Japan’s central bank last week kept interest rates steady, as the country continues to battle price declines. As the world’s second-largest economy struggles against flat domestic demand, an aging population and pervasive sense of pessimism, prospects loo
Weakness among financials has given bears plenty of fodder to declare: That’s it. The rally finally is over.Don’t throw in the towel, says our guest Charles Lemonides, chief investment officer at ValueWorks. Just don’t expect financial stocks to lea
The recent pullback in financial stocks and a cooling in the general market (despite today’s move) have many investors wondering whether the great rally of 2009 is history. Charles Lemonides, portfolio manger of Valueworks, is not among them.Despite
As the U.S. economy has retreated from the edge of a financial cliff, America’s recovery repeatedly has been compared to Japan’s. Both countries suffered a collapse in asset prices, followed by a government scramble for some kind of stimulus response.Many
“It’s clear the great recession is over!,” says Barry Ritholtz, chief executive of Fusion IQ and author of the Big Picture blog. The world didn’t end, as many predicted late last year and early this year, and Ritholtz thinks many will be surpris
GM says is now evaluating not just a revised offer from Holland’s Spyker, but several new expressions of interest as well. It says that since Friday’s announcement that it would start the orderly wind-down of Saab, it has received inquiries from several parties. Perhaps GM calling it a day its Saab brand was a negotiating tactic meant to draw Spyker out on some of the finer points in their presumed-dead negotiations over salvaging the Swedish car maker.
Spyker said its renewed offer included an 11-point proposal addressing issues that arose during the due diligence process, one that eliminates the need for a European Investment Bank loan approval prior to the end of the year. That would allow it to beat GM’s deadline end-of-year deadline.
Ok. So we may have been premature in pronouncing Saab’s demise. GM’s deadline – to keep this ghastly metaphor running – is more like a ventilator. Having already gone through its bankruptcy, GM executives may feel they have less reason to pull the plug than they did when they were themselves facing the end of the road. But is the prospect of a deal going to be enough to convince them to keep loss-making Saab alive for another month or more?
“Saab story ends” we wrote on these pages last week. Now it has begun again, after Dutch luxury carmaker Spyker raised a last-minute bid over the weekend. It looks as if there are other options, with General Motors saying it will look into several new expressions of interest for its Swedish unit. That’s only two days after it said it would start an orderly wind-down.
The London Stock Exchange (LSE.L) is buying 60 percent in Turquoise, its rival launched by a group of investment banks with a lot of fanfare two years ago. The centuries-old bourse will merge Turquoise with Baikal, its dark pool platform.
Kraft’s (KFT.N) hostile bid does not reflect Cadbury’s (CBRY.L) value, a significant number of big Cadbury shareholders thinks — that’s what Cadbury Chief Executive Todd Stitzer told my U.S. colleagues on Friday. ”It appears that the stand-alone value of the company has risen in the eyes of shareholders,” he said. Meanwhile, the New York Times writes that Britain is going “into an emotional tailspin” over the prospect of losing Cadbury. If that’s the case, they’re hiding it well — must be the stiff upper lip.
Elsewhere in the press:
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) has narrowed the bidders for its commodities trading joint venture Sempra to three and will announce a winner within weeks, the Sunday Times reports.
China’s securities regulator may block Bank of China’s (601988.SS)(3988.HK) plan to raise capital via equity and the bank may have to issue bonds to beef up its capital adequacy ratio, the Apple Daily newspaper says.
U.S private equity firm Apollo has approached British bookmaker and bingo group Gala Coral with a rescue proposal, according to The Sunday Times.
Google Inc (GOOG.O) is in talks to buy Yelp Inc, the popular website for reviews of local businesses, in a deal that could help the Internet search leader tap a lucrative local ads market, media reports said on Friday.