One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

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eeeek!

Postby Metric Pringle » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:51 am

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Re: One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

Postby Gouda » Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:40 am

Selling the forest for the trees?

Britain Planning to Sell off Forests to Private Interests

LONDON (AFP) – Ministers are planning a massive sell-off of Britain's state-owned forests as they seek to raise billions of pounds to help cut the deficit, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, is expected to announce plans within days to dispose of about half of the 748,000 hectares (1.85 million acres) of woodland overseen by the Forestry Commission by 2020, according to the newspaper.

The controversial decision will pave the way for a huge expansion in the number of Center Parcs-style holiday villages, golf courses, adventure sites and commercial logging operations throughout Britain as land is sold to private companies, the report added.

The forestry commissions lands were last valued in the 1990s at 2.5 million pounds, the Telegraph said.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that the Government will be setting out its details of its "strategic approach" to forestry this autumn.

"We will ensure our forests continue to play a full role in our efforts to combat climate change, protect the environment and enhance biodiversity, provide green space for access and recreation, alongside seeking opportunities to support modernisation and growth in the forestry sector," a spokesman said.

Allan MacKenzie, the secretary of the Forestry Commission Trade Unions, warned that they would fight the sell-off.

"Once we've sold it, it never comes back. Once it is sold, restrictions are placed on the land which means the public don't get the same access to the land and facilities that are provided by the public forest estate," he told the Telegraph.

"The current system means a vast amount of people can enjoy forests and feel ownership of them. It is an integral part of society."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101024/wl ... entforests
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Re: One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

Postby Gouda » Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:47 am

U.S. companies hoarding almost $1 trillion cash: Moody's

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101027/bs_ ... ash_moodys

Oct 26, 2010

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. companies are hoarding almost $1 trillion in cash but are unlikely to spend on expanding their business and hiring new employees due to continuing uncertainty about the strength of the economy, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday.

As the economy stabilizes companies are also more likely to spend on share repurchases and mergers and acquisitions, Moody's added.

Companies cut costs, reduced investment in plants and equipment and downsized operations in order to boost cash holdings during the recession. As the corporate bond market reopened many companies also boosted cash levels by selling debt and refinancing near-term debt maturities.

Nonfinancial U.S. companies are sitting on $943 billion of cash and short-term investments, as of mid-year 2010, compared with $775 billion at the end of 2008, Moody's said. This would be enough to cover a year's worth of capital spending and dividends and still have $121 billion left over, it said.

However, "we believe companies are looking for greater certainty about the economy and signs of a permanent increase in sales before they let go of their cash hoards, which they suffered so much to build," :D Moody's said in a report.

"Given low demand and capacity utilization within certain industries, companies are wary of investing their cash in new capacity and adding workers, thereby doing little to abbreviate the jobless recovery," it added.

Around one quarter of the cash is held overseas and is unlikely to be repatriated to the United States, Moody's said.

Meanwhile only 20 companies hold a large portion of corporate cash balances, with $346 billion on their balance sheets, or 37 percent of the total, Moody's said.

Cisco Systems (CSCO.O) has the largest cash balance, at $39.86 billion, while Microsoft (MSFT.O) is second with $36.79 billion, Moody's said. Google (GOOG.O) has the third-largest balance with $30.06 billion, followed by Oracle (ORCL.O) with $23.64 billion and Ford Motor Co (F.N) at $21.89 billion.

Technology companies held the most cash as a sector, at $207 billion, followed by pharmaceuticals with $124 billion, energy at $105 billion, and consumer products with $101 billion, Moody's said.
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Re: One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

Postby Gouda » Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:21 pm

Facebook, Goldman Sachs and the Growing Private Shadow Market

Probe may push Facebook to early stock offering

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110106/tc ... 0106170212

NEW YORK (AFP) – A US probe into Goldman Sachs's massive investment in Facebook could drive the hugely popular social-networking website to go public earlier than it hoped for, analysts said.

The investment, reported at 450 million dollars, has exposed the thin line between private and public markets and underscored companies' reluctance to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of shares that results in oversight by regulators.

"Companies are doing everything they can do to avoid going public. Facebook is a prime example,"
said James Angel of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

"We've made it much more difficult in the United States to be a public company. We've made it much more expensive, the legal risks and the trading environment have also changed."

...

The Goldman-DST deal allows Facebook to tap capital markets, while avoiding some of the constraints of trading publicly.

"The big incentive to be a public company is that it is easier to have a trading market for your shares, but if there is a shadow market that provides as much liquidity as the public trading market than companies will not be interested in going public," said Adam Pritchard of the University of Michigan Law School.

But the investment has raised questions about the fairness and safety of such deals.

"Some people might (ask) 'why should only Goldman's favored friends get the chance to invest in Facebook?'" said Angel.

There are also concerns the investment could create a shadow exchange market beyond the scrutiny of regulators, exposing investors to potential risks due to the lack of transparency rules.

"Facebook may not necessarily want to disclose a certain amount of what they are doing. Part of the price of being public is the need to disclose finances and aspects of business and they might not want to disclose all their trade secrets," Angel said.
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Re: One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

Postby stefano » Mon Jan 10, 2011 2:54 am

A good chance that Shell's Nigerian fields will be taken over by an unlisted group:

Bidders flock to Shell's Nigeria sale: paper

At least 18 consortia are working on bids for Nigerian oil rights being sold by Royal Dutch Shell and partners, the Sunday Times newspaper said, citing unidentified sources close to the process.

The newspaper said Nat Rothschild, scion of the banking dynasty, was backing one group of bidders, while Russian gas group Gazprom was leading a bid with Nigerian resources firm Equinox Group.

London-listed oil industry services group Petrofac has joined forces with Nigerian gas firm Seven Energy to bid for one of the blocks being sold, while London-listed oil group Afren also plans to make an offer, it added.

Another bidding group includes London-based oil firm Perenco, Nigeria's Oando and Addax & Oryx, which is controlled by billionaire Jean Claude Gandur, the paper said.

Sweden's Lundin family is also interested, and working with logistics firm Intels Nigeria, it said.

Shell, which is selling four onshore fields along with partners Total and Eni, declined to comment.

Shell has said it hopes local companies would bid and analysts think there could be a preference for local players.
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Re: One World Market, baby / The Private Global Equity Order

Postby Gouda » Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:06 am

Global Stock Exchanges Are Headed for Major Consolidation

[That would be: Global Stock Exchanges, as with Every Corporate Capitalist Entity, Have Been Heading for Major Consolidation, Financialization and Privatization for a Long Time. See Page 1 of this thread.]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41491498

Published: Wednesday, 9 Feb 2011 | 2:07 PM ET

By: CNBC.com with Reuters

Germany's Deutsche Boerse is in advanced talks to buy NYSE Euronext, and the London Stock Exchange has agreed to buy Canadian stock market operator TMX, as exchanges globally look for ways to boost their markets and cut costs.

Together, Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext would dominate exchange trading in continental Europe. The companies said they could cut costs by 300 million euros ($408.7 million) a year.

The combined group would have headquarters in New York and Frankfurt, with Deutsche Boerse shareholders holding about 60 percent of the combined company and NYSE shareholders holding the rest. The companies disclosed their talks on Wednesday.

"I think these consolidations are the wave of the future—with aspects we haven't even seen yet—once the derivatives markets are required to be more like exchanges," former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt told CNBC. "Securities regulators should welcome these consolidations, but competition regulators may be concerned."

Not everyone was so enthused about it, however.

"I think it's a big yawn," Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and a former NYSE director, told CNBC. "The listed exchanges are losing market share dramatically. They're less relevant with electronic trading that's now prevalent throughout the industry. It seems to me that the only sense for the merger here is to cut costs."

Earlier in the day, LSE said it would buy TMX, forming the world's fourth-largest exchange and a top centre for trading mining and energy shares, with $4.1 trillion of stock changing hands a year.

The exchanges are looking to regain market share lost to upstart electronic trading platforms. Other exchanges could face similar pressure to merge, analysts said.

"These mergers don't take place on a one-off basis; they come in clusters," said Thomas Caldwell, chief executive of Caldwell Securities Ltd in Toronto, which invests in exchanges.

One exchange seen as a possible acquisition target is CBOE Holdings, experts said.

Options exchanges have been growing fast, while stock market trading volume has been moving away from traditional exchanges and toward electronic trading venues like privately held BATS Global Markets.

"The next logical step would be for the Nasdaq to take out CBOE Holdings," said Jon Najarian, a co-founder of web information site Optionmonster.com in Chicago.

LSE shares rose 9 percent after the TMX deal was announced, which is unusual; acquirers' share prices often fall.

The rising price signals LSE could be getting a good deal, which in turn could mean another buyer might offer a higher price for TMX. But some bankers dismissed such speculation.

"You would need to put a cash bid on the table and a premium, which might require cuts at TMX, and the Canadian regulators would not like that one bit," one banker said.

If the combination survives likely political opposition in Canada, a group will emerge with a market value of 4.3 billion pounds ($6.9 billion) based on Tuesday's prices, with LSE shareholders holding 55 percent.

If NYSE Euronext merges with Deutsche Boerse, it will combine with one of the few major stock exchanges in the world that remain independent. Derivatives are likely to lie at the heart of any transaction. It would combine two of the world’s ‘big three’ derivative exchanges into one new major powerhouse.

One of the major reasons NYSE merged with Euronext in 2007 was to get its hands on LIFFE, the global derivatives business that used to be known as the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange.

It’s increasingly both the heart of the business and its most promising division. Dodd-Frank demands that trillions of dollars of derivatives currently trading over the counter will, at the very least, have to pass through clearing houses. And Europe will likely soon follow.


—CNBC's Simon Hobbs contributed to this report.
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