| Citigroup Holds Talks to Buy Old Lane Hedge Fund, Person Says
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the largest U.S. bank, is in talks to buy New York hedge-fund manager Old Lane LP in an effort to land Vikram Pandit as head of so-called alternative investments such as private equity and real estate, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. Pandit co-founded Old Lane after quitting as Morgan Stanley's head of investment banking and trading during a power struggle in March 2005. At Citigroup, he would run the bank's $49.2 billion in corporate and client investments in products ranging from hedge funds to venture capital, said the person, who declined to be named before an agreement is reached. Acquiring Old Lane would bolster New York-based Citigroup's management at a time when investors have criticized the lack of experience among potential successors to Chief Executive Officer Charles Prince.
GM's High-Performance Pension Machine
There hasn't been much good news out of General Motors in recent years, but you'll be glad to know that at least one part of GM's U.S. operation is finally fixed: its pension funds. GM may be having a hard time turning around its auto business and getting its financial statements straight, but it's kicked butt in pensionland. In fact, GM's funds have done so well that the company has switched about $20 billion in pension assets to lower-risk bonds from higher-risk stocks. It's the equivalent of taking chips off the table after you've gotten ahead of the game. Here's the deal. For reasons we'll examine later, GM's pension surplus increased by $9.6 billion in 2006. That gain would have made GM spectacularly profitable if pension results were part of companies' income statements, as some folks propose.
Peruvian Stocks Rise on Commodity Prices: World's Biggest Mover
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Peruvian stocks rose the most in three months, led by copper producer Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde SA, as metals prices surged. The Lima General index rose 485.27, or 2.6 percent, to a record 18,926.46 at 2:40 p.m. New York time. It was the sharpest gain since Jan. 10 and the biggest move among markets included in global benchmarks today. Peru's mining-dominated index has tripled in the last 12 months, including a 47 percent surge this year and 12 straight gains since March 22, as metal prices rose on Chinese demand and supply disruptions. Copper in New York climbed to the highest in almost six months while gold and silver gained as an alternative to a declining U.S. dollar. ``There's a little bit of irrational exuberance here, but Peru's market is being driven by really strong commodity markets,'' said UBS Pactual head of southern cone and Andean research Ben Laidler.
Schatz Nobel Izard, PC Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Eli ...
HARTFORD, Conn., April 9, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Schatz Nobel Izard, P.C., which has significant experience representing investors in prosecuting claims of securities fraud, announces that a lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of all persons who purchased or otherwise acquired the publicly traded securities of Eli Lilly and Company ("Lilly" or the "Company") (NYSE:LLY) between March 28, 2002 and December 22, 2006, inclusive, (the "Class Period"). Also included are those who acquired shares in Lilly's acquisition of Applied Molecular Evolution. .
US mail is streets ahead in delivering the goods
RECENTLY my bank card developed a crack, almost certainly from overuse. I took it to the local branch around lunchtime. I was told I would get a replacement sent to my home. The next morning, before 10am, the card was on my doorstep in New York. It had arrived from Austin, Texas. Of course, this is a testament to FedEx, or perhaps UPS - I can't remember which one. Either way, it was an impressive display of efficiency, especially considering it's a bank we are talking about. But it's not just the courier services that work efficiently. The US mail delivers (and picks up from your home) six days a week. The post offices look like something from the PMG circa 1965 (they haven't yet discovered the joys of privatised agencies and turning every post office into a shop), but the mail service, by and large, works.
Impact in the digital marketing mix
The days of looking at online campaigns purely in terms of immediate conversion rates have gone forever, writes Andrew Hood. Typically, digital marketing involves a build-up of contact over a research-buy cycle, particularly in markets like financial services and travel where consumers are inclined to shop around. Working from that basis, we have to look at the sequence of marketing events that drive conversions online and look at the interactions and reactions between digital channels to get a clear sense of the real impact of our campaigns and channels. Growth in online marketing has arguably been fuelled by the ability to quickly quantify return on investment, tracking the sales generated by any given campaign and benchmarking performance by conversion rates.
Insurance Companies Commit to Climate Change Disclosure: Calvert ...
BETHESDA, Md., April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Calvert, one of the nation's largest families of socially responsible mutual funds, announced today that it has withdrawn climate change shareholder resolutions filed with two leading insurance companies: The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. The two companies agreed to improve their public reporting and disclosure regarding the potential financial risks they face from climate change and strategies for mitigating those risks. "As a responsible corporate citizen and as a major underwriter of risk, it's appropriate for The Hartford to address the .
Legacy systems given the boot by Kathmandu
Outdoor equipment retailer Kathmandu is rolling out Australian-built business software to modernise its inventory and point-of-sale systems. Group information systems manager Bryan Moore says the enterprise resource planning package from Melbourne's Pronto Software will better assist with the company's plans to add 30 stores to its existing 50-store chain. "Basically we outgrew the old one," he says. The software, to be tested at the end of the month, would also let Kathmandu "smarten up its retail offering" and offer better deals to its loyalty club members. Mr Moore says the Pronto package is a significant investment for the company. Similar systems are believed to have sold for millions of dollars. Founder Jan Cameron sold half her stake in Kathmandu to Quadrant Private Equity and Goldman Sachs JBWere for $276 million last year.
Empire Holding to invest $409m in UAE real estate
(MENAFN) The Chairman of Empire Holding announced that the company is planning to invest $408.5 million in real estate projects in the UAE through its subsidiary, Empire International Investments, Gulf News reported.
The chairman, who was addressing a press conference, pointed out that the company aims to focus on high end properties for residential and commercial use, in addition to investing in the hospitality sector as well.
Dubai-based Empire Holdings is a leading investment group that provides investors with a full array of real estate development services such as fundraising, deal structuring and financial feasibility analysis studies.
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Stanford Business School Research Examines Linkage Between ROI and ...
STANFORD, Calif.-(Business Wire)-March 16, 2007 - For years, return on investment (ROI) and related financial accounting ratios have been widely used as key measures of business profitability. But what three accounting professors from the Stanford Graduate School of Business recently discovered was that, despite its widespread acceptance, the economic meaning of the ROI metric has only been vaguely understood. .
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