
moved into the second round with a four-set win against Daniel
Brands of Germany , while No. 21 Mikhail Youzhny of Russia was a
straight-set winner against Nicolas Mahut of France. To contact the reporters on this story:
Erik Matuszewski in New York at
[email protected] ;
Mason Levinson in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Sillup at
[email protected] | 2013 | i-na-into-u-s-open-tennis-third-round-as-rain-threatens-play |
Brazilian Funds: Daily News Update | By | 2013-08-28T19:52:09Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/brazilian-funds-daily-news-update.html | 8 | 28 | d037ce0d00ff09559ea8177ee51866a0c1d11c49 | GSFI Multimercado Credito Privado was created. The inception Date is 8/12/2013.
{CACX 80882300 <GO>} | 2013 | brazilian-funds-daily-news-update |
Sri Lanka’s July Tourist Arrivals: By Country | By Manish Modi | 2013-08-28T10:32:21Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/sri-lanka-s-july-tourist-arrivals-by-country-table-.html | 8 | 28 | 80a79b95464463d50ce2b0267c51c4a857245470 | Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka rose 9.5 percent
in July over a year ago to a total of 98,944 persons. The following is a table showing July tourist arrivals from
the 15 largest visitor-generating markets by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.
Source: Sri Lanka Tourist Board To contact the reporter on this story:
Manish Modi in New Delhi at [email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Marco Babic at [email protected] . | 2013 | sri-lanka-s-july-tourist-arrivals-by-country-table- |
Everton Advances in League Cup; Manchester Utd. Faces Liverpool | By Bob Bensch | 2013-08-28T23:33:47Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/everton-advances-in-league-cup-manchester-utd-faces-liverpool.html | 8 | 28 | d3a37d2bb9598597f0f713a0a5638c8089b3d703 | Everton rallied to beat Stevenage
2-1 in extra-time and join four other Premier League clubs in
advancing to the third round of English soccer’s League Cup. Marouane Fellaini’s goal in the 116th minute last night
gave Everton the home win over Stevenage, which plays in third-tier League One. Luke Freeman put the visiting team in front in
the 36th minute and Gerard Deulofeu tied the score for Everton
just before halftime. Newcastle United and Cardiff City won away games against
League Two clubs, while Stoke City and Aston Villa beat League
One teams to advance in England’s second-tier cup competition. The draw for the third round, where the seven Premier
League teams involved in European play enter the competition,
also was held last night with Manchester United hosting
Liverpool among the matchups. Swansea will open the defense of its League Cup title at
Birmingham, while a repeat of last season’s F.A. Cup final was
also drawn with champion Wigan going to Manchester City. The third-round matches are scheduled to be played the week
commencing Sept. 23. Brothers Shola and Sammy Ameobi scored last night as
Newcastle won 2-0 at Morecambe, while Nicky Maynard and Rudy
Gestede got second-half goals as Cardiff beat League Two
Accrington Stanley by the same score. Kenwyne Jones scored a hat trick to give Stoke a 3-1 home
win against Walsall, and goals from Andreas Weimann, Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph lifted Aston Villa past Rotherham 3-0. In a pair of matchups between teams from the second-tier
Championship, Nottingham Forest defeated Millwall 2-1 on Jamaal
Lascelles’s extra-time goal and Watford beat Bournemouth 2-0.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Bob Bensch in London at
[email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Christopher Elser at [email protected] . | 2013 | everton-advances-in-league-cup-manchester-utd-faces-liverpoo |
Parlez-Vous Venture Capital? French Fund Hunts for Next Google, Apple | By Marie Mawad | 2013-08-29T10:18:58Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/parlez-vous-venture-capital-french-fund-hunts-for-next-google-apple.html
Could the next Google, Apple or Facebook come from Europe? French entrepreneurs and investors such as Henri de Bodinat are wondering just that and looking for how to make sure promising ventures don't wither away for lack of funding. The 65-year-old former advertising, video-games and music executive started Time Equity Partners in 2009, a fund managing 50 million euros ($67 million) of investments. He's since backed Internet companies such as iConcerts, which sells virtual tickets to concerts streamed over the Web, and Oodrive, which makes cloud-based software for businesses. Bodinat is talking with investors to raise another 100 million euros to help startups survive puberty | 8 | 28 | 43996af7988dca446845da342c2ed89359eb13a5 | 2013 | parlez-vous-venture-capital-french-fund-hunts-for-next-google-apple |
|
Migros Slumps to 14-Month Low on Weaker Lira: Istanbul Mover | By Taylan Bilgic | 2013-08-28T14:52:47Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/migros-slumps-to-14-month-low-on-weaker-lira-istanbul-mover.html | 8 | 28 | 8487bdaf591f68e4260c277706159608ebdf9013 | Migros Ticaret AS (MGROS) tumbled to the
lowest level in 14 months as the lira weakened to a record low,
boosting speculation the Turkish grocery operator will report
more losses. The shares slid 4.2 percent to 15.95 liras at the close in
Istanbul, the lowest level since June 2012. The number of shares
traded was 161 percent of the stock’s three-month daily average,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Borsa Istanbul
National 100 (XU100) index retreated 0.1 percent. Turkey ’s lira depreciated 0.8 percent to 2.7464 per euro at
5:45 p.m., extending its year-to-date decline to 15 percent, the
third-worst among emerging-market currencies monitored by
Bloomberg. Migros foreign-exchange losses surged to 154.6
million liras ($75 million) in the three months through June,
from 17.3 million liras a year earlier, company filings showed
Aug. 22. “A depreciating lira may continue to hurt” the company’s
financial results, Burak Isyar, an analyst at Burgan Securities
in Istanbul, said in a phone interview today. “Investors may be
anticipating a repeat of what happened in the second quarter.” Istanbul-based Migros reported a loss of 160.8 million
liras in the second quarter, compared with a profit of 72.9
million liras a year ago. Migros, owned by private-equity firm BC Partners Ltd.,
slumped 26 percent this year, compared with the 16 percent drop
in the benchmark equity index. Nineteen analysts recommend
buying the shares, while four say hold and three sell, according
to data compiled by Bloomberg. To contact the reporter on this story:
Taylan Bilgic in Istanbul at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Claudia Maedler at
[email protected] | 2013 | igros-slumps-to-14-month-low-on-weaker-lira-istanbul-mover |
Alibaba Seeking Control Leaves HK Bourse in IPO Quandary | By Lulu Yilun Chen, Jonathan Browning and Lee Spears | 2013-08-28T10:26:35Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/hong-kong-faces-vexing-choice-with-alibaba-ipo-pitch.html | 8 | 28 | e078fe8ee1e14a5fb4cb303595829810 | Hong Kong has a choice: grant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. a shareholder structure that mirrors the world’s largest Internet companies, or stick to rules meant to protect ordinary investors and risk losing the largest initial public offering since Facebook Inc. China ’s biggest e-commerce company asked Hong Kong’s stock exchange to allow a partnership of more than 20 executives and shareholders to nominate a majority of board members, a person with knowledge of the matter said last week. That would enable founder Jack Ma, who owns just a 7.4 percent stake, and his management team to maintain control after an IPO. Alibaba’s proposal would be a way around the Hong Kong exchange’s ban on IPOs with different classes of shares, a structure frequently used by U.S. technology companies including Facebook and Google Inc. (GOOG) Granting the request leaves the bourse open to criticism that it’s putting the company’s interests ahead of shareholders, the Asian Corporate Governance Association said. “We are pretty certain that it won’t fly,” said Jamie Allen, the Hong Kong-based ACGA’s secretary general, in an interview. “The right to nominate directors is a basic right, so we don’t believe that the exchange will accept this.” An IPO by Alibaba would be a coup for Hong Kong, home to only one other major Internet company: Tencent Holdings Ltd. (700) , the operator of the WeChat service. Biggest IPO Hangzhou-based Alibaba, which connects businesses and consumers to each other across China, has a value of about $87 billion, according to the average of 11 analyst estimates released last month. It could raise about HK$100 billion ($12.9 billion) in an IPO, Ernst & Young LLP said in June. That would be the world’s biggest since Facebook raised $16 billion in May of last year, and the city’s largest since AIA Group Ltd.’s $20 billion offering in October 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Under Alibaba’s proposal, all shareholders would still vote on the company’s nominees with partners being able to nominate an alternate board member if shareholders reject a candidate, the person familiar with Alibaba’s thinking said. No other investor rights would be changed, the person said. Deals involving company executives, major expenses and compensation would be voted on by all shareholders, according to the person. The proposal will have to be approved by the Hong Kong stock exchange’s listing committee. The Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, or SFC, has the power to object to a listing application on “certain grounds,” according to a 2011 report by the regulator. ‘Exceptional Circumstances’ Under Hong Kong’s listing rules , new applicants must not include shares whose voting power doesn’t bear a “reasonable relationship” to the equity interest. Exemptions can be granted for stock that was already listed with a dual class and “exceptional circumstances agreed with the exchange.” Florence Shih, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Alibaba, and officials at Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. and the SFC declined to comment. “Alibaba seems to see this process as negotiation with the exchange rather than the listing process being fairly set in stone,” said Allen of the ACGA. “There is a degree of negotiation but usually on more peripheral things, not on something quite as fundamental as the right of shareholders to nominate directors.” Interests Aligned While Alibaba’s proposal may draw criticism, the company’s partnership itself has benefits, including aligning management interests with those of the company, said Richard Ji, a former Morgan Stanley technology analyst now raising his own fund to focus on Internet companies. “The partnership structure also allows the heads of different parts of the group to care about each other’s business,” he said. Alibaba’s partnership includes Ma, co-founder Joseph Tsai, Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Lu and at least five women, the person said. Those partners will vote annually on adding new members and eligibility is limited to employees who have been with the company for at least five years, the person said. Maintaining control of the board would give Alibaba’s partners the chance to anticipate and respond to rapid changes and advances in technology as the company competes for online and mobile spending. Ma is expanding Alibaba’s reach into financial services, logistics networks and smart TV. Limiting a majority of board nominations to the partners would also keep any activist investors at bay. Ma, who founded Alibaba in 1999, also wants to ensure executives don’t lose control to activist investors such as Carl Icahn and Daniel Loeb, who have tried to push their own candidates onto company boards as they sought a new strategy. Google, Facebook While an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Stock Market would allow Ma to use a dual-class structure to maintain control, the proposal to Hong Kong suggests it would prefer to do an IPO closer to its fast-growing customer base. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin control 81 percent of the company’s Class B shares, which carry 10 times the voting power of shares owned by ordinary investors, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg controls 69 percent of the company’s Class B shares. According to the Hong Kong exchange’s corporate governance code, companies should set up board nomination committees where a majority are independent non-executive directors. Listed companies that deviate from the guidelines must give “considered reasons” for doing so in their annual and interim reports, according to the exchange. Reputational Risk A listing in Hong Kong would also give Alibaba less exposure to the risks of shareholder litigation, a phenomenon most common in the U.S., according to Andy Pitts, a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York. “There is still a great anxiety about liability under the U.S. securities laws,” Pitts said. “If a non-U.S. company thinks that there’s a sufficiently large investor base to raise the capital that they need, then listing somewhere closer to home can be a very desirable option.” Hong Kong is the fourth biggest equity market in the world with companies trading there worth a combined $3.2 trillion in market value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. An IPO there would give both Alibaba’s customers and global investors a chance to invest in the company. At the same time, making an exception for Alibaba risks putting the exchange’s reputation at risk, said Erik Gordon , a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Michigan Law School. “The Hong Kong exchange is well respected and you can raise a lot of capital,” he said. “If they go for this, no one is going to be fooled. Everybody is going to say ‘the H.K. exchange is one of these exchanges that has its integrity unless you’re big and powerful enough.’” To contact the reporters on this story: Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at [email protected] ; Jonathan Browning in Hong Kong at [email protected] ; Lee Spears in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at [email protected] ; Philip Lagerkranser at [email protected] ; Jeffrey McCracken at [email protected] | 2013 | ong-kong-faces-vexing-choice-with-alibaba-ipo-pitc |
Italian Bond Yield Reaches Six-Week High Before Auction | By Anchalee Worrachate and Morgane Lapeyre | 2013-08-28T16:02:16Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/italian-bond-yield-reaches-six-week-high-before-debt-auctions.html | 8 | 28 | 75704bed7b7f49df9bcf8744225605c2 | Italy ’s 10-year bonds rose for the
first time in four days after comments made by an ally of former
premier Silvio Berlusconi spurred optimism a split in the
government coalition will be avoided. The benchmark yield fell from a six-week high as Renato Brunetta, chief whip of Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party,
said Italy will scrap part of an unpopular property tax, easing
concern the issue would cause the group to leave the coalition.
German bonds dropped along with U.S. Treasuries as demand for
safer assets waned after the securities rallied earlier this
week amid speculation America and its allies will launch a
military strike on Syria . “There seems to be a relief rebound as the comment
suggested that some form of agreement was reached between
Berlusconi’s and the ruling party,” said Luca Jellinek , head of
European rate strategy at Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment
Bank in London . “While this may help to reduce political
tension for now, it doesn’t remove it.” Italy’s 10-year yield fell four basis points, or 0.04
percentage point, to 4.41 percent at the 5 p.m. close of trading
in London after climbing to 4.48 percent, the highest level
since July 18. The 4.5 percent bond due May 2023 rose 0.32, or
3.20 euros per 1,000-euro ($1,332) face amount, to 101.055. Cabinet Meeting The cabinet of Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta is
meeting in Rome to discuss the property tax that was imposed
last year as an emergency austerity measure. Berlusconi wants to
scrap the bulk of the levy and may retaliate if he feels Letta’s
cuts don’t go far enough. Berlusconi was convicted of fraud linked to tax evasion in
the purchase of U.S. film rights for his broadcast company
Mediaset SpA. His People of Liberty party threatened to withdraw
its support if Letta’s Democratic Party votes to end his mandate
as a senator. “We all know that there have been political challenges in
Italy and I trust that the political leaders try to ensure
political stability,” European Union Economic and Monetary
Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said in an interview in Brussels.
“It’s important for economic stability and recovery.” Italy sold 8.5 billion euros of six-month bills today at an
average yield of 0.886 percent, up from 0.799 percent at the
prior auction on July 29. The Treasury will offer as much as 6
billion euros of debt due in December 2018 and March 2024
tomorrow, the first auction of conventional bonds since July. Spanish Bonds Spain ’s 10-year yield climbed four basis points to 4.53
percent after rising to 4.58 percent on Aug. 22, the highest
level since Aug. 7. The extra yield on Spain’s 10-year bonds over similar-maturity Italian securities expanded eight basis points to 12
basis points after shrinking to three basis points yesterday,
the narrowest since March 2012. The U.S. and its allies are moving closer to a military
strike against Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons
attack near Damascus last week. President Barack Obama plans to
release an intelligence assessment this week and U.K. Prime
Minister David Cameron said Britain will put forward a draft
resolution at the United Nations today authorizing action to
protect civilians. German 10-year bund yields climbed three basis points to
1.88 percent after dropping nine basis points during the
previous two days. Bunds declined even after Gfk SE (GFK) said a gauge of German
consumer sentiment, based on a survey of about 2,000 people,
will fall to 6.9 in September from 7 this month, spurring demand
for safer investments. Finland Sale Finland sold 4 billion euros of notes maturing in 2018
through banks today, with 80 percent of the sale allocated to
overseas investors. The security was priced to yield 16 basis
points below the benchmark mid-swap rate. Volatility in Greek bonds was the highest in euro-area
markets followed by those of Finland and Germany , according to
measures of 10-year debt, the yield spread between two- and 10-year securities, and credit-default swaps. Italian bonds returned 3.3 percent this year through
yesterday, according to Bloomberg World Bond Indexes. Spain’s
rose 7.6 percent, while Germany’s declined 2.1 percent. To contact the reporter on this story:
Anchalee Worrachate in London at
[email protected] ;
Morgane Lapeyre in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Paul Dobson at
[email protected] | 2013 | italian-bond-yield-reaches-six-week-high-before-debt-auctions |
SBI Global and Sundaram Finance CP: India Money Markets | By Pooja Saraf | 2013-08-28T14:06:25Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/sbi-global-and-sundaram-finance-cp-india-money-markets.html | 8 | 28 | bb17fbc83ef2efd3398dd7c3a544272e29e4c734 | Following is a table showing commercial paper
reported by Companies. The data has been provided by LKP Securities Limited and
NVS Brokerage Ltd. T = Tentative C = Confirmed Deal Date Security Mty Date Qtm Rate Buyer Seller CTRB Status 28-Aug-13 SBI GLOBAL 29-Aug-13 10.75 NVSB T
28-Aug-13 SUNDARAM FIN 30-Mar-15 5 11.25 NVSB T
28-Aug-13 TATA CAP 30-Mar-16 5 11.25 NVSB T
28-Aug-13 PFC 06-Sep-13 10.60 NVSB T
28-Aug-13 PFC 15-Oct-13 50 11.80 TEMP MF LKPS T Contributed via: Bloomberg Publisher WEB Service Provider ID: 121da43afc1e4799bb244e5cc2cc1b6b | 2013 | sbi-global-and-sundaram-finance-cp-india-money-markets |
U.S. DOE Weekly Petroleum Status Report for Aug. 23 (Text) | By Stephen Rose | 2013-08-28T14:33:19Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/u-s-doe-weekly-petroleum-status-report-for-aug-23-text-.html | 8 | 28 | 1d1f870b11a7a09708f5c00eee129e952f84dc95 | Following is the text of the weekly
Petroleum Status Report from the U.S. Department of Energy: U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged about 15.8 million
barrels per day during the week ending August 23, 2013, 71
thousand barrels per day below the previous week’s average.
Refineries operated at 91.3 percent of their operable capacity
last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging
9.4 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production
decreased last week, averaging about 4.9 million barrels per
day. U.S. crude oil imports averaged about 8.4 million barrels per
day last week, up by 423 thousand barrels per day from the
previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports
averaged over 8.0 million barrels per day, 723 thousand barrels
per day below the same four-week period last year. Total motor
gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline
blending components) last week averaged 670 thousand barrels per
day. Distillate fuel imports averaged 165 thousand barrels per
day last week. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.0 million barrels
from the previous week. At 362.0 million barrels, U.S. crude oil
inventories are near the upper limit of the average range for
this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by
0.6 million barrels last week and are in the upper half of the
average range. Finished gasoline inventories increased while
blending components inventories decreased last week. Distillate
fuel inventories decreased by 0.3 million barrels last week and
are near the lower limit of the average range for this time of
year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 0.2 million
barrels last week and are in the middle of the average range.
Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 2.2 million
barrels last week. Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged
19.4 million barrels per day, up by 0.9 percent from the same
period last year. Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline
product supplied averaged about 9.2 million barrels per day, up
by 1.0 percent from the same period last year. Distillate fuel
product supplied averaged over 3.7 million barrels per day over
the last four weeks, up by 3.1 percent from the same period last
year. Jet fuel product supplied is 5.3 percent higher over the
last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year. To contact the reporter on this story:
Stephen Rose in Washington at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Marco Babic at [email protected] | 2013 | u-s-doe-weekly-petroleum-status-report-for-aug-23-text- |
Egypt Bets on Persian Gulf Aid to Boost Economy as IMF Shunned | By Ahmed A. Namatalla | 2013-08-28T22:00:01Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/egypt-bets-on-persian-gulf-aid-to-boost-economy-as-imf-shunned.html | 8 | 28 | a59ed4111eca466f9783123bfec849e7 | Egypt is betting on aid from its
oil-rich Persian Gulf neighbors to spur its ailing economy,
ending a two-year pursuit of an International Monetary Fund loan
it had touted as vital to regaining investor confidence. The government announced yesterday approval of a 22.3
billion Egyptian-pound ($3.2 billion) stimulus package after
securing $12 billion in aid pledges from the Gulf last month.
Egypt doesn’t “currently have the desire or the need to ask for
assistance from the IMF,” Finance Minister Ahmed Galal said in
a statement yesterday. Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait rushed to
aid Egypt following the military’s ouster of the former
President Mohamed Mursi July 3. Almost three years after Egypt’s
2011 revolt, the country’s economy is struggling with growth at
just a third of the 6.2 percent it averaged in the last five
years of former President Hosni Mubarak ’s three-decades of rule. Gulf aid “alleviates the risk of an immediate crisis,”
William Jackson , London-based emerging-markets economist at
Capital Economics Ltd., said by phone. In the longer term, the
abandonment of IMF talks is “worrying, because it reduces the
need for authorities to make painful reforms such as fiscal
consolidation and allowing the pound to weaken to a more
competitive level,” he said. Battling Deficit The government, battling a budget deficit that ballooned to
14 percent in the year to June from 11 percent a year earlier,
says it’s considering economic reforms. Measures being studied
include a value-added tax, limited tax exemptions for informal
businesses to encourage registration, and widening the use of
electronic cards to control distribution of subsidized fuel,
Galal said. Egypt’s benchmark $1 billion of 5.75-percent Eurobonds due
in 2020 advanced, pushing the yield down 11 basis points to 8.93
percent at 6:33 p.m. in Cairo. That’s the lowest level on a
closing basis in two weeks. The pound was little changed at
6.986 per dollar, having gained 0.6 percent since Mursi’s fall. Political unrest has persisted after the military-backed
government’s violent break-up of sit-ins in Cairo by Mursi
supporters which left at least 1,000 people dead this month.
Backers of Mursi are calling for another round of nationwide
protests tomorrow. The Muslim Brotherhood, the group that fielded Mursi for
office, has endured its most severe crackdown in decades. The
group’s top leaders, along with hundreds of other members, have
been rounded up as the push against the Islamist organization
elicited international criticism and talk of reviewing aid by
some of Egypt’s closest allies, including the U.S. and the
European Union. Funds Arrive Gulf funds, of which $5 billion arrived last month, helped
replenish Egypt’s foreign-exchange reserves to $18.9 billion,
the highest level in 20 months, and pare the decline of the
Egyptian pound, which has dropped 11 percent since December. Of the total sum pledged, $6 billion are interest-free
deposits with the central bank that will be added to reserves,
while $3 billion in grants will be invested in infrastructure
projects, Galal said. The remaining $3 billion will be in the
form of petroleum products to cover local demand. The Finance Ministry ’s head of debt management, Samy Khallaf, said in a phone interview yesterday there are “signs
of further financial support” from Gulf nations. Part of the money received will be invested in housing,
education and health projects, Planning Minister Ashraf El Arabi
said in a televised press conference yesterday. The government
aims to boost economic growth to 3.5 percent in the current
fiscal year from 2 percent in the year that ended in June, he
said. “Any money coming for the Gulf gives policy makers a bit
more breathing space,” said Anthony Simond, London-based
emerging markets investment analyst at Aberdeen Asset Management
Plc. “I don’t think anyone expected an IMF agreement in the
next year or so of the transition so spurring the economy is a
necessity at this stage.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Ahmed A. Namatalla in Cairo at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Claudia Maedler at
[email protected] | 2013 | egypt-bets-on-persian-gulf-aid-to-boost-economy-as-imf-shunned |
Austrian Mint Increases Gold Sales as Price Slump Spurs Demand | By Alex Pashley | 2013-08-28T08:09:25Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/austrian-mint-increases-gold-sales-as-price-slump-spurs-demand.html | 8 | 28 | dc60ef9db4a14d19b72b24492b1e15d7 | Muenze Oesterreich AG , the Austrian
mint that makes Philharmonic coins, increased sales this year
after tumbling gold prices fueled demand. Sales of gold coins from January to July rose 79 percent
from a year earlier to 383,500 ounces, according to data
e-mailed by the Vienna-based mint, almost matching those for the
whole of last year of 400,000 ounces. Mints saw sales jump after the price of gold, 15 percent
lower this year, plunged into a bear market in April. Surging
demand for jewelry, coins and bars in Asia helped prices rally
as much as 21 percent since the end of June. “As soon as the gold price went down, many individual
buyers thought: ‘Now it’s the best time for us to get into the
gold market,’” Andrea Lang, the mint’s marketing and sales
director, said by phone yesterday. “As soon as there’s a
movement in the gold price, people are interested in the gold
market.” Gold, which rose for 12 consecutive years through 2012,
slumped this year as some investors lost faith in the metal as a
store of value amid speculation the U.S. Federal Reserve would
slow its bond-buying program. Bullion prices dropped to as
little as $1,180.50, a 34-month low, on June 28 in London
trading. Minutes released Aug. 21 showed Fed policy makers were
“broadly comfortable” in slowing debt purchases. Gold rose 70 percent from December 2008 to June 2011 as the
Fed pumped more than $2 trillion into the financial system by
purchasing debt, increasing investors’ concern about currency
debasement and accelerating inflation. Asian Demand Prices that are 26 percent below the record $1,921.15 set
in September 2011 increased physical demand in Asia. Consumer
buying in India , last year’s biggest user, jumped 71 percent in
the second quarter from a year earlier. Chinese purchases rose
87 percent, helping to push global bar and coin sales to a
record and jewelry usage to the most since 2008, the London-based World Gold Council said Aug. 15. “We sell everything we produce and we think it will keep
that way,” Lang said. “We’ll be very busy for the next couple
of months.” July coin sales rose 40 percent from the previous
month to 69,500 ounces, lower than April’s 116,600 ounces,
according to mint data. Sales Surged Mints from the U.S. to the U.K. reported a surge in sales
after gold’s plunge into a bear market lured buyers. The U.S.
Mint’s sales of its American Eagle gold coins rose 82 percent
this year through the end of July to 679,500 ounces from a year
earlier, according to data from the U.S. mint. Sales peaked at
209,500 ounces in April, before dropping back to 50,500 ounces
in July. Britain’s Royal Mint saw its gold-coin sales triple in
April, while Australia ’s Perth Mint, which refines nearly all of
the nation’s bullion, said that month that demand jumped to the
highest level in five years. Gold prices climbed to as high as $1,433.83 in London
today, the highest since May 14, as sales from bullion exchange-traded products stalled and amid political tension over Syria .
Gold-backed ETP holdings increased for a second successive week
last week, narrowing this year’s drop to 26 percent, data
compiled by Bloomberg show. “People feel a little insecure about the whole economic
situation over Europe and they are worried the interest that
banks give them is now quite low,” said Lang. “These are two
very good motives to buy gold.” To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Pashley in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Claudia Carpenter at
[email protected] | 2013 | austrian-mint-increases-gold-sales-as-price-slump-spurs-demand |
Jeremy Stein, Fed Governor, Made a Very Good Trade | By Matthew C. Klein | 2013-08-28T15:18:29Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/jeremy-stein-fed-governor-made-a-very-good-trade.html | 8 | 28 | 5d74adb89a0cd292ef3b26dacb13b8948c151095 | Every year, the Federal Reserve releases the financial information of the men and women serving on its Board of Governors. Yesterday, the Washington Post's Neil Irwin pointed out a few fun facts such as the value of Janet Yellen's stamp collection, which the Economist reports was one of the best possible places a saver could have placed her money over the last decade. Earlier today, a financial analyst at Stone Street Advisors who goes by the alias " Dutch Book " (a reference to a portfolio of bets that is guaranteed to make money because the odds allow for arbitrage), pointed out something else that strikes me as even more interesting: Jeremy Stein, a relatively new Fed governor who was previously a professor of finance and economics at Harvard, made a very clever trade in the middle of last year. In particular, he sold off his Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and replaced them with short-term debt issued by investment-grade companies. (You can see the details on page 5 of this PDF .) The accompanying chart shows the relative performance of the two Vanguard funds that Stein used to execute this trade. TIPS are the white line and the short-term paper is the yellow line. As you can see, he avoided losing about 10 percent of his money as a result of this asset allocation decision. According to the disclosure form, that would have amounted to a net gain of as much as $50,000 relative to what would have happened in the absence of the trade. There is nothing to suggest that Stein did anything improper. However, it is amusing that the most articulate skeptic of asset purchases is also the man who profited from the recent rise in real interest rates. Update at 4 p.m.: A spokesman from the Federal Reserve reached out following the publication of this article with some additional details. First, Stein sold his TIPS holdings a few days before officially becoming a Fed governor. Moreover, he did so in order to comply with the Fed's ethics guidelines , which limit the amount of savings that can be held in U.S. government securities with maturities greater than one year. In other words, Stein's gain was mostly due to lucky timing, not foreknowledge. (Some skill may have been involved in his decision to replace an intermediate-maturity bond fund with one that only held short-term securities. Short-term debts are less vulnerable to losses caused by rising interest rates.) | 2013 | jeremy-stein-fed-governor-made-a-very-good-trade |
Heroes Who Risked Lives to Save Jews Remembered in Israel | By Gwen Ackerman | 2013-08-28T23:00:00Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/heroes-who-risked-lives-to-save-jews-remembered-in-israel.html
A faceless man in yellow saves the life of a small pale-faced child. He leads the innocent boy away from a bloody corpse in a concentration camp. They walk past a barbed-wire fence. Their destination looks brighter. There’s a sunny horizon with a palm tree in the distance. The scene is captured in a large drawing that is part of a Yad Vashem exhibition honoring those who risked their lives to help Jews. Yehuda Bacon, the artist, is an Auschwitz survivor, who after the war took shelter in an orphanage in Prague run by Premsyl Pitter. Pitter was recognized by Israel as “Righteous” for risking his life to aid Jewish people during the Holocaust. “To the man who restored my faith in people,” reads the inscription at the bottom of the painting. Other works by Bacon hang throughout Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. The “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” show marks 50 years of honoring what Israel calls the Righteous Among the Nations. It is an exhibition that is built around recurring rescue stories - - those provided shelter for indefinite periods of time at great risk to their benefactors to the tale of hidden children and lost identities. Over the past five decades, Yad Vashem has recognized more than 24,000 Righteous Among the Nations from 47 different countries. “They did what they did at the time in great danger because they had a basic belief in humanity, in giving a hand to a fellow person no matter who he was,” said curator Yehudit Shendar. “This is something we need to contemplate. There are so many ‘others’ in our society of different shapes and forms. Are we able to open heart, hand and home to them?” Midnight Black The exhibition screens films on low-lying screens that sit in a dark, open room whose midnight-black walls are decorated with pins of light that coalesce into words and sayings and then disintegrate again into a starry sky. On one screen, survivor Sabina Heller tells a tear-filled story of being reunited with the daughter of the Polish family that took her in as an emaciated two-year-old abandoned in a dark cellar and raised her as their own. They later parted with her in a heart wrenching decision that allowed her to return to being Jewish. “Stanka? Inka is speaking.. and I remember how she said, Inka we waited for this phone call for 50 years,” Heller says in the film. A second film shows the plight of a group of Jews hidden by Robert Seduls, a Latvian janitor who had promised his friend to help him in time of need. The film shows the increasing pressure Seduls comes under as Nazis bring dogs to search the premises and how his anxiety bears on those he hides. Death March In a third, the grandson of a farmer in the Netherlands learns about how his relative hid a Jewish family for months on his farm | 8 | 28 | 96e7459505564e72a026af10ca790913 | 2013 | eroes-who-risked-lives-to-save-jews-remembered-in-israe |
|
JPMorgan FERC-Probe Records Sought by Senate Investigators | By Keri Geiger and Cheyenne Hopkins | 2013-08-28T18:09:06Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/senate-investigations-panel-seeks-records-on-jpmorgan-ferc-probe.html | 8 | 28 | 05f57a3bb77b09cb271ce05f76af7c932e44b287 | The U.S. Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations asked energy-market regulators to
hand over “key documents” from a probe of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
as lawmakers examine banks’ roles in commodities markets. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who leads the panel, and
John McCain of Arizona , its ranking Republican, sent a letter to
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seeking records from
the agency’s inquiry and settlement with JPMorgan, according to
a copy of the Aug. 2 request obtained by Bloomberg News. The lawmakers asked the FERC to include a 70-page document
outlining investigators’ findings, which was cited in articles
by the New York Times. The regulator kept that document private
when announcing a $410 million accord with JPMorgan last month. The committee has repeatedly investigated Wall Street firms
in the wake of 2008’s credit crisis, chronicling Goldman Sachs
Group Inc.’s sales of mortgage-linked instruments and JPMorgan’s
handling of botched derivatives bets. In an interview last
month, Levin said lawmakers would use subpoena power to examine
banks’ dealings in physical commodities. “We have been into this issue for a long time and it’s a
very, very significant issue,” Levin said July 23 of his
panel’s look at banks’ businesses tied to energy and natural
resources. The potential for conflicts of interest or price
manipulation “is huge,” he said. Spokesmen for the FERC, the bank, the Senate panel and
Levin’s and McCain’s offices declined to comment on the
lawmakers’ request or didn’t respond to messages. The letter was
reported earlier this month by Platts, a publisher of
commodities market prices and news. Abusive Bidding JPMorgan’s energy-trading unit engaged in 12 bidding
strategies in wholesale energy markets from September 2010 to
November 2012 that resulted in tens of millions of dollars in
overpayments from grid operators, the FERC said while announcing
its settlement in July. The bank accepted the facts in the FERC settlement without
admitting or denying wrongdoing, the agency said. The firm
announced last month that it was looking to exit the physical
commodities business, which includes energy trading. Justice Department Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat on the Senate
Banking Committee, held a subcommittee hearing last month on
financial firms’ involvement in commodities. He said he plans to
hold his next hearing on the topic as soon as September. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey , both
Massachusetts Democrats, sent a separate letter to the FERC in
July, seeking more details on the regulator’s probe of JPMorgan.
They asked why the agency didn’t target “executives who planned
and executed market manipulations or who impeded the
commission’s investigations.” The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation
are conducting their own examination of whether criminal laws
were violated by individuals, a person briefed on the matter
said last week. That inquiry, which focuses on conduct at issue
in the FERC’s case, is in an early stage. To contact the reporters on this story:
Keri Geiger in New York at
[email protected] ;
Cheyenne Hopkins in Washington at
[email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story:
David Scheer at
[email protected] ;
Christine Harper at
[email protected] ;
Maura Reynolds at
[email protected] | 2013 | senate-investigations-panel-seeks-records-on-jpmorgan-ferc-probe |
Gabriel Rises on Romania Draft Law: Toronto Mover | By Liezel Hill | 2013-08-28T15:01:01Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/gabriel-rises-on-romania-draft-law-toronto-mover.html | 8 | 28 | 659c3795d604f1158d00923cacdb73c3a25195a2 | Gabriel Resources Ltd. (GBU) , the Paulson
& Co.-backed Canadian miner, rose the most in almost seven weeks
after Romania approved a draft law that would allow development
of its Rosia Montana mine while increasing the government’s
stake in the project. Gabriel gained 3.5 percent to C$1.76 at 10:24 a.m. in
Toronto. The Whitehorse, Yukon-based company earlier jumped 10
percent, the most intraday since July 11. The draft law, which still needs parliamentary approval,
declares the project to be of “exceptional national interest,”
according to a statement published on the government website. It
proposes increasing the government’s stake in the project to 25
percent, from about 19 percent, and raising mining royalties to
6 percent from a current 4 percent. Gabriel has spent more than a decade trying to build the
mine amid opposition from non-profit organizations that say it
will harm the environment. The new law will set a framework to
“significantly accelerate” development, the company said in a
statement today. Rosia Montana has estimated reserves of 10.1 million ounces
of gold and 47.6 million ounces of silver, according to
Gabriel’s website. The mine may produce an average of 375,000
ounces of gold a year and cost $1.5 billion, Stephen Walker, a
Toronto-based analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, said in a note
today. “We view the announcement as positive for the shares and
await further updates on the expected September Romanian
parliamentary debate,” Walker said. Hedge fund Paulson owned 16 percent of Gabriel as of May 17
and is its biggest shareholder, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. To contact the reporter on this story:
Liezel Hill in Toronto at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Casey at
[email protected] | 2013 | gabriel-rises-on-romania-draft-law-toronto-mover |
Gas Price Jump Seen in Record Europe Stockpiling: Energy Markets | By Julia Mengewein and Matthew Brown | 2013-08-28T13:53:51Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/gas-price-jump-seen-in-record-europe-stockpiling-energy-markets.html | 8 | 28 | 62d0433980e249e39182e70abf8d7f6f | Europe’s utilities are replenishing natural gas reserves at the fastest pace on record, risking a surge in prices as the region’s winter heating season looms. Inventories in eight European countries were 14 percentage points below the year-earlier level on Aug. 26 after climbing an unprecedented 48 points since April 13, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe show. German day-ahead prices may rise as much as 61 percent to match the record set in February 2012 amid forecasts for lower-than-normal temperatures, according to Tobias Meyer of Gas-Union GmbH, a Frankfurt-based supplier. Germany, Europe’s biggest importer of the fuel, is refilling storage sites depleted by the coldest spring in 26 years as forecasters from Weather Services International to Deutscher Wetterdienst predict colder-than-average weather next month. Higher prices may encourage utilities from EON SE to GDF Suez (GSZ) SA to burn more coal instead of gas, increasing pollution as the region aspires to be a world leader in cutting emissions. “We may see extreme price spikes if this winter starts early, lasts long or both,” said Meyer, a gas trader for seven years. “When gas prices in Germany rise because of a potential supply squeeze, then this will also have an impact on Dutch and British hubs, where we see a similar situation.” German day-ahead gas is at its highest level for this time of year since 2009, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. The price for gas to be delivered tomorrow on NetConnect Germany , the virtual hub covering the western and southern parts of the country, rose 0.4 percent to 25.80 euros a megawatt-hour as of 3:09 p.m. in Berlin. The contract reached a record 41.65 euros in February 2012. Facing Bottlenecks Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, France , the Netherlands and Austria are facing supply bottlenecks this winter, especially in the first quarter of 2014 during cold spells, unless storage sites are refilled quickly, Helmut Roloff, a spokesman for Open Grid Europe based in Essen, said yesterday by e-mail. Utilities injected an average 274 million cubic meters a day of gas into facilities in nine countries from the U.K. to Germany since April, the fastest pace since Gas Infrastructure Europe, a Brussels-based lobby group, began collating the data in 2009. Inventories at Rough, the U.K.’s largest storage site, shrank to a record minus 337 gigawatt-hours, a deficit of 31 million cubic meters, on April 13, because of unseasonably cold weather. Centrica Plc (CNA) , which owns Rough, a depleted field under the North Sea commissioned in 1975, was forced to draw on buffer gas used to maintain pressure at the site. Coldest Spring The three months beginning in March were the coldest in the U.K. since 1962 and the fifth-coldest since records began in 1910, according to the Met Office in Exeter, England . The rush to restock storage sites before winter has kept month-ahead U.K. gas prices at their highest for this time of year since at least 2003, according to energy broker Marex Spectron Group Ltd. data on Bloomberg. The cost of next-month delivery in the region’s biggest gas market jumped to a five-year high of 76.10 pence a therm on March 29, and averaged 66.13 pence this year. The contract gained 0.3 percent to 64.20 pence a therm in London , broker data compiled by Bloomberg show. Rising prices this month pushed the cost for utilities to burn natural gas instead of coal to the most since at least 2009. The dark-spark spread , the profitability of coal-fired plants relative to stations fueled by gas, climbed to 26.73 euros per megawatt-hour Aug. 7, based on German power, gas, coal and carbon prices for next year. Coal, which emits twice as much carbon dioxide than burning gas, is favored because the cost of pollution has slid 82 percent in Europe since 2008. A contract to emit a ton of the greenhouse gas in the region’s emissions market averaged 4.34 euros this year compared with 23.85 euros during the same period in 2008, data on ICE Futures Europe in London show. Trailing U.S. German power production from hard coal-fired plants rose 7.9 percent in the first seven months of the year, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, based in Freiburg. Gas-fired output dropped 19 percent, the data show. EU carbon output fell 1.9 percent last year, trailing the 3.9 percent drop in the U.S. where power stations’ use of cleaner-burning gas is increasing, BP Plc (BP/) data show. Europe is restocking as shipments of liquefied natural gas delivered by sea fell 31 percent in the first seven months of the year, according to government data from the U.K., Belgium and the Netherlands. Total pipeline imports from Libya and Algeria fell 17 percent to 18.1 billion cubic meters in the past six months from a year earlier, according to Italian and Spanish grid data compiled by Societe Generale SA in Paris. Fuel Injection Utilities in Europe are turning to Russia to fill the shortfall. OAO Gazprom, the world’s biggest natural gas producer, delivered 92.3 bcm last month, a 12 percent gain from the same period a year ago. The reliance on pricier Russian fuel, tied to the cost of oil, will keep U.K. month-ahead gas above 64 pence a therm, Thierry Bros, a Paris-based gas analyst at Societe Generale, said in an Aug. 21 report. The pace of gas pumped into storage may be enough to avert a shortfall in October, when customers typically start withdrawing fuel from facilities, according to Helmut Kusterer, the head of business development at GVS Gasversorgung Sueddeutschland, a gas supplier in Stuttgart, Germany. Germany’s gas stores were about 2.2 billion cubic meters below the five-year average on Aug. 26, compared with a deficit of 5.7 bcm April 13, Gas Infrastructure Europe data show. “The injection season this year started rather late, but rose a lot after the end of May,” Kusterer said Aug. 7. Summer-Winter Spread Higher prices are narrowing the gap between summer and winter contracts, making it less profitable to store gas in summer and withdraw it in winter. Gas for delivery in the last quarter of the year at NetConnect cost 1 euro more than next-working day gas. That compares with a gap of 2.75 euros 12 months earlier. “The spread between day-ahead and the fourth-quarter gas contract is catastrophic for storage operators and makes storing gas unattractive,” Gas-Union’s Meyer said. “Not all storage operators will enter the winter season with full gas reserves, which will intensify the consequences of an early or long winter.” Temperatures in the U.K. and western Europe will be near or below normal through October, while “significant” parts of Europe may face cooler-than-average temperatures this winter, Weather Services International, a unit of The Weather Company in Andover, Massachusetts , said on Aug. 21. ‘Early look’ “A very early look at indicators for the upcoming winter suggest that atmospheric blocking may be favored again this winter, which would favor below-normal temperatures across significant parts of Europe,” WSI said. German temperatures this spring averaged 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) below the 1981-2010 reference period, according to Deutscher Wetterdienst . The Offenbach, Germany-based forecaster predicts colder-than-normal temperatures in the third week of September in most of Germany and near-normal for the rest of the month. MetraWeather, a unit of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, is forecasting above-average temperatures for most of Europe through Sept. 15, according to an Aug. 23 report. “The continued call for injections means that the market is not out of last winter’s shadow yet and thus prices will remain high and sensitive to any production outages,” Trevor Sikorski , the London-based head of natural gas, coal and carbon at Energy Aspects Ltd. wrote in a research report published on Aug. 6. “Prices are going to stay high.” To contact the reporters on this story: Julia Mengewein in Frankfurt at [email protected] ; Matthew Brown in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lars Paulsson at [email protected] | 2013 | gas-price-jump-seen-in-record-europe-stockpiling-energy-markets |
South African Corn Drops After Committee Raises Output Forecast | By Tshepiso Mokhema | 2013-08-28T11:46:09Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/south-african-corn-drops-after-committee-raises-output-forecast.html | 8 | 28 | 8aa3f60eaa61f5851aec8df4865b43449707530d | Corn in South Africa fell the most
in two weeks after the Crop Estimates Committee said the nation
will produce more of the grain than previously expected. South Africa raised its prediction for corn output this
season by about 1 percent, with farmers forecast to reap 11.5
million metric tons of the grain in the year through April. That
compared with the 11.34 million-ton median estimate of seven
analysts in a Bloomberg survey and the 11.4 million-ton estimate
the committee made last month. White corn for December delivery, the most active contract,
fell 0.9 percent to 2,380 rand ($228) a ton, the biggest decline
since Aug. 14, by the midday close in Johannesburg. The yellow
variety for delivery the same month dropped 1.2 percent to 2,224
rand a ton. “Today’s move has mostly got to do with the fact that the
announcement by the Crop Estimates Committee was not in line
with what was expected,” Benjamin Swanepoel, a trader from
Trademar Futures (Pty) Ltd., said by phone in Johannesburg. The nation may also produce more of the yellow variety of
corn than the white for the first time since 1995 as a lack of
rain in some growing areas curbs output of the white kind. The
nation’s farmers will probably produce 5.93 million tons of
yellow corn in the year through April and 5.58 million tons of
white, the Pretoria-based estimates committee said in a
statement on its website yesterday. South Africa is the continent’s largest producer of corn.
Meal made from white corn is used as one of the nation’s staple
foods, while the yellow variety is mainly used as animal feed . Wheat for December delivery lost 0.1 percent to 3,431 rand
a ton. To contact the reporter on this story:
Tshepiso Mokhema in Johannesburg at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Antony Sguazzin at
[email protected] | 2013 | south-african-corn-drops-after-committee-raises-output-forecas |
Sony’s Newest Hit? Find It in Apple and Samsung Phones | By Mariko Yasu and Grace Huang | 2013-08-29T09:46:45Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/sony-s-newest-hit-find-it-in-apple-and-samsung-phones.html | 8 | 28 | 7595bae14b6e4ccaa24bcc5b6c967604 | Sony Corp. (6758) has a hit product on its hands. Apple Inc. (AAPL) , Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and LG Electronics Inc. (066570) will be happy to sell it to you. Sony’s latest star performer isn’t a gadget like the Walkman or PlayStation. Instead, it’s a chip found in almost every high-end camera and smartphone. Apple’s iPhones 5 and 4S use it and so do Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 and LG’s G2, researchers say. The company that helped invent the compact disc has captured almost a third of the $7.6 billion market for low-power sensors that record crisp snapshots. Sony’s revenue from the chips gained an estimated 30 percent last year as Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai tries to revive the electronics unit after its TV business posted nine straight annual losses. “Sony is making a clean sweep of rising demand,” said Yasuo Nakane, an analyst with Deutsche Bank AG in Tokyo. “These are distinguished products the company spent three decades developing.” Rivals’ reliance on Sony components isn’t new, as the company supplied semiconductor parts for music players to other manufacturers. About 80 percent of the imaging sensors Sony produces are sold outside the company, said Masahito Takeda, a spokesman for Sony. Most of the 10.9 billion yen ($111 million) operating profit last quarter from Sony’s device division was generated by sales of the chips, Deutsche Bank estimates. Global shipments of the imaging sensor will probably grow by a quarter to 3.14 billion units this year, according to Techno Systems Research Co. Apple Supplier Sony declined to identify the companies that buy the chip or provide exact prices. The company appears on the list of suppliers posted on Apple’s website, which doesn’t identify the components Sony provides. Sony is a supplier to Apple and Samsung, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis . An Apple spokeswoman didn’t return calls and an e-mailed request for comment. Samsung and LG declined to comment. Sensors made by Sony sold for an average of $7.30 each, almost four times the $1.93 that Samsung got for similar chips, based on 2012 unit sales and revenue estimates from Techno Systems in Tokyo . Sony, maker of the Xperia handset, wasn’t among the top five smartphone vendors last quarter as global sales of the units jumped about 47 percent to 225 million, Gartner Inc. said Aug. 14. Samsung, Apple and LG were the top three, accounting for about 51 percent of the global market. CMOS Wager Yoshinori Hashitani, a Sony vice president, said during an Aug. 1 earnings call there was “a significant increase in sales of image sensors for mobile products.” When Hirai took over in April 2012, he said he planned to win back customers by concentrating on mobile devices, games and digital imaging, which includes sensors. The company’s image-sensor division gained an advantage against competitors after switching in 2004 to a technology known as complementary metal-oxide semiconductors, or CMOS. Sony bet it could improve the technology, which at the time couldn’t match the picture quality offered by other chips. Tomoyuki Suzuki, head of Sony’s imaging-device unit at the time, pushed for the development of faster sensors that use less power and take sharper images before smartphone demand began surging, according to Takeda. Suzuki is now president of the company’s software design group. The latest version of the chip used in the Xperia Z smartphone is smaller than its predecessors and records images in low light or with strong backlight. Slowing Smartphones Sony customizes chips for customers with circuitry based on buyers’ needs. The chip is used in the iPhones 5 and 4S and Galaxy S4, according to research from SMBC Nikko Securities. The company has spent 220 billion yen since 2010 to boost production capacity of the chips at its two plants on Japan ’s southern Kyushu island. It has another image-sensor packaging facility in Thailand . Sony’s revenue from the chips rose to $2.45 billion in 2012 from $1.89 billion a year earlier, garnering 32 percent of the global market, according to estimates made by Techno Systems. Santa Clara , California-based Omnivision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) ranked second with 14.4 percent, followed by Samsung at 12.9 percent. Slowing demand for high-end handsets, the most-profitable segment of the $358 billion mobile-phone market, may pressure Sony to cut prices for its sensors, said Ryosuke Katsura, an analyst at UBS in Tokyo. Global smartphone revenue will gain 22 percent in 2013, narrower than the 41 percent seen for annual shipment unit volumes, due to falling prices, UBS estimates. Sony probably will continue selling the chip to rivals to boost profits and keep factories working at capacity as smartphone competition intensifies, Katsura said. “What matters most for Sony is to maximize profit while it faces the reality that its Xperia models aren’t quite competitive in the global arena,” he said. “That likely won’t change with competition in the smartphone market looking like it will intensify.” To contact the reporters on this story: Mariko Yasu in Tokyo at [email protected] ; Grace Huang in Tokyo at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at [email protected] | 2013 | sony-s-newest-hit-find-it-in-apple-and-samsung-phones |
Merkel Government Allies May Block Greece Package, Spiegel Says | By Rainer Buergin | 2012-02-17T08:31:29Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/merkel-government-allies-may-block-greece-package-spiegel-says.html | 2 | 17 | 884e48db70820306744f7898ea1e5ff834d103b1 | Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian
Social Union ally may block a second aid package for Greece in
Germany’s lower house of parliament on Feb. 27 should Greece
fail to honor its debt reduction commitments, party chairman
Horst Seehofer told Spiegel magazine. The CSU, the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic
Union , won’t support measures that threaten Germany’s top credit
rating, Seehofer also said. Any aid disbursement to Greece must
be accompanied by “concrete reform steps” on the part of the
Greek government, Seehofer told the magazine. Greece should exit the euro if it’s not willing or able to
meet its spending reduction promises, he said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Rainer Buergin in Berlin at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Hertling at
[email protected] | 2012 | erkel-government-allies-may-block-greece-package-spiegel-says |
Elektra’s Fourth-Quarter Profit Soars on Banking, Derivative | By Crayton Harrison | 2012-02-17T21:21:48Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/elektra-s-fourth-quarter-profit-soars-on-banking-equity-swap.html | 2 | 17 | d5ab15821725ce9525a8940b620cb3f51f6795cf | Grupo Elektra SAB (ELEKTRA*) , the retail and
banking company controlled by billionaire Ricardo Salinas ,
reported an almost fivefold increase in fourth-quarter profit on
a surge in loans and on derivatives based on its own stock. Net income climbed to 11 billion pesos ($861 million) from
2.38 billion pesos a year earlier, Mexico City-based Elektra
said yesterday. Sales jumped 35 percent to 16.2 billion pesos,
led by a 56 percent increase in financial revenue. Elektra is opening more bank branches to extend loans of an
average size of about $400 to Latin American customers who use
them to purchase appliances, fund businesses or attend to family
emergencies. Elektra added 625 locations last year for a total
of 2,878, mostly for banking branches, it said. Elektra fell 2.4 percent to 1,130.86 pesos at the close in
Mexico City. The banking unit had 12.5 million loan accounts at the end
of 2011, 45 percent more than a year earlier. An increase in the value of an equity swap held by Elektra
helped boost investment-related revenue by 14.7 billion pesos
compared to a year earlier, Elektra said. The company recorded
the non-cash benefit because it must value the derivative
instrument at the end of every quarter. The instrument, which pays Elektra for gains in its share
price as if it held the stock itself, has gained value as
Elektra’s stock price more than doubled last year. The increase
came in part because the other party in such a swap normally
buys up shares as a hedge, a process that would have made
Elektra shares scarce. Mexico’s stock-exchange operator, Bolsa Mexicana de Valores
SAB, is looking into ways to make more of the shares available
for trading, a person familiar with the matter said last month. An increase in tax reserves took away 5.78 billion pesos
from net income compared to last year, Elektra said. The company agreed to pay $655 million to acquire payday
lender Advance America Cash Advance Centers Inc. to enter the
U.S. market, extending its reach to the U.S. after operating in
eight Latin American countries, it said Feb. 15. To contact the reporter on this story:
Crayton Harrison in Mexico City at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Ville Heiskanen at
[email protected] | 2012 | elektra-s-fourth-quarter-profit-soars-on-banking-equity-swap |
USDA Illinois Soybean Crush Report for Feb. 17 | By Michael Carone | 2012-02-17T14:52:43Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/usda-illinois-soybean-crush-report-for-feb-17-table-.html
Springfield, Illinois , Feb. 17 (Bloomberg Data) | 2 | 17 | b223c1312eb8c85cc0fce6598d6fe385631643be | a comparison of soybean prices with the value of soybean oil and soybean
meal for products delivered to central Illinois points during the week ended
Feb. 17. These weekly prices are supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture ,
expressed in dollars a bushel. Quantities are expressed in pounds a bushel. Soybean prices compared with value of oil and meal This week Last week Last year Unit Feb 16, 2012 Feb 9, 2012 Feb 17, 2011
Soybean oil, crude
tank cars & trucks
Central IL. ?/lb 52.30 51.71 54.98 Oil yield per
bushel crushed lb 11.58 11.58 11.42 Value from bushel
of soybeans $ 6.06 5.99 6.28 48% Soybean Meal
unrestricted, bulk
Central IL. $/ton 330.30 321.00 359.70 Meal yield per
bushel crushed lbs 44.37 44.37 44.47 Value from bushel
of soybeans $ 7.33 7.12 8.00 Value of oil and
meal from bushel
of soybeans $ 13.38 13.11 14.28 No. 1 Yellow Soybeans
truck price Central
IL. points $/bu 12.68 12.34 13.98 Difference between
soybean price & value
of oil & meal $ 0.71 0.77 0.30 Estimated Processing
Value (EPV) $/bu 13.86 13.58 14.88 This table is presented for statistical comparison and is not intended to
indicate operating margins. Soybean meal is the most common and usually the most economical vegetable
protein supplement, and contains 48% protein. It is produced using a solvent,
or chemical process that separates the oil from the soybean. Domestic animal
feed accounts for about 75% of meal consumption and the rest is exported. Soybean oil is used in products including cooking oil, solvents for grease
removal and metal cleaning, and hydrolic oil. It is also used in soy diesel
products as a replacement for petroleum-based diesel fuel . Yellow soybeans have yellow or green seed coats which in cross section
are yellow or have a yellow tinge. According to the Federal Grain Inspection
Service, No.1 yellow soybeans must test weigh at least 56 pounds a bushel, have
less than 2 percent damaged kernels, and contain less than 1 percent of soybeans
of other colors. Figures used in the table are based on crushings and production of soybeans
for and are verified by the Bureau of the Census. Data is presented
for statistical comparison and is not intended to indicate operating margins. | 2012 | usda-illinois-soybean-crush-report-for-feb-17-table- |
Telefonica Czech Quarterly Net Rises on Deferred Tax Income | By Lenka Ponikelska | 2012-02-17T16:16:28Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/telefonica-czech-quarterly-net-rises-on-deferred-tax-income-1-.html | 2 | 17 | 1f3ef34b1654a725cb6eb985803d81d1867279b8 | Telefonica Czech Republic AS (SPTT) , the
country’s largest phone operator, said its profit rose 50
percent in the fourth quarter after a one-time gain from a
deferred tax income booked in Slovakia. Net income for the three months ended Dec. 31 rose to 2.87
billion koruna ($151 million) from 1.91 billion koruna a year
earlier, the Prague-based company said today in an e-mailed
statement. Revenue declined 4 percent to 13.4 billion koruna.
The shares soared 7.2 percent. The Czech unit of Spain ’s largest operator, Telefonica SA (TEF) ,
has battled a steady decline in earnings, which peaked in 2005,
by streamlining operations and dismissing employees. Competitive
pressure and additional mobile termination rate cuts continue to
dilute revenue. “I’m very pleased that in still-challenging and
competitive market conditions, we have delivered full-year
guidance,” Chief Financial Officer Jesus Perez de Uriguen said
in a statement. “This is a result of improving trends in the
second half of the year.” The last quarter of 2011 was “positively” affected by a
deferred tax income booked in Slovakia worth 709 million koruna,
Telefonica said. The board will propose a dividend of 40 koruna, of which 13
koruna represents a share-capital reduction. It also approved a
“potential” share buyback of as much as 10 percent of the
company’s shares. ‘Above Expectations’ “The dividend is at the top end of the estimates and it’s
also good for the shares that they mentioned a buyback,”
Komercni Banka AS analyst Josef Nemy said. “The underlying
results excluding the one-time gain are also slightly above
expectations.” Nemy recommends investors “hold” the shares, which rose
to 392.2 koruna in Prague, the biggest-one day gain since Oct.
2008. Telefonica is “evaluating” a potential buyback from the
free float that the board will propose to the shareholders,
officials said on a conference call with analysts today. The
company didn’t exclude that it may take leverage for the buyback
if the plan goes ahead, the officials said. The company will
provide more details throughout the year. Telefonica’s Oibda, or operating income before depreciation
and amortization, rose 1.2 percent to 5.8 billion koruna in the
quarter from a year ago, the company said. The Czech Republic’s telecommunications regulator may
auction off unused transmission frequencies before the end of
March, creating an opportunity for a fourth telecom provider to
enter the market. Telefonica will “closely” monitor and analyze conditions
of the tender for the new frequencies. It will make a bid for
the LTE license to deploy a 4G network and boost its
competitiveness on the mobile broadband field, the company said. Telefonica expects “improving trends” in revenue in 2012
and forecast “limited” margin erosion this year. Its capital
expenditure should not exceed 6.2 billion koruna in 2012, it
said. To contact the reporter on this story:
Lenka Ponikelska in Prague at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James M. Gomez at
[email protected] | 2012 | elefonica-czech-quarterly-net-rises-on-deferred-tax-income-1- |
Peru Stocks: Buenaventura, GyM, IRL, Maple, Pomalca, Relapasa | By Alex Emery | 2012-02-17T18:02:41Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/peru-stocks-buenaventura-gym-irl-maple-pomalca-relapasa.html | 2 | 17 | 3f543bb2c90dbdcdc675ba9b2f0b2c6c25cdd6e9 | The following companies are having
unusual price changes in Peru trading. Stock symbols are in
parentheses and share prices are as of 12:45 p.m. Lima time. The Lima General Index (IGBVL) rose for a third session, gaining
0.3 percent to 22,434.26. The MSCI All Peru Capped Index (MXPECAPD) climbed
0.4 percent to 2,830.15. Industrial and mining stocks gained as investors bet
European leaders will help Greece avoid a default next week,
said Roberto Flores , head of research at Lima-based brokerage
Inteligo SAB. Minera IRL Ltd. (MIRL) , a U.K. minerals explorer with a
gold mine in Peru, rose 1.8 percent to $1.15 after announcing
the start of an exploration tunnel at its Ollaechea project.
Empresa Agroindustrial Pomalca SA (POM\C) (POMALCC1 PE), a sugar
producer, advanced 1.7 percent to 61 centimos. Cia. de Minas
Buenaventura SAA (BVN PE), the country’s biggest precious-metals
miner, climbed 1.5 percent to $41.10. Grana y Montero SA
(GRAMONC1 PE), Peru’s largest construction firm known as GyM,
rose 1.4 percent to 7.05 soles. Refiners gained after crude futures advanced for a third
session in New York . Refineria la Pampilla SA (RELAPAC1 PE), a unit of Spain ’s
Repsol YPF SA known as Relapasa, rose 2 percent to 1.02 soles.
Maple Energy Plc (MPLE) , the oil and natural gas producer
with operations in Peru, climbed 1.5 percent to $1.37. To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Emery in Lima at
[email protected] . To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Papadopoulos at
[email protected] | 2012 | peru-stocks-buenaventura-gym-irl-maple-pomalca-relapasa |
Chinese Villagers Protest Land Sales, Legal Daily Reports | By Bloomberg News | 2012-02-17T02:51:03Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/chinese-villagers-protest-land-sales-legal-daily-reports.html
More than 200 residents of the
Chinese village of Panhe in Zhejiang Province organized three
protests from Feb. 1 to Feb. 5 after local authorities sold land
without making the information public, the state-run Legal Daily
reported on Feb. 15. The Panhe local government took land that the villagers
have been farming for decades, the newspaper said without giving
details. There should have been a settlement package of 16,000
yuan ($2,539) per mu (0.067 hectare), it said, citing Lu
Mingshu, a local villager. The villagers have failed since last July to reach an
agreement with the local government on a compensation settlement
and the requirement for an audit, the newspaper said. Ding Zhenjun, the party secretary for Longgang County,
which oversees Panhe, said the disputes between the local
government and the villagers were caused by the villagers’ lack
of understanding of “relevant law and rules,” the newspaper
reported. | 2 | 17 | fdd92f95ed7fc3d1b3c351e9db4465c7b53314a2 | Yidi Zhao in Beijing at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Peter Hirschberg at
[email protected] | 2012 | chinese-villagers-protest-land-sales-legal-daily-reports |
CEZ Jumps to Highest in More Than 6 Months on Electricity Prices | By Krystof Chamonikolas | 2012-02-17T10:12:28Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/cez-jumps-to-highest-in-more-than-6-months-on-electricity-prices.html | 2 | 17 | dce6bbf2cdcd9536c221465ba45d9ba72a1e29ef | CEZ AS (CEZ) , the biggest power utility in
the Czech Republic , extended this week’s rally to the highest
level in more than six months as electricity prices rose. The stock advanced as much as 1.5 percent to its strongest
intraday price since Aug. 8 and traded up 1.2 percent at 828
koruna by 10:53 a.m. in Prague. Power for next-year delivery in Germany, where CEZ exports
part of its output, rose 1.5 percent this week to 52.45 euros
per megawatt-hour. Global stocks and commodities rallied after
U.S. data showed improvements in the world’s largest economy and
on speculation Greece will secure a bailout. To contact the reporter on this story:
Krystof Chamonikolas in Prague at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Gavin Serkin at [email protected] | 2012 | cez-jumps-to-highest-in-more-than-6-months-on-electricity-prices |
U.S. Exporters Announce Corn, Wheat, Soy-Oil Exports | By Steve Stroth | 2012-02-17T15:54:01Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/u-s-exporters-announce-sales-of-corn-wheat-and-soybean-oil.html | 2 | 17 | 7e2b604cc3a8cfcecd2e6d36462cb2003c612ef9 | U.S. exporters sold 132,000 metric
tons of corn to South Korea for delivery in the 2011-2012
marketing year that ends Aug. 31, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture said today in an e-mailed statement. Exporters sold 120,000 tons of soft, red winter wheat for
delivery to Egypt in the marketing year that began June 1, the
USDA said. Exporters also sold 20,000 tons of soybean oil to
Morocco for delivery in the year that began Oct. 1, according to
the department. To contact the reporter on this story:
Steve Stroth in Chicago at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Steve Stroth at
[email protected] | 2012 | u-s-exporters-announce-sales-of-corn-wheat-and-soybean-oi |
Brightcove Advances as Cloud-Based Video Hoster Raises $55 Million in IPO | By Anjelica Tan | 2012-02-17T21:52:36Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/brightcove-advances-as-cloud-based-video-hoster-raises-55-million-in-ipo.html | 2 | 17 | 295b77e4a8bf1f57f382baedb842eb9423c0dbb6 | Brightcove Inc. (BCOV) , a provider of
cloud-based video hosting and publishing services, advanced 30
percent in its trading debut after raising $55 million in its
initial public offering. The stock rose to $14.30 at the close in New York, after
listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol BCOV. Brightcove, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts , is the
latest technology company to tap the public equity market. Zynga
Inc. (ZNGA) , the biggest developer of games for Facebook Inc., listed
in December and has risen 29 percent since then. Facebook, based
in Menlo Park , California , filed its public offering Feb. 1 and
seeks to raise $5 billion. Brightcove sold 5 million shares at $11 apiece yesterday,
the midpoint of its $10 to $12 proposed range, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. The company, led by Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire,
increased revenue 45 percent to $63.6 million in 2011 from a
year earlier. Brightcove, founded in 2004, has been unprofitable
since at least 2007, a regulatory filing shows. The company said it plans to use proceeds for working
capital and other general corporate purposes. Morgan Stanley and Stifel Nicolaus Weisel led the deal. To contact the reporter on this story:
Anjelica Tan in New York at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jennifer Sondag at
[email protected] | 2012 | brightcove-advances-as-cloud-based-video-hoster-raises-55-million-in-ipo |
Mexican Peso Rises as Greece Optimism Boosts Economic Confidence | By Ben Bain | 2012-02-17T23:32:40Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/mexican-peso-rises-as-greece-optimism-boosts-economic-confidence.html
Mexico ’s peso gained for a second
day as optimism that Greece will get a bailout reduced concern
about global growth, fueling confidence in the expansion of
Latin America’s second-biggest economy. The peso rose 0.5 percent to 12.7593 per U.S. dollar at the
close in Mexico City, from 12.8174 yesterday. It has gained 0.3
percent this week, and 9.2 percent this year. Emerging-market currencies rose against the dollar as
investors speculated that euro-area officials are nearing an
agreement on a bailout for Greece. U.K. retail sales
unexpectedly rose for a second month in January. The index of
U.S. leading indicators rose in January for a fourth month,
signaling the world’s largest economy will keep expanding
through the first half of 2012. The U.S. is the destination for
about 80 percent of Mexican exports. “There’s good data in Europe , in particular in the U.K.,”
Rafael Camarena , a Mexico City-based economist at Banco
Santander SA, said by phone. “If the European economy improves,
the global economy also could feel the impact | 2 | 17 | 60b2e719bd7eac1e96f74b2ed0e0a2524ab58b5e | Mexico.” Mexico central bank Governor Agustin Carstens said this
week that that economic growth expectations for the Latin
American country haven’t fallen, maintaining his forecasts for
expansion this year and next of 3 percent to 4 percent. Euro-area governments closed in on a deal to unlock a 130
billion-euro ($171 billion) aid package for Greece, seeking to
avert the region’s first sovereign default. Germany , the biggest
country contributor to euro-area rescues, signaled that finance
ministers may be ready to back Greece’s second bailout in two
years when they meet Feb. 20 in Brussels. The yield on peso-denominated debt due in 2024 rose three
basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 6.5 percent,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The price of the
securities fell 0.29 centavo to 130.39 centavos per peso. To contact the reporter on this story:
Ben Bain in Mexico City at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Papadopoulos at
[email protected] | 2012 | exican-peso-rises-as-greece-optimism-boosts-economic-confidence |
Sarkozy Narrows Hollande’s Lead in Latest French Poll, BVA Says | By Gregory Viscusi | 2012-02-17T10:12:14Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/sarkozy-narrows-hollande-s-lead-in-latest-french-poll-bva-says.html | 2 | 17 | 429dec50373cb00cf0d8197ccf6064478e638597 | French President Nicolas Sarkozy
gained ground on Socialist challenger Francois Hollande after
announcing his candidacy, a BVA poll showed. Hollande would defeat Sarkozy, who announced Feb. 15 that
he’s seeking re-election, by 56 percent to 44 percent in the May
6 runoff, according to the BVA survey for RTL Radio and a group
of regional newspapers. That’s down from 57-43 percent in the
previous Jan. 29 survey. Hollande would finish first in the April 22 first round
with 31 percent, down 3 points from the previous survey, with
Sarkozy advancing 1 point to 26 percent. Anti-immigrant
campaigner Marine Le Pen was unchanged at 15 percent, and
centrist Francois Bayrou gained one point to 13 percent. Under
the French system, the top two in the first round face off if no
one wins a majority. Still, only 46 percent found Sarkozy’s television address
announcing his candidacy “convincing” while 53 percent found
it “unconvincing.” BVA surveyed 949 people on Feb. 16. No margin of error was
provided. To contact the reporter on this story:
Gregory Viscusi in Paris at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James Hertling at
[email protected] | 2012 | sarkozy-narrows-hollande-s-lead-in-latest-french-poll-bva-says |
Center Parcs Said to Price Class B Secured Notes at 11.625% | By Ben Martin | 2012-02-17T14:29:06Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/center-parcs-said-to-price-class-b-secured-notes-at-11-625-.html | 2 | 17 | 3f37b91e3513d30ba114b9707af589c238e45e7b | Center Parcs priced 280 million
pounds of Class B fixed-rate secured notes at 11.625 percent,
according to a banker involved in the transaction. To contact the reporter on this story:
Ben Martin in London at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Andrew Reierson at
[email protected] | 2012 | center-parcs-said-to-price-class-b-secured-notes-at-11-625- |
Westinghouse Nuclear-Fuel Error Spurs U.S. Inquiry at 11 Plants | By Brian Wingfield | 2012-02-17T16:32:11Z | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-17/westinghouse-nuclear-fuel-error-spurs-u-s-inquiry-at-11-plants.html | 2 | 17 | 2ea5294e4ae3c9f41471a89ad4dd3c92110fc758 | The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission said it’s concerned that 11 reactors could become too
hot in accident situations because some older nuclear fuel from
Westinghouse Electric Co. may not adequately conduct heat. The commission today asked companies including Duke Energy
Corp. (DUK) , Exelon Corp. (EXC) , Dominion Resources (D) Inc., FirstEnergy Corp. (FE)
and American Electric Power (AEP) Co. to analyze their fuel’s
performance under conditions that could halt the normal cooling
of reactors at the plants. The NRC needs more information from the plants “to
maintain that they can continue to operate safely,” Eric Leeds,
director of the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation,
said in a statement. Computer models developed for fuel by Westinghouse, a unit
of Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. (6502) , may have incorrectly estimated its
ability to dissipate heat, according to the NRC’s statement. The
regulator sets a heat limit of 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit for fuel
during accident situations to prevent fuel rods from being
damaged, Scott Burnell, an agency spokesman, said in a phone
interview. “The NRC alerted the industry to this problem in 2009, and
Westinghouse needs to do more to account for” heat loss in its
computer modeling for the fuel, Leeds said. The NRC in December informed reactor-owners that an error
in the formula could allow the fuel temperatures to exceed the
2,200-degree limit, according to the agency’s statement. The agency is seeking analysis of fuel heat loss from Duke
Energy’s Catawba and McGuire plants, both near Charlotte, North
Carolina ; Exelon’s Braidwood and Byron plants in Illinois;
FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley plant north of Pittsburgh;
Dominion’s Kewaunee reactor near Green Bay, Wisconsin; and
American Electric’s Donald C. Cook plant in southwestern
Michigan. Some of the facilities have more than one reactor. Westinghouse didn’t have an immediate comment on the NRC’s
statement, Scott Shaw, a company spokesman, said in a phone
interview. The NRC has asked the plants to provide information by
March 19. To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian Wingfield in Washington at
[email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
[email protected] | 2012 | westinghouse-nuclear-fuel-error-spurs-u-s-inquiry-at-11-plants |