Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Banker-Pay Guidelines May Put Citigroup, Bank of America at Disadvantage Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and smaller banks seeking to attract talent and regain ground on stronger peers may face a new obstacle from the global push to rein in executive pay.


• Chinese 103-Year-Old Wall Street Emigrant Expecting Communism to Fade Away Zhou Youguang was a child of 6 when a revolution toppled China’s last emperor in 1912. He was 43 when he says he left a Wall Street banker’s job to help Mao Zedong’s Communists create what he thought would be a democracy after decades of warlord rule, occupation and civil war.


• Egyptian Swine-Flu Slaughter Leaves Cairo Without Pigs to Devour Garbage Egypt’s pigs are getting their revenge.


• PAI's `Coup d'Etat' Shows Buyout Firms' Feuds Over Power, Money, Strategy Dominique Megret, chief executive officer of PAI Partners, France’s biggest private-equity firm, was in his office, a 10-minute walk from Paris’s Louvre museum, on July 21 when there was a knock on the door.


• Sigurdardottir Says Iceland Wanted More European Union Support in Crisis Iceland’s economic woes can “in part” be blamed on the European Union’s lack of support as the island struggled to stay afloat following the collapse of its banks a year ago, Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said.


• Finding a Job May Be Getting Easier Than It Looks: Chart of the Day Employment in the U.S. is rebounding at a “significantly faster” pace than seasonally adjusted data on jobless claims would suggest, according to Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.


• Microsoft Says Ford, Continental, Starwood, Intel to Upgrade to Windows 7 Microsoft Corp. said Ford Motor Co., Continental Airlines Inc., Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and Intel Corp. will help introduce its Windows 7 operating system by upgrading to the new program.


• China, Korea `Good Fight' for Shipyards May Cause Glut, Damp Freight Rates China and South Korea’s support for shipbuilders may add to a glut of capacity, slowing a recovery in freight rates and vessel prices.


• Brown Slumps to Third in U.K. Poll as Timetable Points to May 6 Election Gordon Brown pledged to wrest power from Britain’s banks and give the state a greater role in financing business, part of the Labour government’s effort to bolster its popularity after the recession and credit crisis.

Bloomberg News 30th September 2009

Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Unemployment Confronts Obama Rhetoric With Threatened Chronic Joblessness Full employment ain’t what it used to be.


• Unilever's First Outsider Taps P&G Playbook as Sara Lee Heralds Purchases Unilever’s Paul Polman, who helped build Nestle SA and Procter & Gamble Co. with acquisitions, is taking a page from his old playbooks in his new job.


• State Housing Agencies Said Slated to Get U.S. Treasury Help for Borrowers State housing agencies in the U.S. that provide mortgages to low-income borrowers would get as much as $35 billion in federal aid under a new U.S. Treasury Department program, people familiar with the matter said.


• Smartest Currency Traders Juggle Krone, Krona, Kiwi in Central Banking Bet Just as the Group of 20 warns against ending stimulus efforts, investors are betting interest- rate increases from Oslo to Stockholm to Wellington will provide the biggest boost to this quarter’s strongest currencies.


• CVS, Medco Profits May Narrow on $10 Billion U.S. Contract Facing Overhaul CVS Caremark Corp. and Medco Health Systems Inc. may generate less profit from a shared $10 billion contract for federal-employee drug benefits after a study found the plan costs more than other government prescription programs.


• China's $586 Billion Stimulus May Prompt Local Overheating, HSBC's Qu Says China’s government stimulus may risk overheating some parts of the economy as local authorities rush to expand fixed-asset investment, said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.


• Nikon Earnings From Cameras Likely to Beat Forecast, Division Head Says Nikon Corp., the second-biggest maker of cameras used by professionals, will probably earn more from its photography unit than the company had forecast, led by higher-than-expected exports, an executive said.


• Treasury's No. 2 Wolin Says Financial Rules Overhaul Is Likely This Year Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, the department’s No. 2 official, said he expects Congress to revamp financial regulations for Wall Street this year.


• Fed Rescue Strategy for Economy Lowers U.S. Bailout Tab to $11.6 Trillion The Federal Reserve decided to keep pumping $1.25 trillion of new money into the mortgage market to focus on rescuing the U.S. economy as the financial system revives and banks ask for less help.

Bloomberg News 29/09/2009

Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Treasury's No. 2 Wolin Says Financial Rules Overhaul Is Likely This Year Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, the department’s No. 2 official, said he expects Congress to revamp financial regulations for Wall Street this year.


• Fed Rescue Strategy for Economy Lowers U.S. Bailout Tab to $11.6 Trillion The Federal Reserve decided to keep pumping $1.25 trillion of new money into the mortgage market to focus on rescuing the U.S. economy as the financial system revives and banks ask for less help.


• Arctic Oil Tempts Norway to Push Its Drilling Frontier to `Gates of Hell' Norway started a push to explore for oil and natural gas in more remote regions like its Arctic volcanic island of Jan Mayen, as the country seeks to reverse almost a decade of dwindling North Sea output.


• Shell Poised to Overtake BP Output With $40 Billion Spent in Qatar, Brazil Royal Dutch Shell Plc, held back by almost seven years of falling production, is set to overtake BP Plc after about $40 billion of investment from Qatar to Brazil.


• Liu He as China's Larry Summers Makes Politburo Appreciate Meaning of U.S. Two days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. a year ago, an adviser sent by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with a group of Harvard University scholars to help shape his country’s response.


• Japan's Exporters Confront Fujii's `Romantic Longing' for a Stronger Yen Japan’s exporters are in danger of being left behind by a global trade recovery as the nation’s change in government ushers in a tolerance for exchange-rate gains that threaten to erode their profits.


• BRIC Economic Growth Forces Group of Eight to Cede Power: Chart of the Day With China poised to surpass Japan as the second-largest economy, the decision by world leaders to make the Group of 20 nations the main forum for global economic coordination instead of the G-8 reflects the increasing power of emerging markets.


• Glaxo's `Desperate' Rivals Slow Witty's Hunt for Drug Pipeline Candidates GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s search outside its own laboratories for new drugs is getting more difficult because of increased competition from rivals “desperate” for novel treatments, according to the company’s head of research and development.


• McDonald's Reins In Chicago Pride to Keep Rio Olympics Fans Eating Burgers Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics puts McDonald’s Corp. in a pickle.


• Lithuania's Economy May Start to Grow in 2010, Central Bank Governor Says Lithuania’s recession, the deepest in the European Union, is close to bottoming out and the economy may start growing next year if trade demand continues to gain strength, central bank Governor Reinoldijus Sarkinas said.


• Luxury Hotels in U.S. Risk Default as Recession Leaves $850 Rooms Empty Luxury hotel owners risk defaulting on their debt as the recession cuts occupancies and the credit crunch constrains refinancing.


• Caterpillar, Deere, Missouri Stymied by Delay in New U.S. Highway Funding Missouri wants to widen Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Kansas City to get traffic, and jobs, moving again. Construction-equipment makers Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. stand ready to help.

Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Buyout Firms Return to Market on Stock Rally as Select Medical Readies IPO The owners of Select Medical Holdings Inc. may almost double their money when the hospital operator goes public tomorrow as leveraged buyout firms take advantage of the steepest stock market rally in 70 years.
• Gucci Considers Long-Term Acquisitions, Will Focus on Asia for `Long Time' Gucci Group, the luxury-goods company owned by PPR SA, said acquisitions are part of its long-term strategy and will focus on Asian expansion for a “long time to come” as U.S. sales remain subdued, Chief Executive Officer Robert Polet said.
• Fed Policy Justified by Plant Use, Employment, Yardeni Says: Chart of Day Federal Reserve policy is keeping prices from falling at a time when there are plenty of factories and workers to spare, according to Edward Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research Inc.
• FDIC Watched as `Hot Money' Boomed at Colorado's Defunct New Frontier Bank New Frontier Bank, the largest lender in northern Colorado, had a lot to be proud of in early 2007. Assets had grown by 66 percent the previous year and profits by 53 percent. American Banker rated the bank the ninth- most efficient in the country.
• Utility Snubbed by Wall Street Shows Why States Pay More Than Shareholders East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, California, which hasn’t missed a bond payment in 86 years, is being told by banks that its credit isn’t as good as companies that Moody’s Investors Service says are 90 times more likely to default.
• AstraZeneca Denied Drug's Diabetes Link After Warning Japanese Physicians An AstraZeneca Plc saleswoman told a U.S. doctor the antipsychotic Seroquel didn’t cause diabetes almost four years after the company warned Japanese physicians about the drug’s links to the disease, internal documents show.
• German Nuclear Plants' Future at Stake in Merkel-Steinmeier Election Fight Angela Seidler, a 41-year-old tour guide at E.ON AG’s Grafenrheinfeld nuclear-power plant in southern Germany, may have to find a new career before she retires.
• Bernanke Effort to Accelerate Growth May Be Undermined by Loan Contraction Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to stoke a U.S. economic recovery may be undermined by the central bank’s other goal of restoring the banking system to health.
• Former Pariah Qaddafi's U.S. Trip Seals Courtship of Libya Over Oil Deals The families of Americans killed in the bombing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 will protest Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s visit to New York this week. His United Nations counterparts may be more welcoming.
• Pittsburgh Rising From Urban Decay May Offer Some Lessons for G-20 Leaders Pittsburgh’s journey from a symbol of urban decay to a high-tech and health-services center may offer some lessons to the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting there this week. So, too, may its stubborn financial problems.
• Exxon Mobil Plans Chemicals Expansion in Bet Chinese Demand Will Increase Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest maker of chemicals used in plastic bottles, is boosting investment in Asian plants on expectations Chinese demand will increase faster than sales of gasoline and diesel.

• FDIC Watched as `Hot Money' Boomed at Colorado's Defunct New Frontier Bank New Frontier Bank, the largest lender in northern Colorado, had a lot to be proud of in early 2007. Assets had grown by 66 percent the previous year and profits by 53 percent. American Banker rated the bank the ninth- most efficient in the country.


• Dell's Offer to Perot Over Breakfast `Just Evolved' Into $3.9 Billion Deal H. Ross Perot Jr. said he began talking “chairman to chairman” with Michael Dell two years ago, relying on an old family friendship, before agreeing to Dell Inc.’s $3.9 billion buyout offer for Perot Systems Corp.


• Passport-Waving Socialist Challenges London's Financial Power Over Europe European Socialist Party President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen waved his red passport at hundreds of hedge-fund and private-equity managers in London’s 600-year-old Guildhall to assert his challenge to the city’s financial power.


• AstraZeneca Denied Drug's Diabetes Link After Warning Japanese Physicians An AstraZeneca Plc saleswoman told a U.S. doctor the antipsychotic Seroquel didn’t cause diabetes almost four years after the company warned Japanese physicians about the drug’s links to the disease, internal documents show.


• French Market Poised to Deliver Jackpot for Britain's Gambling Companies PartyGaming Plc, William Hill Plc and 888 Holdings Plc, U.K. gambling companies facing a slowing market at home, may get a boost as neighboring France opens its online-betting market to foreign operators next year.


• Bernanke Effort to Accelerate Growth May Be Undermined by Loan Contraction Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to stoke a U.S. economic recovery may be undermined by the central bank’s other goal of restoring the banking system to health.


• Former Pariah Qaddafi's U.S. Trip Seals Courtship of Libya Over Oil Deals The families of Americans killed in the bombing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 will protest Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s visit to New York this week. His United Nations counterparts may be more welcoming.


• Exxon Mobil Plans Chemicals Expansion in Bet Chinese Demand Will Increase Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest maker of chemicals used in plastic bottles, is boosting investment in Asian plants on expectations Chinese demand will increase faster than sales of gasoline and diesel.


• Fed Rejects Geithner Request for Public Study of Its Governance, Structure The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a public review of the central bank’s structure and governance, three people familiar with the matter said.


• M&A Boom Coming to S&P 500 as Record Cash Combines With Dropping Yields Never before have U.S. companies piled up cash faster compared with interest costs than they are now, setting the stage for a surge in mergers and acquisitions.

Bloomberg News 24th September 2009

Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Bernanke Effort to Accelerate Growth May Be Undermined by Loan Contraction Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s efforts to stoke a U.S. economic recovery may be undermined by the central bank’s other goal of restoring the banking system to health.


• Russia to Resume State Asset Sales as Budget Revenue Slides, Shuvalov Says Russia will resume asset sales as the government struggles with its first budget deficit in a decade, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said.


• Stocks Likely to `Catch Up' With Corporate Bond Rally: Chart of the Day Stocks offer greater value than bonds and are poised to “catch up” with a rally in corporate debt, according to Rod Smyth, chief investment strategist at Riverfront Investment Group LLC.


• Fed Rejects Geithner Request for Public Study of Its Governance, Structure The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a public review of the central bank’s structure and governance, three people familiar with the matter said.


• China Can't Get Enough Treasuries as Dollar No Deterrent to Foreign Buyers International investors are increasing purchases of Treasuries on a bet U.S. inflation will remain subdued, even as the dollar falls to the lowest levels of the year and the budget deficit tops $1 trillion.


• Oil Options Hitting Record High as Verleger Predicts 44% Plunge on Supply Oil traders are paying more than ever in the options market to protect against a plunge in crude prices.


• Schapiro's Bid to Speed SEC Probes, Win Esteem Stumbles on Bank of America Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, overhauling an agency faulted for botching investigations of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, is facing the first major setback of her own making.


• Thain Says He Should Have Picked Ikea's Furniture for Merrill Renovations John Thain, the former chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch & Co. who was accused of overspending on an office renovation as the broker teetered, said he should have bought less-expensive furniture at Ikea.


• Clinton Says Obama May Prevail on Health Care With Some Republican Backing Former U.S. President Bill Clinton predicted that Barack Obama would prevail in his bid to win passage of his health-care initiative and that some Republican senators likely would support the legislation.

Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Construction Companies Fined $210 Million for Rigging Bidding Contracts Kier Group Plc and Interserve Plc received the heaviest penalties handed down to 103 U.K. construction companies by the U.K. Office of Fair Trading in its biggest ever bid-rigging probe into the industry.


• Brown Says World Economy Has Yet to Feel the Biggest Impact from Stimulus U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the global economy has yet to feel the biggest impact of government-led spending programs to stimulate demand and reiterated concerns about removing them too early.


• BG, Cadbury, RBS, Rio Tinto, WPP May Move: U.K., Irish Equity Preview The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in U.K. and Irish markets today. Stock symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the last market close.


• European, U.S. Index Futures Advance; Asian Shares Rise, Carnival May Gain European stock-index futures rose, indicating the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index may resume a six-month rally after two days of declines. Asian shares and U.S. futures advanced.


• Rents in the World's Most Expensive Shopping Streets Fall Most Since 1985 The global recession is taking its toll on even the priciest shopping streets, where rents have plunged the most in at least 24 years, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the largest closely held real estate broker.


• China Investment Buys 15% Noble Stake for $850 Million to Gain Commodities China Investment Corp., the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, bought a 15 percent stake in Noble Group Ltd. as the Hong Kong-based commodity supplier benefits from China’s demand for coal, iron ore and soybeans.


• Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Gets Rival Financing Offer From Hedge Funds Royal Bank of Scotland Plc is managing an offer by a group of hedge funds to refinance debt held by Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group Ltd., an energy and transport investor whose shares tumbled 97 percent in two years.


• BP, GE Join Demands From Industry for Regulations to Cut Carbon Emissions General Electric Co. and BP Plc are demanding governments enact regulations to cut emissions blamed for global warming and create a worldwide carbon market to ensure developing nations slow pollution growth.


• Poland Is `Unlikely' to Meet EU Deficit Target in 2012, IMF's Allen Says Poland, the largest of the European Union’s eastern members, is “unlikely” to make its 2012 goal of cutting the budget deficit to within the EU limit, the head of the International Monetary Fund’s mission to Poland said.


• Saudi Aramco Sees Idle Oil Fields Through 2010 as Demand Fails to Recover Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil monopoly, sees little chance of pumping crude from idle fields next year because a recovery.

Bloomberg News 22nd September 2009