Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said John Morschel will succeed Charles Goode as chairman after Rod Eddington withdrew from consideration.
Morschel, a former managing director at Lend Lease Corp. and director of Westpac Banking Corp., will take over in February 2010, Australia’s fourth-biggest bank said in a statement to the stock exchange. Eddington had informed the board that he wanted to withdraw his offer to succeed Goode, the release said.
Morschel will oversee ANZ Chief Executive Officer Michael Smith’s expansion in Asia as swelling bad loans at home squeeze profit. Smith, who previously headed HSBC Holdings Plc’s Asian division, is aiming to increase the proportion of income derived from the continent to 20 percent and is bidding for Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s Asian assets.
“I am delighted to have John Morschel succeed me as Chairman with the unanimous support of the Board,” Goode said in the statement. “I look forward to continuing to work with the excellent management team led by Mike Smith in realizing our vision to build a super regional bank.”
Morschel is currently a non-executive director of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and Tenix Pty Ltd. He was previously chairman of Rinker Group, Leighton Holdings Ltd., CSR Ltd. and Comalco Ltd., and a non-executive director of Rio Tinto Group. Eddington is a director of companies including Rio and News Corp. and a former chief executive officer of British Airways Plc.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Asian Stocks tend to rise in South Korea
Asian stocks rose for a ninth day, giving the MSCI Asia Pacific Index its longest winning streak since 2004, as sales of existing U.S. homes climbed and South Korea’s economy grew at the fastest pace in almost six years.
Rio Tinto Group gained 2 percent in Sydney as commodity prices rallied yesterday. Murchison Metals Ltd. surged 13 percent after saying Chinese groups are interested in helping develop an iron-ore project. Toyota Motor Corp., which gets more than a half its profit from North America, rose 1.9 percent as the yen depreciated against the dollar. Samsung Electro- Mechanics Co., a South Korean electronic-parts maker, advanced 1.8 percent after a brokerage raised its share-price target.
“Global market sentiment continues to rise,” said Ben Potter, an analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne. “The collapse of the housing market started this whole crisis and its recovery is certainly needed for any sustained economic improvement.”
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.7 percent to 107.78 as of 10:09 a.m. in Tokyo, with five stocks advancing for each one that declined. The gauge has gained 9.9 percent in the past nine days, the longest winning streak since August 2004.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index dipped 1.1 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index added 1.6 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi Index added 0.5 percent.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 0.4 percent. The gauge climbed 2.3 percent yesterday, as EBay Inc. and Ford Motor Co. posted better-than-estimated results. Sales of existing U.S. homes advanced 3.6 percent last month from May, surpassing the 1.5 percent gain estimated by economists.
The increased sales fanned speculation demand for resources will recover, lifting prices for metals and oil. A gauge of six metals in London rose for a ninth day, the longest winning streak since December 2005. Crude oil in New York jumped 2.7 percent yesterday to a level not seen in three weeks.
South Korea’s gross domestic product rose 2.3 percent from the first quarter, when the nation skirted a recession by growing 0.1 percent, the central bank said today in Seoul.
That compared with the median estimate of 2.2 percent in a Bloomberg survey and was the fastest since a 2.6 percent expansion in the last quarter of 2003. From a year earlier, GDP shrank 2.5 percent.
Rio Tinto Group gained 2 percent in Sydney as commodity prices rallied yesterday. Murchison Metals Ltd. surged 13 percent after saying Chinese groups are interested in helping develop an iron-ore project. Toyota Motor Corp., which gets more than a half its profit from North America, rose 1.9 percent as the yen depreciated against the dollar. Samsung Electro- Mechanics Co., a South Korean electronic-parts maker, advanced 1.8 percent after a brokerage raised its share-price target.
“Global market sentiment continues to rise,” said Ben Potter, an analyst at IG Markets in Melbourne. “The collapse of the housing market started this whole crisis and its recovery is certainly needed for any sustained economic improvement.”
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.7 percent to 107.78 as of 10:09 a.m. in Tokyo, with five stocks advancing for each one that declined. The gauge has gained 9.9 percent in the past nine days, the longest winning streak since August 2004.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index dipped 1.1 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index added 1.6 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi Index added 0.5 percent.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 0.4 percent. The gauge climbed 2.3 percent yesterday, as EBay Inc. and Ford Motor Co. posted better-than-estimated results. Sales of existing U.S. homes advanced 3.6 percent last month from May, surpassing the 1.5 percent gain estimated by economists.
The increased sales fanned speculation demand for resources will recover, lifting prices for metals and oil. A gauge of six metals in London rose for a ninth day, the longest winning streak since December 2005. Crude oil in New York jumped 2.7 percent yesterday to a level not seen in three weeks.
South Korea’s gross domestic product rose 2.3 percent from the first quarter, when the nation skirted a recession by growing 0.1 percent, the central bank said today in Seoul.
That compared with the median estimate of 2.2 percent in a Bloomberg survey and was the fastest since a 2.6 percent expansion in the last quarter of 2003. From a year earlier, GDP shrank 2.5 percent.
Qatar Scores Coup at Porsche Riding Family Feud to 17% VW Stake
Qatar’s ruling emir, who toppled his father in a bloodless coup in 1995, has come out on top of another power struggle thousands of miles away in Germany, where the Porsche dynasty is losing control of the sports-car maker.
Porsche SE yesterday agreed to combine with Volkswagen AG after a four-year attempt to take over the larger German rival left Porsche paralyzed with debt. Qatar will own 17 percent of VW with options accumulated from Porsche, making the Gulf kingdom the third-largest investor in Europe’s biggest carmaker.
Qatar used its $63 billion sovereign wealth fund to give the world’s second-richest country behind Liechtenstein investment clout, snapping up stakes in established brands or troubled companies in need of cash. Four years after its inception, the fund has become the biggest shareholder in Barclays Plc, J. Sainsbury Plc and Credit Suisse AG.
“There is an incentive to invest in these known, luxury- sort of top brands,” said Rachel Ziemba, a senior analyst at New York’s RGE Monitor, which researches sovereign wealth funds. “Rather than investing in a whole number of companies that might be harder to keep track of, Qatar’s investment strategy is more akin to a private equity model.”
Hailed by Germany’s Manager Magazin as “The Saviors from the Orient,” Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has transformed his country of about 1 million citizens into a center of education and research that include the Arabic television network Al Jazeera and local campuses of six U.S. universities.
Sandhurst Education
Born in 1952 and a graduate of the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in the U.K., the emir has opened up his country to embrace freedom of press and improved education, and Qatar hosted municipal elections in which women and men participated.
The emir’s wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, heads the Qatar Foundation that fosters education and research. Qatar’s interest in German engineering partly stems from her personal preference for Porsche cars, German newspapers Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have reported.
The sheikha wants to use Porsche’s engineering expertise to complement a science technology center that she helps oversee as chairman of the Qatar Foundation, she told Germany’s Focus magazine in June. She recently toured European countries including Germany and France to deepen ties. Spokespeople for the emir and the Qatari Investment Fund declined to comment.
German Engineering
Porsche sales in Qatar have more than tripled in three years to more than 600 units in the last 12 months, according to the company. Porsches typically adorn the entrances of luxury hotels or cruise down the six-lane cornice along the crescent- shaped seafront of Doha, the Qatari capital.
“This also reflects our fantastic business development in the whole region over the last couple of years,” Porsche spokesman Michael Baumann said in an e-mail. Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche told workers at a gathering in Stuttgart, Germany today that Porsche will seek to preserve its independence and that Porsche’s “myth will never die.”
Qatar emerged as an investor after the carmaker’s unsuccessful bid for Volkswagen created a rift between CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and Wolfgang Porsche on the one side, and Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech on the other.
Wiedeking agreed to step down yesterday, paving the way to integrate Porsche’s car manufacturing into Volkswagen alongside brands such as Audi and Bentley. The Porsche SE holding company will remain Volkswagen’s biggest shareholder with about 51 percent of the shares, while the federal state of Lower Saxony will own 20 percent. Michael Macht, Porsche’s head of production, will succeed Wiedeking.
British Protectorate
“Porsche appears to be now firmly stuck in the mud unable to have any control over its destiny,” said Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist at BGC Partners LP in London.
When Porsche was established in the 1930s, Qatar was an isolated British protectorate, without schools or a fully functioning hospital. The country, once dependent on its pearl industry, began exporting oil after World War II.
By the 1960s, Qatar’s network of paved roads included one to the west coast oil fields and another south to Qatar’s Mesaieed industrial center, said Vahe Halajian, managing director of sign maker Qatar Neon Light Co.
“Anywhere else you wanted to go, you had to have four- wheel drive,” said Halajian, a U.S. citizen who first visited Qatar in 1963 when his father opened the sign business in Doha. “I wouldn’t recommend driving a Porsche on the Qatar roads in the 60s.”
Petroleum Wealth
Gas exports have helped increase Qatar’s gross domestic product to $101 billion, or $101,000 for each of the about 1 million men, women and children on the thumb-shaped peninsula -- among the highest per-capita GDPs in the world.
The Gulf has become a key investor in the German car industry as cash dwindles amid the worst automotive market in decades. Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments PJSC bought 9.1 percent of Daimler AG for 1.95 billion euros in March to become the largest shareholder in the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars. Kuwait is its second-largest owner with 6.9 percent.
“Porsche has acquired the reputation of one of the most renowned and versatile providers of engineering services the world over,” Abdelali Haoudi, vice president of research for the Qatar Foundation, said in a July 21 e-mail. Porsche “is truly a remarkable and an outstanding piece of technology that Qatar as a whole can benefit from.”
‘Significant Role’
The sovereign wealth fund overseen by Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani was created in 2005 to spend Qatar’s surplus generated from petroleum exports. Smaller than neighboring Abu Dhabi’s $700 billion fund or Norway’s $350 billion oil fund, the Qatari fund’s strategy of taking large stakes may help the Gulf state become a more active shareholder.
“I see them as being investors that want to take a significant role in the management of the companies they are taking stakes in,” said Ziemba, the RGE Monitor analyst.
Qatar’s overtures haven’t always been welcome. In September 2007, the emirate bought 9.98 percent of Swedish stock-market operator OMX AB, threatening a bid by Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. and Borse Dubai for the exchange. OMX founder Olof Stenhammar said at the time that he didn’t know what Qatar wanted or understand its strategy. After forcing the other suitors to raise their price, Qatar left the battle and sold its holding.
Today, Qatar can rely on its status as the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas producer to fuel its investment ambitions, as other sovereign wealth funds retrench. Norway’s fund had its worst return in its 18-year history in the third quarter, and Abu Dhabi’s fund also lost in value, Ziemba estimates.
For Qatar, there’s no sign the development will slow, as the kingdom plans to more than double output of liquefied natural gas by the end of 2010.
Qatar has “a favorable cash flow position because of the development of the gas fields,” said Brad Setser, an economist at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, an independent institute that studies geopolitics. “It’s in a position to continue to invest where some other funds are not.”
Porsche SE yesterday agreed to combine with Volkswagen AG after a four-year attempt to take over the larger German rival left Porsche paralyzed with debt. Qatar will own 17 percent of VW with options accumulated from Porsche, making the Gulf kingdom the third-largest investor in Europe’s biggest carmaker.
Qatar used its $63 billion sovereign wealth fund to give the world’s second-richest country behind Liechtenstein investment clout, snapping up stakes in established brands or troubled companies in need of cash. Four years after its inception, the fund has become the biggest shareholder in Barclays Plc, J. Sainsbury Plc and Credit Suisse AG.
“There is an incentive to invest in these known, luxury- sort of top brands,” said Rachel Ziemba, a senior analyst at New York’s RGE Monitor, which researches sovereign wealth funds. “Rather than investing in a whole number of companies that might be harder to keep track of, Qatar’s investment strategy is more akin to a private equity model.”
Hailed by Germany’s Manager Magazin as “The Saviors from the Orient,” Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has transformed his country of about 1 million citizens into a center of education and research that include the Arabic television network Al Jazeera and local campuses of six U.S. universities.
Sandhurst Education
Born in 1952 and a graduate of the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst in the U.K., the emir has opened up his country to embrace freedom of press and improved education, and Qatar hosted municipal elections in which women and men participated.
The emir’s wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, heads the Qatar Foundation that fosters education and research. Qatar’s interest in German engineering partly stems from her personal preference for Porsche cars, German newspapers Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have reported.
The sheikha wants to use Porsche’s engineering expertise to complement a science technology center that she helps oversee as chairman of the Qatar Foundation, she told Germany’s Focus magazine in June. She recently toured European countries including Germany and France to deepen ties. Spokespeople for the emir and the Qatari Investment Fund declined to comment.
German Engineering
Porsche sales in Qatar have more than tripled in three years to more than 600 units in the last 12 months, according to the company. Porsches typically adorn the entrances of luxury hotels or cruise down the six-lane cornice along the crescent- shaped seafront of Doha, the Qatari capital.
“This also reflects our fantastic business development in the whole region over the last couple of years,” Porsche spokesman Michael Baumann said in an e-mail. Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche told workers at a gathering in Stuttgart, Germany today that Porsche will seek to preserve its independence and that Porsche’s “myth will never die.”
Qatar emerged as an investor after the carmaker’s unsuccessful bid for Volkswagen created a rift between CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and Wolfgang Porsche on the one side, and Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech on the other.
Wiedeking agreed to step down yesterday, paving the way to integrate Porsche’s car manufacturing into Volkswagen alongside brands such as Audi and Bentley. The Porsche SE holding company will remain Volkswagen’s biggest shareholder with about 51 percent of the shares, while the federal state of Lower Saxony will own 20 percent. Michael Macht, Porsche’s head of production, will succeed Wiedeking.
British Protectorate
“Porsche appears to be now firmly stuck in the mud unable to have any control over its destiny,” said Howard Wheeldon, a senior strategist at BGC Partners LP in London.
When Porsche was established in the 1930s, Qatar was an isolated British protectorate, without schools or a fully functioning hospital. The country, once dependent on its pearl industry, began exporting oil after World War II.
By the 1960s, Qatar’s network of paved roads included one to the west coast oil fields and another south to Qatar’s Mesaieed industrial center, said Vahe Halajian, managing director of sign maker Qatar Neon Light Co.
“Anywhere else you wanted to go, you had to have four- wheel drive,” said Halajian, a U.S. citizen who first visited Qatar in 1963 when his father opened the sign business in Doha. “I wouldn’t recommend driving a Porsche on the Qatar roads in the 60s.”
Petroleum Wealth
Gas exports have helped increase Qatar’s gross domestic product to $101 billion, or $101,000 for each of the about 1 million men, women and children on the thumb-shaped peninsula -- among the highest per-capita GDPs in the world.
The Gulf has become a key investor in the German car industry as cash dwindles amid the worst automotive market in decades. Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments PJSC bought 9.1 percent of Daimler AG for 1.95 billion euros in March to become the largest shareholder in the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars. Kuwait is its second-largest owner with 6.9 percent.
“Porsche has acquired the reputation of one of the most renowned and versatile providers of engineering services the world over,” Abdelali Haoudi, vice president of research for the Qatar Foundation, said in a July 21 e-mail. Porsche “is truly a remarkable and an outstanding piece of technology that Qatar as a whole can benefit from.”
‘Significant Role’
The sovereign wealth fund overseen by Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani was created in 2005 to spend Qatar’s surplus generated from petroleum exports. Smaller than neighboring Abu Dhabi’s $700 billion fund or Norway’s $350 billion oil fund, the Qatari fund’s strategy of taking large stakes may help the Gulf state become a more active shareholder.
“I see them as being investors that want to take a significant role in the management of the companies they are taking stakes in,” said Ziemba, the RGE Monitor analyst.
Qatar’s overtures haven’t always been welcome. In September 2007, the emirate bought 9.98 percent of Swedish stock-market operator OMX AB, threatening a bid by Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. and Borse Dubai for the exchange. OMX founder Olof Stenhammar said at the time that he didn’t know what Qatar wanted or understand its strategy. After forcing the other suitors to raise their price, Qatar left the battle and sold its holding.
Today, Qatar can rely on its status as the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas producer to fuel its investment ambitions, as other sovereign wealth funds retrench. Norway’s fund had its worst return in its 18-year history in the third quarter, and Abu Dhabi’s fund also lost in value, Ziemba estimates.
For Qatar, there’s no sign the development will slow, as the kingdom plans to more than double output of liquefied natural gas by the end of 2010.
Qatar has “a favorable cash flow position because of the development of the gas fields,” said Brad Setser, an economist at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, an independent institute that studies geopolitics. “It’s in a position to continue to invest where some other funds are not.”
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Japanese export decreases sharply
Japan’s exports fell in June at the slowest pace this year as demand picked up worldwide, helping the trade surplus widen for the first time in 20 months and setting the stage for an economic recovery.
Shipments abroad declined 35.7 percent from a year earlier, after dropping 40.9 percent in May, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The surplus widened to 508 billion yen ($5.4 billion).
Faster growth in China is propping up sales for Japanese manufacturers including Komatsu Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. The recovery in shipments from the record collapse spurred by the financial crisis probably helped the economy grow for the first time in more than a year last quarter.
“There’s no doubt China has been a driving force for Japan’s exports,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo. “Manufacturers will probably continue to increase production amid the improvement in exports, and that’s good for the economic outlook.”
The Bank of Japan last week raised its assessment of the economy for a third month, citing rebounds in trade and factory production. “Economic conditions have stopped worsening,” the central bank said.
The yen traded at 93.69 per dollar at 10:08 a.m. in Tokyo from 93.59 before the report was published. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.1 percent to 9,711.14.
Economists predicted exports would decrease 35.1 percent. From a month earlier, shipments rose 1.1 percent.
Economy Grows
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predict the world’s second- largest economy expanded an annualized 2.4 percent in the three months ended June 30, growing for the first time in five quarters. Gross domestic product shrank a record 14.2 percent in the previous three months.
Demand picked up in all regions. Exports to China fell 23.7 percent last month from a year earlier, the smallest drop since October. Shipments to the U.S. declined 37.6 percent, the least since December, and sales to Europe slid 41.4 percent, also the best this year.
The International Monetary Fund said this month the global economic rebound next year will be stronger than it predicted in April, raising its forecast for world growth to 2.5 percent for 2010 from an April estimate of 1.9 percent.
China, which grew 7.9 percent last quarter, has surpassed the U.S. as Japan’s biggest export customer. Government subsidies to encourage consumer spending and investment in building projects have benefited Japanese manufacturers.
Most Important
“The bottom line is that China’s strong growth will continue to drive Japan’s exports,” said Kiichi Murashima, chief economist at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. in Tokyo. “Exports are the single most important factor for the economic outlook.”
Tokyo-based Komatsu, the world’s second-biggest maker of earthmovers, said last month its sales in China probably beat expectations in the quarter ended June 30. The company expects the market to grow to about 15 percent of total sales this business year, compared with 10 percent in 2008.
Nissan, whose Chinese sales rose 18 percent in the first five months of the year, will have to increase shipments of engines and transmissions from Japan to feed higher output at its factories in Guangzhou and Hubei, according to Tokyo-based spokeswoman Pauline Kee.
Japan will still need demand to pick up from the U.S. and elsewhere because about half of Japan’s exports to China are parts and materials used to make products that are re-exported, according to Nikko Citigroup’s Murashima.
“About half of Japan’s export to China eventually go to other industrial countries after assembly,” Murashima said. “So we’re a bit cautious about connecting the strength in Japan’s exports to China to resilience in total exports and the overall economy.”
The central bank will release a report later today showing trade volumes on a month-on-month basis, data which correlates closely with the export component of GDP, according to London- based Capital Economics Ltd.
Shipments abroad declined 35.7 percent from a year earlier, after dropping 40.9 percent in May, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The surplus widened to 508 billion yen ($5.4 billion).
Faster growth in China is propping up sales for Japanese manufacturers including Komatsu Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. The recovery in shipments from the record collapse spurred by the financial crisis probably helped the economy grow for the first time in more than a year last quarter.
“There’s no doubt China has been a driving force for Japan’s exports,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo. “Manufacturers will probably continue to increase production amid the improvement in exports, and that’s good for the economic outlook.”
The Bank of Japan last week raised its assessment of the economy for a third month, citing rebounds in trade and factory production. “Economic conditions have stopped worsening,” the central bank said.
The yen traded at 93.69 per dollar at 10:08 a.m. in Tokyo from 93.59 before the report was published. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.1 percent to 9,711.14.
Economists predicted exports would decrease 35.1 percent. From a month earlier, shipments rose 1.1 percent.
Economy Grows
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predict the world’s second- largest economy expanded an annualized 2.4 percent in the three months ended June 30, growing for the first time in five quarters. Gross domestic product shrank a record 14.2 percent in the previous three months.
Demand picked up in all regions. Exports to China fell 23.7 percent last month from a year earlier, the smallest drop since October. Shipments to the U.S. declined 37.6 percent, the least since December, and sales to Europe slid 41.4 percent, also the best this year.
The International Monetary Fund said this month the global economic rebound next year will be stronger than it predicted in April, raising its forecast for world growth to 2.5 percent for 2010 from an April estimate of 1.9 percent.
China, which grew 7.9 percent last quarter, has surpassed the U.S. as Japan’s biggest export customer. Government subsidies to encourage consumer spending and investment in building projects have benefited Japanese manufacturers.
Most Important
“The bottom line is that China’s strong growth will continue to drive Japan’s exports,” said Kiichi Murashima, chief economist at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. in Tokyo. “Exports are the single most important factor for the economic outlook.”
Tokyo-based Komatsu, the world’s second-biggest maker of earthmovers, said last month its sales in China probably beat expectations in the quarter ended June 30. The company expects the market to grow to about 15 percent of total sales this business year, compared with 10 percent in 2008.
Nissan, whose Chinese sales rose 18 percent in the first five months of the year, will have to increase shipments of engines and transmissions from Japan to feed higher output at its factories in Guangzhou and Hubei, according to Tokyo-based spokeswoman Pauline Kee.
Japan will still need demand to pick up from the U.S. and elsewhere because about half of Japan’s exports to China are parts and materials used to make products that are re-exported, according to Nikko Citigroup’s Murashima.
“About half of Japan’s export to China eventually go to other industrial countries after assembly,” Murashima said. “So we’re a bit cautious about connecting the strength in Japan’s exports to China to resilience in total exports and the overall economy.”
The central bank will release a report later today showing trade volumes on a month-on-month basis, data which correlates closely with the export component of GDP, according to London- based Capital Economics Ltd.
Bashir claims that the terror will not end up to Indonesia to respect the Shariah
Indonesian police released sketches of the suspected suicide bombers who attacked two luxury hotels in Jakarta, as a radical Muslim cleric said terrorism won’t end until the government respects the supremacy of Islamic law.
Authorities are struggling to identify the bombers, six days after the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton and yesterday appealed to the public for help. Nine people were killed in the bombings.
The Marriot bombing suspect was described as a male aged between 16 and 17, while the man who attacked the Ritz was said to be between 20 and 40 years old. Police say the bombings may be linked to the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for killing more than 280 people in a six-year bombing campaign in Indonesia.
“The main cause of this disaster is the Indonesian government,” the Australian newspaper cited Abu Bakar Bashir, JI’s alleged spiritual leader, as saying yesterday. “This will not end until the government follows the right path.”
Bashir, who lives in the grounds of an Islamic school in Java, refused to condemn the attacks and said violence was justified in the fight against non-Muslims, the newspaper said.
He endorsed the work of Noordin Mohammad Top, a wanted terrorist allegedly linked to the bombings, saying he “fights to defend Islam,” according to the report.
Bashir denies being JI’s spiritual head and his conviction for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006. He continues to call for jihad, or holy war, against the West.
Islamic Extremism
Some terrorism analysts say the government must crack down on Bashir and other clerics in order to uproot Islamic extremism in the nation of 248 million people, the world’s most populous Muslim country.
“If Indonesia is serious about fighting JI they must arrest and retry” Bashir for “preaching hatred,” Rohan Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said this week.
Police carried out DNA tests on the remains of the hotel bombers in an effort to identify them, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said yesterday. The results showed they didn’t belong to men called Nur Hasbi and Ibrahim, who were identified in local media reports as the suspected bombers.
Soekarna declined to comment on media reports that Noordin’s wife was arrested by counterterrorism police in Central Java.
Suspected Mastermind
Noordin is the suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and was allegedly involved in the 2003 bombing at the same Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people, a 2004 blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed at least nine, and another attack in Bali in 2005 when three suicide bombers killed themselves and 20 other people.
He leads a JI splinter organization, and after the Bali attack in 2005 identified himself as the head of a group called al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program refers to Noordin as one of the most dangerous members of JI, saying he is “believed to be a top recruiter, strategist and fundraiser.”
The near-simultaneous bombings on the hotels were the first terrorist attacks in Indonesia in almost four years. The attackers killed themselves and wounded about 50. Three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian were among the dead and police are carrying out tests to confirm a Dutch couple was killed.
Authorities are struggling to identify the bombers, six days after the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton and yesterday appealed to the public for help. Nine people were killed in the bombings.
The Marriot bombing suspect was described as a male aged between 16 and 17, while the man who attacked the Ritz was said to be between 20 and 40 years old. Police say the bombings may be linked to the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is blamed for killing more than 280 people in a six-year bombing campaign in Indonesia.
“The main cause of this disaster is the Indonesian government,” the Australian newspaper cited Abu Bakar Bashir, JI’s alleged spiritual leader, as saying yesterday. “This will not end until the government follows the right path.”
Bashir, who lives in the grounds of an Islamic school in Java, refused to condemn the attacks and said violence was justified in the fight against non-Muslims, the newspaper said.
He endorsed the work of Noordin Mohammad Top, a wanted terrorist allegedly linked to the bombings, saying he “fights to defend Islam,” according to the report.
Bashir denies being JI’s spiritual head and his conviction for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006. He continues to call for jihad, or holy war, against the West.
Islamic Extremism
Some terrorism analysts say the government must crack down on Bashir and other clerics in order to uproot Islamic extremism in the nation of 248 million people, the world’s most populous Muslim country.
“If Indonesia is serious about fighting JI they must arrest and retry” Bashir for “preaching hatred,” Rohan Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said this week.
Police carried out DNA tests on the remains of the hotel bombers in an effort to identify them, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said yesterday. The results showed they didn’t belong to men called Nur Hasbi and Ibrahim, who were identified in local media reports as the suspected bombers.
Soekarna declined to comment on media reports that Noordin’s wife was arrested by counterterrorism police in Central Java.
Suspected Mastermind
Noordin is the suspected mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and was allegedly involved in the 2003 bombing at the same Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people, a 2004 blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed at least nine, and another attack in Bali in 2005 when three suicide bombers killed themselves and 20 other people.
He leads a JI splinter organization, and after the Bali attack in 2005 identified himself as the head of a group called al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program refers to Noordin as one of the most dangerous members of JI, saying he is “believed to be a top recruiter, strategist and fundraiser.”
The near-simultaneous bombings on the hotels were the first terrorist attacks in Indonesia in almost four years. The attackers killed themselves and wounded about 50. Three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian were among the dead and police are carrying out tests to confirm a Dutch couple was killed.
Hong Kong Bank intends to Buy Back Lehman
Hong Kong banks offered to pay at least 60 cents on the dollar to investors in notes linked to failed Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a move aimed at ending a 10-month dispute that sparked street protests across the city. Some investors said that’s not enough.
The total compensation, announced yesterday by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Securities and Futures Commission at a televised press conference, would amount to about HK$6.3 billion ($813 million).
That’s “not reasonable,” Peter Chan, chairman of the Allied Victims of Lehman Products, said in a phone interview. “I can’t agree, and won’t accept the settlement plan as it’s not acceptable and fair to us. How can the SFC let the banks get away with it so easily?”
Banks that sold an estimated $1.8 billion of the so-called Lehman minibonds are seeking to end a controversy that led to protests outside lenders’ offices and forced them to change the way they sell investment products to individuals. Hong Kong’s government said the settlement is fair and pledged to strengthen investor protection.
“This is a reasonable compromise,” said Peter Yuen, a partner at law firm Freshfields in Hong Kong. “To go for 100 percent compensation will be a long fought battle and probably unlikely to beat the current offer.” Freshfields represented one of the banks in the dispute that it declined to identify.
Public Scolding
Hong Kong is an example of how the financial devastation resulting from Lehman’s Sept. 15 bankruptcy rippled across the globe. As the securities plunged and allegations of mis-selling mounted, citizens who lost their savings took to the streets and lawmakers scolded the heads of the city’s central bank and securities watchdog in public.
The minibond debacle “exposes the problems with both the regulations and banks’ selling methods,” Peter Wong, head of the Hong Kong unit of HSBC Holdings Plc, said in a July 13 interview. HSBC, the biggest bank in Hong Kong by branches, and its local subsidiary, Hang Seng Bank Ltd., didn’t sell the notes.
The banks will repurchase the notes in two stages, said Securities and Futures Commission Chief Executive Martin Wheatley.
Note buyers will receive at least 60 percent of the principal, Wheatley said. About 29,000 minibond investors are eligible for compensation. Banks’ losses related to the refunds are “difficult to estimate,” Choi said.
Recovering Funds
Beyond the 60 percent floor, refunds will depend on how much collateral banks can collect from Lehman’s liquidators. If banks recover the full collateral, minibond investors will be fully compensated. Banks will use fees earned from the note sales to fund the recovery effort.
“If the agreement is accepted, the vast majority of investors will be able to get back 70 percent or more of their original investments,” Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang said in a statement. “The agreement will put an end to more than 10 months of distress for investors.”
Lehman’s bankruptcy caused the value of the notes to collapse, even though they were tied to the debt of other companies that remained viable. The minibonds were distributed by local brokerage Sun Hung Kai Financial Ltd. and sold by 19 Hong Kong banks.
The inquiry into the alleged mis-selling prompted the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to propose that banks physically separate deposit-taking and investment businesses at their branches and tape all conversations related to sales of investment products.
Elderly, Poorly Educated
The notes, guaranteed by Lehman and linked to the debt of major Hong Kong companies like Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., were sold to more than 40,000 investors. Among buyers were elderly and poorly educated people as well as mentally ill individuals, according to an investigation by the city’s central bank made public by lawmakers on April 28.
Buyers of the Lehman minibonds were required to invest at least $5,000, compared with $100,000 for most bonds sold to institutions, making them popular among retail investors.
Sun Hung Kai Financial in February agreed to fully repay minibond buyers, putting pressure on other sellers to follow suit. Sun Hung Kai paid about HK$86 million and KGI Asia Ltd., the local unit of the Taiwan-based brokerage, spent about HK$1.5 million to repurchase the notes.
Daily Protests
Backed by lawmakers and volunteer groups, investors have staged almost daily protests since October, demanding refunds.
At a July 1 march, about 2,000 protesters wore black T- shirts and carried placards accusing banks that distributed the products of fraud and betraying public trust. Some tried to cross a police barrier to break into the Bank of China building in the city’s Central business district.
The scandal touched some of the city’s most senior financial officials.
Joseph Yam, the outgoing head of the central bank, has testified six times in front of a special committee set up by the city’s parliament, and lawmakers accused his organization of negligence. Wheatley testified four times.
On July 3, local newspapers including Sing Tao Daily reported that 16 Hong Kong banks had sent a formal proposal to the SFC offering investors compensation of 60 percent to 70 percent of face value.
Quizzed by lawmakers about the proposals at the time, Wheatley said partial compensation could be unfair to some investors.
“When you have a negotiation, there’s bound to be posturing from both sides,” Regina Ip, an independent legislator who was involved in brokering the settlement, said in a July 16 interview. “At the end of the day if you want to get to yes, there has to be give and take.”
The total compensation, announced yesterday by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Securities and Futures Commission at a televised press conference, would amount to about HK$6.3 billion ($813 million).
That’s “not reasonable,” Peter Chan, chairman of the Allied Victims of Lehman Products, said in a phone interview. “I can’t agree, and won’t accept the settlement plan as it’s not acceptable and fair to us. How can the SFC let the banks get away with it so easily?”
Banks that sold an estimated $1.8 billion of the so-called Lehman minibonds are seeking to end a controversy that led to protests outside lenders’ offices and forced them to change the way they sell investment products to individuals. Hong Kong’s government said the settlement is fair and pledged to strengthen investor protection.
“This is a reasonable compromise,” said Peter Yuen, a partner at law firm Freshfields in Hong Kong. “To go for 100 percent compensation will be a long fought battle and probably unlikely to beat the current offer.” Freshfields represented one of the banks in the dispute that it declined to identify.
Public Scolding
Hong Kong is an example of how the financial devastation resulting from Lehman’s Sept. 15 bankruptcy rippled across the globe. As the securities plunged and allegations of mis-selling mounted, citizens who lost their savings took to the streets and lawmakers scolded the heads of the city’s central bank and securities watchdog in public.
The minibond debacle “exposes the problems with both the regulations and banks’ selling methods,” Peter Wong, head of the Hong Kong unit of HSBC Holdings Plc, said in a July 13 interview. HSBC, the biggest bank in Hong Kong by branches, and its local subsidiary, Hang Seng Bank Ltd., didn’t sell the notes.
The banks will repurchase the notes in two stages, said Securities and Futures Commission Chief Executive Martin Wheatley.
Note buyers will receive at least 60 percent of the principal, Wheatley said. About 29,000 minibond investors are eligible for compensation. Banks’ losses related to the refunds are “difficult to estimate,” Choi said.
Recovering Funds
Beyond the 60 percent floor, refunds will depend on how much collateral banks can collect from Lehman’s liquidators. If banks recover the full collateral, minibond investors will be fully compensated. Banks will use fees earned from the note sales to fund the recovery effort.
“If the agreement is accepted, the vast majority of investors will be able to get back 70 percent or more of their original investments,” Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang said in a statement. “The agreement will put an end to more than 10 months of distress for investors.”
Lehman’s bankruptcy caused the value of the notes to collapse, even though they were tied to the debt of other companies that remained viable. The minibonds were distributed by local brokerage Sun Hung Kai Financial Ltd. and sold by 19 Hong Kong banks.
The inquiry into the alleged mis-selling prompted the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to propose that banks physically separate deposit-taking and investment businesses at their branches and tape all conversations related to sales of investment products.
Elderly, Poorly Educated
The notes, guaranteed by Lehman and linked to the debt of major Hong Kong companies like Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd., were sold to more than 40,000 investors. Among buyers were elderly and poorly educated people as well as mentally ill individuals, according to an investigation by the city’s central bank made public by lawmakers on April 28.
Buyers of the Lehman minibonds were required to invest at least $5,000, compared with $100,000 for most bonds sold to institutions, making them popular among retail investors.
Sun Hung Kai Financial in February agreed to fully repay minibond buyers, putting pressure on other sellers to follow suit. Sun Hung Kai paid about HK$86 million and KGI Asia Ltd., the local unit of the Taiwan-based brokerage, spent about HK$1.5 million to repurchase the notes.
Daily Protests
Backed by lawmakers and volunteer groups, investors have staged almost daily protests since October, demanding refunds.
At a July 1 march, about 2,000 protesters wore black T- shirts and carried placards accusing banks that distributed the products of fraud and betraying public trust. Some tried to cross a police barrier to break into the Bank of China building in the city’s Central business district.
The scandal touched some of the city’s most senior financial officials.
Joseph Yam, the outgoing head of the central bank, has testified six times in front of a special committee set up by the city’s parliament, and lawmakers accused his organization of negligence. Wheatley testified four times.
On July 3, local newspapers including Sing Tao Daily reported that 16 Hong Kong banks had sent a formal proposal to the SFC offering investors compensation of 60 percent to 70 percent of face value.
Quizzed by lawmakers about the proposals at the time, Wheatley said partial compensation could be unfair to some investors.
“When you have a negotiation, there’s bound to be posturing from both sides,” Regina Ip, an independent legislator who was involved in brokering the settlement, said in a July 16 interview. “At the end of the day if you want to get to yes, there has to be give and take.”
Medarex Sold for $2.4 Billion
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to buy the claim Medarex Inc. approximately $ 2.4 billion to increase investment in cancer care product.
Bristol will pay $16 a share, a 90 percent premium over today’s closing price of $8.40 a share for Princeton, New Jersey-based Medarex, the companies said today in a statement. Medarex has about $300 million in cash and securities that reduces the cost of the acquisition to about $2.1 billion, Bristol-Myers said. Both boards agreed to the deal unanimously, according to the statement.
Bristol-Myers Chief Executive Officer James M. Cornelius has been eliminating jobs and outsourcing to reduce costs by $2.5 billion in the next three years. The New York-based company has been making acquisitions and forming partnerships to help offset revenue Bristol-Myers will lose when generic copies of Plavix, its top-selling medicine, come on the market in 2012.
“Medarex’s technology platform, people and pipeline provide a strong component to our company’s biologics strategy, specifically immuno-oncology,” Cornelius said in the statement. “This acquisition is another important step in our biopharma transformation.”
JPMorgan Chase is advising Bristol-Myers, and Goldman Sachs is working with Medarex.
Medarex gained $6.75 to $15.15 after extending trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market resumed at 7:45 p.m. New York time.
Skin Cancer
Bristol-Myers will gain full ownership of ipilimumab, the experimental drug for metastatic melanoma that the companies were working on together. Ipilimumab is in the final of three stages of testing typically required for regulatory approval. The companies are also studying the drug in lung cancer and certain types of prostate cancer.
Last month, Medarex shares jumped 13 percent after the Mayo Clinic said three prostate cancer patients who received ipilimumab are now cancer-free. Doctors reported the drug, in combination with other treatments, helped kill prostate cancer cells and shrink the tumors in the patients, allowing surgery.
Bristol-Myers will gain rights to seven experimental antibodies owned by Medarex and stakes in three more drugs shared by the company, according to the statement. It will also acquire Medarex’s drug-development technology used to find new ways to treat cancer and immunology disorders.
Bristol will pay $16 a share, a 90 percent premium over today’s closing price of $8.40 a share for Princeton, New Jersey-based Medarex, the companies said today in a statement. Medarex has about $300 million in cash and securities that reduces the cost of the acquisition to about $2.1 billion, Bristol-Myers said. Both boards agreed to the deal unanimously, according to the statement.
Bristol-Myers Chief Executive Officer James M. Cornelius has been eliminating jobs and outsourcing to reduce costs by $2.5 billion in the next three years. The New York-based company has been making acquisitions and forming partnerships to help offset revenue Bristol-Myers will lose when generic copies of Plavix, its top-selling medicine, come on the market in 2012.
“Medarex’s technology platform, people and pipeline provide a strong component to our company’s biologics strategy, specifically immuno-oncology,” Cornelius said in the statement. “This acquisition is another important step in our biopharma transformation.”
JPMorgan Chase is advising Bristol-Myers, and Goldman Sachs is working with Medarex.
Medarex gained $6.75 to $15.15 after extending trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market resumed at 7:45 p.m. New York time.
Skin Cancer
Bristol-Myers will gain full ownership of ipilimumab, the experimental drug for metastatic melanoma that the companies were working on together. Ipilimumab is in the final of three stages of testing typically required for regulatory approval. The companies are also studying the drug in lung cancer and certain types of prostate cancer.
Last month, Medarex shares jumped 13 percent after the Mayo Clinic said three prostate cancer patients who received ipilimumab are now cancer-free. Doctors reported the drug, in combination with other treatments, helped kill prostate cancer cells and shrink the tumors in the patients, allowing surgery.
Bristol-Myers will gain rights to seven experimental antibodies owned by Medarex and stakes in three more drugs shared by the company, according to the statement. It will also acquire Medarex’s drug-development technology used to find new ways to treat cancer and immunology disorders.
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