- Qatar Nears Deal to Acquire Stake in LSE
- Borse Dubai presses on with OMX bid
- Microsoft Loses Appeal Against EU Antitrust Order
- Goldman sees oil surging to $85 by year end
- Overhaul at Time Warner?
- Branson lets go of record store chain
Qatar Nears
Deal to Acquire Stake in LSE – Wall Street Journal
Qatar’s investment arm is close to acquiring a nearly 30% stake in the London Stock Exchange from the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., a purchase that would give the Middle Eastern government a high-profile position in the current scramble for dominance among the world’s stock markets.
While a deal isn’t certain, the move by the Qatar Investment Authority comes as governments in the Middle East and Asia, sitting on vast wealth, are seeking better investment returns than their standard holdings of U.S. Treasurys. In so doing, they are testing Western politicians and institutions that often espouse free-market principles but are wary of foreign governments owning iconic assets.
Foreign buyers have been quite successful in a United Kingdom that is typically open to foreign buyers. Last year, government-owned Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates bought Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., of London, creating a national furor in the U.S., where P&O had only a fraction of its business, but no objections in the U.K. A Dubai state-owned fund bought Madame Tussauds Group, the London museum. An investment firm from Bahrain last year bought a Northern Ireland electricity utility for $4.2 billion. A Qatari-backed investment firm is in talks to acquire J Sainsbury PLC for about $20 billion…..
Borse Dubai presses on with OMX bid
- Financial TImes
Borse Dubai submitted its offer documents for acquiring OMX to the Swedish regulator Friday as it sought to catch up with Nasdaq in the race for the Nordic exchange.
Borse Dubai’s bid last month of $4bn in cash for OMX trumped Nasdaq’s bid worth $3.82bn in cash and shares made in May, but the Gulf state’s exchange still needs to convince the Financial Supervisory Authority that it would be a “fit and proper” owner of the exchange.
Last month, the Swedish regulator criticised Borse Dubai for failing to announce that it was making a takeover bid when it bought a 4.9 per cent stake with options on 23.5 per cent more.
Borse Dubai is appealing against that ruling and is increasingly confident that the opinion will have no bearing on the FSA’s decision on whether it would be a fit and proper owner….
Microsoft Loses Appeal Against EU Antitrust Order
- Bloomberg
Microsoft Corp. lost its appeal of a European Union antitrust ruling after three years of legal wrangling, forcing the world’s biggest software maker to pay a record 497 million-euro ($689 million) fine and help rivals connect their products to the Windows operating system.
The European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg today backed the European Commission’s 2004 decision that ordered the U.S. company to disclose proprietary data and strip music and video software from a version of Windows. The judgment can be appealed to the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court.
Microsoft, which reached a settlement with U.S. authorities in 2002, has argued that the EU is pursuing the illegal disclosure of trade secrets and wants a veto over features on software that runs on about 95 percent of the world’s personal computers. The judgment bolsters probes by Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes of Intel Corp., Rambus Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.
“This is deeply troubling for business, the state of the law and trans-Atlantic relations,” said Philip Marsden, a competition lawyer and senior research fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. “The ruling shows a total diversion between the U.S. and Europe.”…..
Goldman sees oil surging to $85 by year end
- Reuters
Goldman Sachs on Monday forecast U.S. oil prices will surge to $85 by the end of the year, and said crude could climb as high as $90 due to tight supplies.
Their estimate was $13 higher than its previous forecast, and came after oil’s rally to a record high of $80.36 a barrel on Friday.
Goldman said OPEC’s decision last week to boost output by 500,000 barrels per day was not enough to mute bullish sentiment.
"We believe that this will be too little, too late … and now expect inventories to draw to critical levels this winter," it said in a report…..
Overhaul at Time Warner?
- Wall Street Journal
For most of this year, investors have been waiting impatiently to hear when Time Warner Inc.’s No.2 executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, would be confirmed as the successor to Chief Executive Officer Richard D. Parsons. Many on Wall Street view Mr. Bewkes as something akin to a corporate action hero likely to break up Time Warner, jump-starting its long-stalled share price.
Mr. Bewkes, president and chief operating officer, is finally poised to get the top slot — but it is far from certain that his appointment will usher in a period of drastic change. And that means any hopes of a sustained rally in Time Warner stock could be misplaced.
Time Warner is expected to confirm Mr. Bewkes as the next CEO before the end of the year, people familiar with the matter say. He is expected to take the reins as early
as Jan. 1, five months before Mr. Parsons’s contract expires. Mr. Parsons is expected to retain the chairman’s title. Time Warner’s board has yet to vote on Mr. Bewkes’s appointment, but that could happen in the coming weeks, these people say…..
Branson lets go of record store chain
- Financial TImes
Sir Richard Branson, the entrepreneur, has cut ties with one of his first businesses by selling the UK and Irish Virgin Megastore retail chains to a management buy-out team.
The deal, for an undisclosed sum, was concluded late on Friday evening. Virgin stores will be rebranded “zavvi”, after the business was bought by Zavvi Entertainment Group.
Zavvi is a vehicle for a management buy-out team led by Simon Douglas, managing director, and Steve Peckham, finance director.
Sir Richard has with this deal parted with an asset that was seminal in the development of the Virgin brand. In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail-order record retailer and a year later he opened a record shop on London’s Oxford Street…..
