Aramco on top

Aramco does it once again.Saudi's oil magnet remains on top of Dinar Standard's largest business enterprises.The DS 100 as it's called includes 57 member countries from the Organization of Business Conferences.

Oil prices hitting $100/barrel have ensured that nine out ten companies ranked belong tothe energy sector.

Swicorp Jossour Transactions

Swicorp launched Sicorp Jossour Company back in 2005 has invested 20% or roughly US $149 million and approved an additional US$209 million in three additional transactions. Energy and Energy intensive sectors form the focus of this Private Equity firm .

Their previous acquistions include a major stake in Riyadh based EPETCO, a glass fiber reinforcement manufacturer as well as a greenfield refinery project in Egypt.

Brew Story:The Deal is Sealed

Finally Scottish & NewCastle owner of Foster’s lager have it their way. The Cash bid of 800 pence a share totalling to 7.8 billion pounds has been agreed to jointly by Carlsberg and rival Heineken.

The cost of the deal will be split 54-46 (Carlsberg taking up the major cost).Under the deal Carlsberg will take over the Eastern European Operations , while the British,Belgium, US and Indian businesses will be taken over by Heineken.The deal has been 'brewing' for long time with almost 3 offers from the team being rejected by S&N.

The deal is expected to be completed by the 2nd quarter of 2008 and seems to be a positive note for the brewery industry as they look to cut costs at a time when the input price for malting barley and aluminum cans has risen .The deal will be managed by Lehman Brothers & Credit Suisse on the Buy Side.Rothschild, UBS and Deutsche Bank are advising S&N.

Emerging Markets Syndrome

A lot of what I write will focus on Emerging markets.The major reason being that Im in the region where all the buzz is happening. Infact, it was the upturn in the MENA economy that brought me here from the States in the first place.These are intersting times to be in!
Here's something I didnt know...Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has a 5% stake in Deutsche bank bought way back in the 70's .I wonder if it did it any good.

Wealth Funds and US foreign policy

Heres a thought to ponder. Since a lot of foreign government funds (swfs) depend on the success of the economy/institution of the funded nation to perform well, would a wee bit of influence from the investors actually matter?I mean, the funds will thrive if the economy/company thrives. I can't help but wonder if all the talk about the US government's concern on cross-border investments are raised by everyone except Washington.

Policy dictates that foreign governments /institutions do not buy more than a 10% stake , lest they open up to investigations. US officials maintain that sovereign funds appeared to be adhering to sound financial practices and not political motivations, at least so far.

Public Policy think-tanks out of Harvard and elsewhere fear that heavy investments by state owned authorities might inadvertently lead to haggling over US industry regulation standards or even foreign policy.

Caution is a prescription.Regulators can definetly set control standards that would ensure funds originating out of the Middle east (or from any foreign governments) provide disclosure of investment practices and transparency in the fund strategy.

McKinsey Quarterly Report -January

is on the subject of Global banking 2008 [Share]

Davos 2008 in association with Bahrain..

CNN has been airing ads from time to time on the World Economic Forum 2008 collaborating with the Bahrain Economic Development Board.The event scheduled between January 24 and 27 will showcase opportunities and incentives of investment in the Kingdom.

Among the speeches to be made include Sheikh Salman (who is the Chairman of the Bahrain Economic Development Board) will speak about “Rebuilding Brand America: Five Suggestions for the Future President” on Jan. 24. Khalid Janahi, chairman of the executive committee of Al-Shamil Bank, will discuss “Understanding Iran’s Ambitions.”

Austria's Ambition

The Financial Times has an interesting article on the Warsaw Stock Exchange's determination to be the top bourse in Europe.[Share]

Wal-mart to Russia

Over the course of the next two years, Wal-mart will be expanding into the booming Russian market.The lack of competitors coupled with what Wal-mart CEO H. Lee Scott termed as a 'growing consumer nation' may provide them all the reasons to make their entry sooner than later.

Wal-Mart may team with a local partner to open Russian stores, Juan Figuereo, vice president for international mergers and acquisitions, said last February. The company was among potential partners with which X5, Russia's largest supermarket company, would consider allying in a joint venture if it were to seek to expand in Russia, CEO Lev Khasis said in March.

The obstacles waiting for the consumer giant are not new.A country known for it's corruption, high-level red tape as well as expensive real-estate, Russia provides challenges to Wal-mart that it has previously seen in India.But for what is turning out to be an emerging market phenomenon, the more you take on- the better you get at it!

Grumbling @ Goldman...

With all the hype recently about Goldman Sachs being the only major investment bank to avoid being stung in last year’s subprime mortgage fiasco and the record profits it rung up last year, bonus time was expected to be a time of good cheer for Goldman employees.

But, according to The New York Post, some were not so happy with their year-end stocking stuffers. The paper, citing “whispers”, said that some cost center employees, the back office operations, IT employees and such, were getting stiffed.

The firm’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, was rewarded with a record $67.9 million bonus, while its co-presidents, Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried, each received bonuses of about $40.5 million, up 58 percent from last year. And the bank also set aside 20.2 billion to pay employee wages, benefits and bonuses this year, a 23 percent increase from last year.
But cost center workers expecting 75 percent of their salary as a bonus, got only 15 percent, the newspaper said.[Share]

Soveriegn Wealth Funds..

Streetjunkie recently attended a conference in manhattan on Sovereign Wealth Fund and had a lot of doubts on its potential success(where success is a relative term but you know what I mean). Its interesting how over the past few days swfs have gained prominence injecting cash to the cash-strapped US economy.

Last month the Saudi Kingdom announced the establishment of a $900 billion dollar swf(by Public Investment Fund).

Many in the region believe that establishment of such Future Generation Funds is a big step that might be beneficial to the local economy.But at times you are bound to wonder whether the buying spree is actually pitted towards strategic investing.

In other words , the age-old question repeats - does brand name investment guarantee success? It did in the 90s when Kingdom Holdings made their foray into Citigroup..but luck hasnt exactly been on their side for quite some time now -Citi i.e

The Singapore Government's financial arm, Temasek Holdings on the other hand has been making such investments in Asia and the far east in the not necessarily so famous markets.For example its accquisition of Shin Corp.

It remains to be seen over the next few years on whether the government's bets fall through or as streetjunkie put it to me 'its all a fad!".

And its the MidEast to the rescue

Got Financial crunch?Does the term sub-prime mortgage scare you? And last but certainly the most important question of them all...Are you a top tier investment bank that doesn't seem like it going to remain up there?

Say no more..oil rich middle east is out to save the day..the consortium of Kuwait Investment Authority(KIA), AbuDhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Prince Walid Bin Talal (ever notice we hear more about him than the company itself-Kingdom Holdings for the late bloomers-of which he owns like 96%-ok so that explains it!) have decided to bail out the troubled US banks Citigroup and Merril Lynch to the tune of USD$ 15billion.

The Prince has already a significant stake in Citi and he has now pushed it to the maximum possible by US regulatory standards.

So where is this all heading?Layoffs? certainly..stock dip? 4 suree..but most likely burning in the minds of 'local' investors is how much of the piece remains local anymore.Will it be long before Washington steps in says enough is enough.The landmark american act of lazy borrowing has to end to cease this sad state of affairs.

Reliance Power's $3billion IPO..

Word has it that the $3billion IPO was oversubscribed 10 times! The Anil Ambani group's IPO generated a demand of close to Rs 100,000 crore ($25.2billion) within four hours of start of the book building process.

Anil Ambani, one of India's billionaire Ambani brothers, couldn't pick a better time for an initial public offering of his Reliance Power Ltd., an electrical-generation company. Four publicly traded companies that he controls all turned in market- beating performances last year.

Rivalries aside, the past year has seen been exceptionally great to both Anil and elder brother Mukesh (getting them both on the Forbes Top 5 list).

Speaking of which , Mukesh was here in Kuwait on Jan 11th at the National Bank of Kuwait as a apart of their International Advsiory Board.[link]

And We're Back!!!

work ...travel...net issues...the list of excuses will go on for not updating this blog.But atleast we live to tell the story.

This blog is back on..