Is it Last Call for Wall Street at Anheuser-Busch?

On Anheuser-Busch’s conference call Wednesday to discuss second-quarter earnings, the tone was more like a wake than the tailgate parties of old.

Well, previous calls never really had galloping Clydesdales, singing frogs or a hard-partying Bull Terrier. But quarter after quarter, investors and analysts from both the ”buy” and ”sell” sides would still dial in after the close of New York trading for the latest color on beer sales.

Wednesday’s get-together — likely the second-to-last one before the brewer gets swallowed by Belgian brewer InBev – was different. 

First, the earnings were released at 11:12 a.m. ET, (instead of the usual 2:30 p.m.), just as Wall Street’s beverage analysts were listening to PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi , on her conference call, discuss ways the company is changing its business to cope with the current economic uncertainty.

The Bud call started at noon, immediately following the Pepsi call.

While Chief Financial Officer W. Randy Baker said the teleconference was “earlier to accommodate the increased interest of European investors and analysts,” one U.S.-based analyst, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, guessed that the near overlap with Pepsi’s presentation was no coincidence.

“Structurally, they set it up so that they wouldn’t really have to talk. I understand why they did that,” said the analyst, adding that the context and timing of the call kept off a lot of analysts, who were likely tied up with Pepsi.

Gone was the typically long Q&A session with analysts including Morgan Stanley’s Bill Pecoriello, Stifel Nicolaus’s Mark Swartzberg, UBS’s Kaumil Gajrawala, Deutsche Bank’s Marc Greenberg, JP Morgan’s John Faucher and Goldman Sachs’ Judy Hong. Bryan Spillane from Banc of America and Anthony Bucalo from Credit Suisse lobbed the only questions from the usual suspects.

In their places were London-based analysts who cover InBev, such as Chris Pitcher of Redburn Partners and Philip Morrisey of Citigroup.  

“It was partially timing and partially like, ‘Hey guys, if you’re not going to make our lives easy, we’re going to go out and try to talk to our clients about a stock that matters now,” the analyst said. 

Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo, who said he was on the conference call but did not ask a question, told Reuters that timing wasn’t the only issue.

“I think a lot of people are pretty much assuming this deal is done, that the company is going to no longer be an independent company by the end of the year, so I think interest kind of trails off as a result of that.”

He noted that some people might have tuned in for an update on the status of the deal, but that they’ll probably have to listen to an InBev call for that.

InBev, or the soon-to-be-called Anheuser-Busch InBev, will release earnings on August 14. Let’s hope InBev CEO Carlos Brito changes its call time to make it more convenient for the U.S. investors.

(Photo: Reuters)     

Financial services companies are bleeding red and thousands of Wall Street workers are losing their jobs. So when one looks around and sees only the ruins left behind by the credit crisis, there is little to smile about.

Some people, though, haven’t lost their perspective — or their sense of humor.

If you call the chief operating officer of Freeman & Co, an independent adviser to the financial services industry, you are greeted by a rather unusual voice mail message:

“Hi, you have reached Eric Weber at Freeman & Company. Although financial services is melting down, we are still out doing business … Please leave me a message and I will return your phone call as soon as I can. Thank you.”

Many financial services bankers say things have been busy despite the obvious slowdown in the industry. But Weber’s motivation for saying that in his voice mail message goes beyond that.

“I have whimsical messages from time to time,” Weber said. “My friend reminded me that my message had gotten a little boring so I updated it.”

Weber says his previous voice mail was “boring.” But a little while ago, he says he had something like this to say to callers he missed:

“Hi, it’s Eric Weber, I am sorry I am not here. I am out closing a deal for one of our clients. Please leave me a message and I’ll call you back shortly.”

(Photo credit: Reuters)

General Electric’s $8 billion joint venture with Mubadala Development Co to provide commercial finance in the Middle East and Africa sounds like an excellent idea for both parties. It also happens to reflect impeccable timing for GE as the U.S.-based global conglomerate struggles on its home turf.

Under the deal, each party will invest $4 billion over three years. That $8 billion will then be leveraged up to five times with debt — which means that as much as $40 billion could be invested in the Middle East and Africa.

It’s a win-win situation. GE, with an open-ended investment horizon, will benefit from orders for Abu Dhabi’s “carbon-neutral, zero-waste” Masdar City. There is sure to be plenty of demand for GE’s clean-energy technology there.

It’s also a good time for GE to be investing in emerging markets — the conglomerate’s shares have taken a beating this year due to concerns about its consumer and commercial finance units, hurt by weak U.S. consumer confidence.

Moreover, as analysts have pointed out, GE gets a floor on its stock price — Mubadala said it plans to become one of GE’s 10 largest shareholders over time. That would mean buying, at the very least, nearly $3 billion of GE shares in the open market. (GE’s current tenth-largest institutional shareholder, Wellington Management Co, owns 101.3 million shares worth about $2.96 billion).

For Mubadala too, it’s a great deal. It’s a different type of investment for the fast-growing Abu Dhabi-backed investment and development arm which owns, among many other things, a 7.5-percent stake in private equity firm Carlyle Group and a 5-percent stake in Ferrari.

This deal allows access to GE technology, products, services and knowledge — invaluable elements for a developing economy.

And expect more from Mubadala. The investment vehicle, which manages more than $10 billion in assets, said earlier this year it is planning more acquisitions in aerospace, energy and real estate.

As volte faces go, the Yahoo-Carl Icahn slugfest-turned-lovefest is a definite keeper for some future annal of corporate history. Until last week, Yahoo couldn’t slam Icahn enough, mocking the activist investor’s knowledge of technology, calling his agenda risky, and pointing to his failure to articulate clear alternatives to a Microsoft deal.

But since they made nice on Monday, rest assured we’re going to hear nothing but a din of welcome notes from Yahoo, as they sell to shareholders the idea that Icahn and his two designees are good for the board.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock set the sweet, full-of-possibility tone about Icahn on Monday, and Yahoo President Sue Decker picked up where he left off in a CNBC interview today:

I have not met Carl. I think you really have to distinguish what happens in a PR war and proxy contest from reality. I’m totally looking forward to meeting him. I’d love for him to learn about our business and I’d love to get his advice. So there are absolutely no hard feelings of any sort. I think the best thing I can say is that we’re moving forward and we’ll have the distractions behind us, and I want that for our employees and I want that for our company.

Yahoo shareholders may buy into the company’s new attitude and vote accordingly at next Friday’s annual shareholder meeting. But proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis, which recommended that shareholders vote against three directors, did issue a word of caution about Icahn: “Shareholders should monitor Mr. Icahn’s ability to devote sufficient time and attention to the company.”

And The Wall Street Journal too wondered, in a recent story, if Yahoo might come to regret its move.

(Photo: Reuters)

The cheap dollar is helping to tease more investment out of a notoriously shy foreign investment pool – Japan’s insurance industry. In what would be the largest acquisition by a Japanese financial firm in the U.S., Tokio Marine said it plans to buy non-life insurer Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp for about $4.7 billion. Tokio Marine is Japan’s largest non-life insurer, and has offered a 73 percent premium to Philadelphia Consolidated investors. Meanwhile, Nippon Life Insurance said it would take a 5 percent stake in U.S. fund and index group Russell Investments. Over the past year, the dollar is down more than 10 percent against the yen, though it is well off lows hit in early March. Japanese insurers, which earn 80 percent of their profit at home, have long been under pressure to diversify abroad to deal with an aging population and slow growth at home.

Shares in British lender HBOS rose more than 12 percent, lifted by market talk of bid interest from Spanish rival BBVA and a broad recovery across the financial sector, traders said. Britain’s largest mortgage lender has underperformed the battered sector in the run-up to its 4 billion pound ($8 billion) rights issue, and concerns about the overhang effect have also weighed, as just 8.3 percent of the shares were taken up. A deal to take on HBOS would be a radical departure for BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank, which has focused its expansion on emerging markets in Latin America and China and in the southern United States.

Other deals of the day:

* British energy company Centrica is doubling its interest in Belgian generation and supply company SPE SA to 51 percent for 515 million euros ($820 million), overturning a deal by France’s EDF to buy the stake.

* Brazil’s Oi Participacoes bought 947 million reais ($599 million) worth of preferential shares in Brasil Telecom as part of its takeover of the No. 3 telecommunications player, the BM&F Bovespa stock exchange said.

* Thai PTT Chemical said it had agreed to buy a 50 percent stake in a Malaysian oleochemicals firm from German chemicals maker Cognis for 104 million euros ($164 million).

* GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second largest drugmaker, took a step into the branded generics marketplace via an alliance with South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare Holdings.

* The head of KT Corp, South Korea’s top fixed-line and broadband firm, has said full integration with its mobile service unit KTF Co would be “desirable”, a KT spokesman said.

* China’s central government and the Shanghai city government are discussing merging Shanghai Airlines with China Eastern Airlines, major Chinese business magazine Caijing reported on its website on Wednesday.