- Traders go short on LSE shares
- London’s hedge funds outpace the rest
- LSE to cancel 30 shell listings
- Cashed-up hedge funds beat path to Asia Pacific
- Change in Goldman Index Played Role in Gasoline Price Drop
- Morgan Stanley star analyst Andy Xie resigns
- Merger activity yet to recover
- Merger Activity Sets Stage for Record Year
- Morgan Stanley buys bank to gain China access
- Morgan Stanley set for China advantage
- Credit Suisse restores asset management leadership
- Boardroom pay rises twice as fast as share prices
- Glass ceiling still blocks women from executive floor
- Pru sees surgery as a survival tactic
- Google purchases the garage that launched the company
- Google Search In Big Apple Ends On 8th Ave.
- Yahoo! Blues
- ‘Spy methods’ used in other companies
- GM on a crash course with health care costs
- Stansted comes up short for the A380
- Rusal Nears Deal to Form Metals Giant
- Permira’s ‘Sledgehammer’ to crack open Britvic bid
- Harrah’s in Talks To Be Acquired By Buyout Firms
- Playboy Resurrects Nightclub in Vegas
- Ebay’s Express to take on Amazon
- Eddie’s Mad $$$ [Eddie Lampert]
- Bidders line up for Ahold’s E3bn US foods business
Traders go short on LSE shares – The Times of London
THE London Stock Exchange has become one of the most shorted stocks in the UK market, with traders staking nearly £340m on the chance that the share price is set to fall.
Almost 13% of the LSE’s stock is currently being borrowed, which is mainly used to cover short positions. Traders are thought to have sold nearly 28m shares in the LSE they do not own with a view to buying them back later at a lower price.
Although Nasdaq is tomorrow free to buy more LSE stock after the acquisition of a 25% stake six months ago, experts say the data, from Transaction Explorer, the stock-loan tracker, shows investors the LSE share price is at its high.
The data also shows that traders are heavily shorting the stock of the other exchanges, suggesting they have lost confidence that the battle for global consolidation will materialise. Nearly 10% of the New York Stock Exchange stock is on loan, 7% of Deutsche Börse and 4% of Euronext.
Will Duff Gordon, director of the Data Explorer which owns Transaction Explorer, said: “There seems to be a real belief that the mergers between the exchanges might not come off…..
London’s hedge funds outpace the rest - The Times of London
LONDON’S biggest hedge fund managers are pulling away from the rest of the pack as investors favour larger players, according to a new ranking published today.
Some big asset managers have produced asset growth of 50 per cent and in some cases 100 per cent in the past year, according to EuroHedge, the industry publisher.
“The big firms are getting bigger very quickly and they have shown a much faster growth rate in recent months than the rest of the industry,” Nick Evans, its editor, said.
EuroHedge’s ranking shows Man Group as Europe’s biggest hedge fund manager of single-strategy assets, with $16.2 billion (£8.6 billion) under management, closely followed by GLG and BlueCrest.
Institutional investors such as pension funds are replacing rich individuals as the main sources of new money. They are drawn more to larger firms with well-known names and seemingly better risk management systems and operational controls….
LSE to cancel 30 shell listings – The Times of London
The London Stock Exchange will cancel the listings this week of about 30 shell companies on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) that have failed to do deals since their flotations.
The LSE has been cracking down all year on such companies, cash shells that come to market with vague and unspecified plans for corporate moves but fail to do so, thereby locking in investors’ money.
The authorities are concerned that, in extreme cases, companies have been floated with the sole intention of raising cash to pay directors’ salaries for an extended period.
As early as today the LSE will also publish a consultation paper aimed at tightening the guidelines that spell out more clearly the duties of nominated advisers, or nomads, that bring companies to AIM. There has been concern that some nomads have been disproportionately responsible for bringing unsuccessful or poorly performing businesses to market
Cashed-up hedge funds beat path to Asia Pacific – The Australian
SOME of the world’s largest hedge funds have made an unusual appearance in Australia with UBS hosting a Melbourne conference attended by firms including FrontPoint Partners, Highbridge, Och-Ziff Capital Management, Pequot Capital and York Capital.
Hedge funds are lightly regulated pools of private capital that invest in an enormous variety of different assets and geographical markets. They also make up one of the fastest-growing parts of the world’s financial markets.
The global industry might now be $US1.5 trillion ($2 trillion) in size compared with just $US400-$US450 billion five years ago.
By contrast, the Australian industry manages a mere $35 billion, according to a study compiled earlier this year by Axiss Australia — although it is the largest in the region.
"We have a very strong financial services industry," Finance Minister Nick Minchin said after the keynote address last week to the conference….
Change in Goldman Index Played Role in Gasoline Price Drop – New York Times
Politics and worries about oil supplies may have caused gasoline prices to go up at the pump earlier this year, but one big investment bank quietly helped their rapid drop in recent weeks, according to some economists, traders and analysts.
Goldman Sachs, which runs the largest commodity index, the G.S.C.I., said in early August that it was reducing the index’s weighting in gasoline futures significantly. The announcement did not make big headlines, but it has reverberated through the markets in the weeks since and some other investors who had been betting that gasoline would rise followed suit on their weightings.
“They started unwinding their positions, and those other longs also rushed to the door at the same time,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation.
Wholesale prices for New York Harbor unleaded gasoline, the major gasoline contract traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, dropped 18 cents a gallon on Aug. 10, to $1.9889 a gallon, a decline of more than 8 percent, and they have dropped further since then. In New York on Friday, gasoline futures for October delivery rose 4.81 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $1.5492 a gallon. Prices have fallen 9.4 percent this year…..
Morgan Stanley star analyst Andy Xie resigns – Reuters
Morgan Stanley’s star Asia Pacific economist, Andy Xie, has resigned and is expected to embark on a new career elsewhere, the U.S. investment bank and an industry source said on Sunday.
Xie, whose widely-read reports on the Chinese economy have boosted Morgan Stanley’s image in the region, tendered his resignation last week and had left the firm as of Friday, said Hong Kong-based spokeswoman Po-ling Cheung.
"An internal memo was sent out (on Friday) informing employees that he has resigned from the firm," she said by telephone.
"He has left the firm," she added.
Xie confirmed the news by telephone, but declined to say what he would do next.
A source close to Morgan Stanley said that Xie would likely join another firm in the industry in the near future….
Merger activity yet to recover – The Times of London
The London IPO market has failed to recover from the market instability in May and June that led to the cancellation of a number of flotations.
A study from KPMG’s Capital Markets Group into the third quarter of the year shows that most of the activity, including the Standard Life market debut, which raised £2.2 billion, occurred during July. There were also two new overseas debutants, Colt Telecom and Napo Pharmaceuticals. Since then, there have been no new flotations. It had been assumed that, as the markets stabilised into the autumn, companies would try again with earlier, aborted floats.
David Simpson, corporate finance partner at the accountant, said: “It is now apparent that the setbacks experienced earlier this summer have yet to be fully overcome.”
So far this year there have been 44 main market IPOs, raising a total of £5.76 billion, against 50 in the same period of 2005 to raise £4.49 billion…..
Merger Activity Sets Stage for Record Year – Wall Street Journal
The business of mergers and acquisitions took a slight breather in the latest quarter but appears poised to regain its record-setting momentum as 2006 draws to a close.
The summer months historically are a slow period for the lawyers, bankers and executives who put together big deals. This year, July, August and September produced about $748 billion of transactions world-wide, according to data collected by Thomson Financial.
By most any historical measure, that is an astounding figure, up 16% from $646 billion a year ago, but it is light for this deal-heavy year. In each of the year’s first two quarters, about $900 billion in deals were announced.
Deal makers say there is little to suggest that the corporate mergers-and-acquisition market has begun to retreat. They point to many conditions that should pave the way for a fresh torrent of announcements by year end. With stock-market indexes rising, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average nearing a record, corporate acquirers are likely to have the confidence to dive into more transactions, amid a market that is craving private-equity deals…..
Morgan Stanley buys bank to gain China access – Reuters
Morgan Stanley said on Monday it has acquired China’s Nan Tung Bank, a deal that would give the Wall Street giant a coveted onshore commercial banking license in China ahead of U.S. investment bank rivals.
The deal, approved by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, allows Morgan Stanley to apply immediately to offer yuan-denominated products. It will also enable the U.S. bank to strengthen its China operation and offer a broader range of products and services.
Morgan Stanley did not disclose what it paid for the Zhuhai-based foreign-funded bank formerly owned by Bank of China subsidiary Nam Tung (Macao) Investment Ltd.
The bank has a single branch with less than 40 employees and is currently only allowed to deal in foreign currencies including the U.S. and Hong Kong dollars.
"We want to build the leading, fully integrated financial services firm in China and the acquisition of Nan Tung Bank is another important milestone in our pursuit of that strategy," John Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement…..
Morgan Stanley set for China advantage – Financial Times via MSNBC
Morgan Stanley is on Monday expected to announce that it has obtained a coveted Chinese commercial banking licence, a surprise move that trumps its US investment bank rivals.
The licence will pave the way for it to offer renminbi-denominated products to corporations operating on the mainland. Typically, overseas banks have to operate for at least five years on the mainland, clear tough regulatory hurdles and obtain a commercial banking licence before being able to apply to conduct business in local currency.
However, Morgan Stanley, best known for its global investment banking and securities operations, will be able to apply for a renminbi-business licence immediately, after inheriting a commercial banking licence as part of its acquisition of Nan Tung Bank, one of the few Chinese banks open to foreign ownership. Holders of a commercial banking licence can apply to offer derivatives, foreign exchange and renminbi-denominated banking products to local and foreign corporations which operate on the mainland.
Morgan Stanley believes that its acquisition of a commercial banking licence edges it ahead of its traditional US investment banking rivals such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers….
Credit Suisse restores asset management leadership – FinanceAsia
Credit Suisse has appointed a new vice chairman of asset management for Asia-Pacific as it rebuilds in the region. Head of fixed income Anthony Iliya is taking on the newly created role and will be responsible for increasing Credit Suisse’s asset management business, including the development of its joint ventures in China and Korea.
Iliya’s role will include developing both traditional and alternative products in the Asia-Pacific region. A Credit Suisse source says the company sees alternative products, in particular, as a major area of growth.
She says that increasing the global reach of the business is a key goal, and adds: “Historically we have had our main business in Australia and Japan. But we see growing opportunities in the rest of Asia covering both retail and institutional mandates.
“Although our joint ventures, ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management in China and Woori Credit Suisse Asset Management in Korea, are mainly retail, we see institutional business opportunities and, since last year, have also increased our presence in Singapore.”
Iliya’s appointment comes three months after the high-profile departure of Clayton Copleston, director and head of business development Asia ex-Japan for Credit Suisse’s asset management division…..
Boardroom pay rises twice as fast as share prices – The Guardian
Britain’s boardroom bosses took home a total of £753m in 2005, up from £590m a year earlier. The 28% rise came in a year in which the FTSE 100 index rose 15%.
The 1,340 FTSE 100 directors in the Guardian/RTF database enjoyed pay rises far larger than the general population. Of the total, £678m was paid to 540 full-time executives while the part-time non-executives, recruited to police the boardrooms, shared £75m.
An average chief executive is paid the equivalent of just over 100 workers on average pay. However, some are rated far more highly. Mick Davis, chief executive of Xstrata, for instance, took home nearly £15m last year, equal to the salaries of 544 average workers at the mining group. Sir Terry Leahy commands a salary equal to that of 466 of Tesco’s shop workers – roughly two supermarkets’ worth.
In the world of finance, Mervyn Davies, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, is also paid a high multiple of his banking staff. He takes home the equivalent of 154 of Standard Chartered’s bankers. However, they are largely employed in lower-wage countries in Asia and Africa.
Other well rewarded executives are not highlighted in the tables as they left or joined the board during the financial year. If they were included, Martin Flanagan, the chief executive of fund manager Amvescap, would feature high in the tables. He joined in August 2005 and racked up £8.3m, including a large signing-on fee. Bob Diamond, a longstanding employee of Barclays, was promoted to the board in June 2005. His £6.4m covered just part of the year. The new finance director of online poker firm PartyGaming, who joined part-way through the financial year, received £4.8m…..
Glass ceiling still blocks women from executive floor – The Guardian
The number of women in Britain’s boardrooms has fallen sharply, wiping out the small but steady gains made over the past few years.
At the end of the most recent financial year there were only 12 women holding executive director roles at FTSE 100 companies, compared with 20 a year ago. Women occupied 112 non-executive seats in the boardroom this year, dropping from 122 in the previous survey.
It is so far unclear whether the figures are an aberration after a cluster of high-profile departures or a reversal of long-term trends. In the Guardian’s annual survey in 2003, there were 15 female executive directors, rising to 17 in 2004 and 20 last year.
Jenny Watson, chairwoman of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said previous data had suggested that with the slow pace of change it would take 40 years to get as many women into Britain’s boardrooms as there were men. "These figures show that possibly things are stalling," she said. "There is an argument that there are more women going to university and working and that they will come through but this says to me that argument isn’t holding water."
Ms Watson said that while some employers were improving attitudes to flexible working, they tended not to apply the same principles to very senior jobs.
Pru sees surgery as a survival tactic – The Observer
The Prudental is considering a radical slimming of its British operations as a defence against circling predators.
Pru shares rose 20p to 663.5p in heavy trading on Friday, fuelled by rumours of a 770p-a-share bid from Axa. The French giant was forbidden by the Takeover Panel from making an offer for six months, ending on 19 October, after formally ruling out an approach in April. Rival Aviva, the owner of Norwich Union, which was also on a six-month ban after an abortive bid in March, is now free to have another go.
Both Axa and Aviva played down suggestions they are about to pounce, but the market clearly thinks otherwise.
Pru chief executive Mark Tucker has asked an internal review team to examine three options for the British business. They are: selling the division to a predator such as Resolution Life or Swiss Re; beefing it up by buying a rival insurer or books of business; or continuing with the UK side but in a streamlined form…..
Google purchases the garage that launched the company – AP via Boston Globe
Internet search leader Google Inc. has added a landmark to its rapidly expanding empire — the Silicon Valley home where co founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented a garage eight years ago as they set out to change the world.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company bought the 1,900-square-foot home in nearby Menlo Park from one of its own employees, Susan Wojcicki, who had agreed to lease her garage for $1,700 per month because she wanted help paying the mortgage.
Wojcicki, now Google’s vice president of product management, didn’t work for the company at the time and only knew the Stanford University graduate students because one of her friends had dated Brin.
During Google’s five-month history there, the garage became a second home for Page and Brin.
The entrepreneurs, then just 25, seemed to be always working on their search engine or soaking in the hot tub that still sits on the property. They also had a penchant for raiding Wojcicki’s refrigerator — a habit that may have inspired Google to provide a smorgasbord of free food to the 8,000 employees on its payroll…..
Google Search In Big Apple Ends On 8th Ave. – New York Post
After nearly a year of speculation, Google will open its gargantuan new office at 111 Eighth Ave. today, giving the Silicon Valley giant a home in the Big Apple.
The tech giant’s new office, to be located in the second-largest building in the city, will cover more than 300,000 square feet – with one floor larger two football fields put side by side.
The company will pay at least $10 million per year in rent, according to real estate industry estimates, and hire hundreds of staff.
"This is a huge investment and the New York culture and Google’s are about as far apart as you get," said tech consultant Rob Enderle. "Still, this company has made their business on doing the unusual and I sure wouldn’t bet against them here."
"It is location, location, location and this one suggests a number of things in the works with regard to the region and with regard to what they will be doing with that massive cable capacity under their new building," he said. Industry experts believe that Google is building a giant data center and networking facility at the location – one of the most important "telecom hotels" in the world…..
Yahoo! Blues – New York Post
Summer may be over, but the heat is on Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel as never before as his media giant slowly loses the loyalty of investors and users.
Frustrated by the delayed release of its new ad search platform, scaled-back new content ambitions, underwhelming financial results, and a position in broadband video rapidly being eclipsed by YouTube and MySpace, investors have voted with their feet. The once-red hot shares of Yahoo! are down 35.2 percent this year, closing Friday at $25.28 well of the $40 levels of earlier this year.
And if Semel, the former head of Warner Bros. movie studio, thought the knock on him being simply a "creative guy" was erased by the stellar turnaround he engineered during his first few years on the job, he was wrong. "Terry’s a big picture, 20,000-feet kind of guy," said one Silicon Valley source who has worked with Yahoo! "But operational issues trump strategic issues at a certain point. When it comes to R&D, nimbleness, and matching technology, internally and externally, I’m not sure he’s viewed as that kind of guy."
Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang dismisses this view of Semel as myopic.
"There’s no question that Terry is our leader and the board is absolutely and firmly behind him," Yang said…..
‘Spy methods’ used in other companies – Financial Times via MSNBC
The investigation into Hewlett-Packard’s boardroom spying scandal has unearthed evidence that suggests a more widespread use of ethically questionable investigative tactics by large companies.
HP officials claimed the tactics adopted by the company’s investigators to find the source of a boardroom leak had been used by it and other companies in the past, according to evidence presented to congressional hearings this week.
In one case, Fred Adler, the HP IT security chief who masterminded a plot to plant a tracking device in the e-mail of a reporter suspected of receiving leaked information, told Congress that the company used that technique on a dozen to two dozen occasions and he believed the practice was legal.
An account of an interview with Ronald DeLia, a private investigator involved in the HP mole hunt, said he had previously used false pretences to uncover hotel phone records during a "similar investigation involving leaks from a Big Five accounting firm to a Wall Street Journal reporter".
The draft memo, written for HP by lawyers at Wilson Sonsini as part of an investigation into the company’s leak probe, marked the first time that the use of pretexting had been tied to a big company other than HP since news of the scandal broke. It said that "historically, about half" of Mr DeLia’s work had been for HP…..
GM on a crash course with health care costs – MediaNews via Mercury News
Bruce Bradley grew up in the 1950s. He remembers when every week in darkened movie houses another giant spider or fire-breathing lizard would threaten the world. Despite the best efforts of the military and bright minds, every kid in the audience knew there was no stopping the monster.
Today, the 61-year-old wages his own war on a monster in a Pontiac, Mich., office building. There, some of General Motors’ best minds fight a losing battle against the bills for Nexium prescriptions, heart bypass surgeries and CT scans that flood in at a rate of $10,000 a minute.
Bradley gets a cup of coffee, and GM has spent $50,000 on health care. He goes to lunch, and $600,000 is gone. He takes a three-day weekend on his sailboat and returns to $43 million in medical bills.
For 12 years, Bradley, GM’s director of health care policy, and the corporate soldiers in the automaker’s health care war room have waged an unprecedented battle against health care costs, throwing more money, time and energy into the issue than any company in history.
GM has used its size to strong-arm doctors and bully drug companies. It built the largest wellness-education program in the country, persuaded workers to pay more for medical care and cajoled hospitals to incorporate assembly-line efficiencies into emergency rooms…..
Stansted comes up short for the A380 – Daily Telegraph
The troubled Airbus A380 is heading for a further setback as London’s first new runway in two decades is likely to be too small to accommodate its giant wingspan.
Final plans to build a second runway and terminal at Stansted airport, at a cost of £2.7bn, will be submitted for planning permission later next year.
But a review of capital expenditure ordered by BAA’s new Spanish owners, combined with lobbying from low-cost operators easyJet and Ryanair, make it all but certain that final plans will not include the extra £65m needed to accommodate the A380.
The troubled Airbus A380 is heading for a further setback as London’s first new runway in two decades is likely to be too small to accommodate its giant wingspan.
Final plans to build a second runway and terminal at Stansted airport, at a cost of £2.7bn, will be submitted for planning permission later next year.
But a review of capital expenditure ordered by BAA’s new Spanish owners, combined with lobbying from low-cost operators easyJet and Ryanair, make it all but certain that final plans will not include the extra £65m needed to accommodate the A380…..
Rusal Nears Deal to Form Metals Giant – Wall Street Journal
A deal to create a Russian metals giant capable of challenging Alcoa Inc. as the world’s biggest aluminum producer is likely to be signed as early as today, people familiar with the talks said. Under the deal, Russia’s Rusal Ltd. will take over smaller domestic rival Sual Group and the alumina assets of Swiss commodities trader Glencore International AG to create a new company with an estimated market value of $30 billion.
The combination will be a formidable force, producing about 4.4 million tons of aluminum a year — more than the 3.6 million Pittsburgh-based Alcoa produced last year. Analysts say the deal could trigger further consolidation in the global aluminum industry, which is much more fragmented than the steel, copper or nickel industries.
The deal gives Rusal the missing pieces it needed to become a world leader. Thanks to the rivers of Siberia, it already has an edge over rival Alcoa: access to cheap electricity, crucial in such a power-intensive industry. But it has a shortage of bauxite, the ore that is refined to make alumina, the starting material for smelting aluminum. Sual’s plentiful supply of bauxite and Glencore’s alumina will aid Rusal’s drive for self-sufficiency.
Rusal’s rise increases the competitive pressures on Alcoa and Montreal-based Alcan Inc., the world’s No. 2 producer. High energy costs have forced them to idle some smelters in North America and Europe and build new facilities in places like Iceland and Trinidad where power is abundant and cheap…..
Permira’s ‘Sledgehammer’ to crack open Britvic bid – The Times of London
PERMIRA, the private-equity giant, is expected tomorrow to table a £600m bid for Britvic, Britain’s largest supplier of soft drinks.
The bid is being led by Martin Clarke, who is head of Permira’s consumer investment team and is known in the industry as “the Sledgehammer”.
Britvic, which makes Tango and Robinsons and Pepsi under licence, floated on the London Stock Exchange last December but has been considered a bid target for several months.
Clarke, who earned the nickname for his tough negotiating skills, is under pressure to make his bid work. He has been behind several aborted offers for companies including HMV, Debenhams and WH Smith.
To help him succeed this time his firm has secretly built a 5% stake in Britvic.
For those who bought shares in Britvic’s flotation it has been a poor investment. The shares were hit by a profit warning in March, a miserable trading statement in April and a second warning in May. But last Friday, after an upbeat trading statement, they climbed above the issue price of 230p for the first time since March…..
Harrah’s in Talks To Be Acquired By Buyout Firms – Wall Street Journal
Private-equity suitors are close to striking a deal to purchase casino giant Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be an aggressive move by buyout firms into the tightly knit world of the gambling industry.
Details of the buyout plan were incomplete last night, and the negotiations could fall apart. But with Harrah’s $12.34 billion market value and $10.2 billion in debt, an agreement likely would rank as one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history. An agreement would follow other recent major buyouts, including deals for hospital operator HCA Inc. for $21.3 billion and pipeline concern Kinder Morgan Inc. for $14.8 billion, and would mark the march of private-equity firms into yet another part of the U.S. economy.
People with knowledge of the talks say that a transaction for the Las Vegas-based company, which operates Caesars Palace and other gambling flagships, could be announced as early as this week. A number of private-equity firms have been involved in the talks, including Texas Pacific Group and Colony Capital of Los Angeles, said one person familiar with the matter. However, the final lineup of firms could shift as discussions enter their final days.
A deal would mark the biggest inroad yet by private-equity firms into the gambling world. The past two years have seen frenzied merger-and-acquisition activity by private firms in the lodging industry, but the biggest casino concerns have thus far been unaffected. Only Colony Capital, which owns the Las Vegas and Atlantic City Hilton casinos, has made significant investments in the gambling industry…..
Playboy Resurrects Nightclub in Vegas – Chicago Tribune
It was late 1985 when Hugh Hefner walked into the grand opening of Playboy’s Empire Club in Manhattan, the latest attempt by the magazine company to freshen its suave, sexy image.
A quarter century of success in running such clubs was on the wane and a new gimmick was thought to be needed to attract a new audience of women — male bunnies.
"I thought, ‘This is the end of it,’" Hefner recalls, chuckling. "And indeed, within a year or so, it was."
Now, two decades after rising feminism and a fading nightclub scene helped close the last U.S. Playboy Club in Lansing, Mich., in 1988, a new Playboy Club is set to open Oct. 6 in Las Vegas, just as fresh and retro-hip as a pair of bell-bottom jeans.
"Things that become old-fashioned in a certain time frame, in a new time frame take on a whole new kind of mystique," said Hefner, the 80-year-old founder and majority shareholder of Playboy Enterprises Inc. "That is exactly what happened to all things Playboy."…..
Ebay’s Express to take on Amazon – The Times of London
EBAY is looking to challenge Amazon and other online shopping malls with the UK launch of Ebay Express, a more regulated environment for professional merchants who want to sell goods at a fixed price, writes Paul Durman.
Most of the goods sold on Ebay still involve the online auction process for which the American internet giant is best known. However, many of the established companies that use Ebay to trade also offer customers the opportunity to “buy it now” — to pay a fixed price and avoid the uncertain outcome of an auction.
Ebay Express is intended to cater for those who prefer a more traditional retail environment. It will only be available to merchants who are selling new goods, and they will have to meet a minimum standard of commercial behaviour.
For example, sellers using Ebay Express will have to ship goods within three days of a sale, answer customer queries within 24 hours and establish a policy on returns.
Doug McCallum, managing director of Ebay UK, said buyers who use Ebay Express will be able to use a “shopping cart”, allowing them to buy goods from several vendors at the same time, instead of having to pay each one separately….\
Eddie’s Mad $$$ – New York Post
Billionaire investor Eddie Lampert, chairman of Sears Holdings, is ready to continue the retailer’s winning stock performance – by turning the retail chain into a Berkshire Hathaway-type investment vehicle.
To do so, Lampert, whose ESL Investments hedge funds produce returns of about 30 percent a year, has gained the approval of the Sears Holdings board to personally control the company’s massive $3.7 billion cash horde.
And Lampert, 44, stands ready to invest that money in derivatives or other company’s stock, according to company filings.
It’s an unorthodox investment strategy for a retailer, to be sure, but Lampert has consistently signaled he is in no mood to run the country’s No. 3 retail chain like, well like any retail chain…..
Bidders line up for Ahold’s E3bn US foods business – TheBusinessOnline
The retailer would be headquartered in Brussels and quoted on Euronext. More than E300m to E500m of savings have already been identified but progress depends on the financial details being agreed. This is a key week for the talks, which could still collapse.
Ahold, is being advised by Goldman Sachs and ABN Amro, while Delhaize has retained Lehman Brothers.
