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Fed’s Lacker Says Additional Stimulus Probably Won’t Spur Growth

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said additional stimulus won’t necessarily spur economic growth while increasing the challenges for the Fed when it begins to withdraw the record accommodation. “The Fed seems to be unable to improve real growth, despite striving mightily over the last few years,” Lacker said today in comments prepared for delivery at the Richmond Fed’s Baltimore office, repeating a May 3 speech. “Further increases in the size of our balance sheet raise the risks associated with the ‘exit process’ when it’s time to withdraw stimulus.” Lacker, who doesn’t vote this year on the Federal Open Market Committee, has criticized the committee’s decision to press on with monthly purchases of $40 billion a month in mortgage securities and $45 billion of Treasuries that have expanded the Fed balance sheet to a record $3.32 trillion. The FOMC said May 1 that it may accelerate or slow bond buying in response to changes in the labor market and inflation. It left unchanged its plan to hold the main interest rate near zero as long as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and the outlook for inflation doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Kearns in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at [email protected]

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ROUNDTOP MACH June Sales Rise 42.44% (Table) : 1540 TT

ROUNDTOP MACH said unconsolidated sales in June rose 42.44% to NT$96,996,000 from NT$68,098,000, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. (Figures are in thousands of New Taiwan dollars) ================================================================= 6/2011 6/2010 Sales 96,996 68,098 YOY% 42.44% -----------------Year-to-date----------------- Sales 560,825 624,900 YOY% -10.25% =================================================================

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Swiss Franc Drops Versus Euro as UBS Says to Charge for Deposits

The Swiss franc declined against the euro after UBS AG followed Credit Suisse Group AG in saying it will charge bank clients for deposits made in the currency. The franc declined as much as 0.2 percent to 1.2107 per euro, before trading 0.1 percent weaker at 1.2091 as of 7:29 a.m. London time. The charges, which will apply from Dec. 21, will be communicated in “coming days,” and depend on individual clients, UBS spokesman Samuel Brandner said in a telephone interview. The dollar was little changed at $1.2944 per euro, and 82.38 yen. The euro traded at 106.64 yen. To contact the reporter on this story: David Goodman in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Dobson at [email protected]

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Copper Advances in London on Demand Outlook: LME Preview

Copper climbed for a second day on speculation demand from China and the U.S., the world’s biggest consumers of industrial metals, remains robust, and after hedge funds boosted bets on a rally to the highest since August. Market News: Metals News:

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Oil Declines With Energy Shares While Yen Weakens on Iran

Oil fell and the yen weakened against the dollar while energy-company shares led the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower after Iran and world powers reached an initial deal on limits to the nation’s nuclear program. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.8 percent to $94.09 a barrel, trimming steeper losses from earlier in the day. The S&P 500, which capped a seventh weekly gain Nov. 22, dropped 0.1 percent by 4:40 p.m. in New York as sub-indexes of oil and gas stocks slumped more than 2.5 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index (CCMP) closed 0.1 percent higher after topping 4,000 for the first time since 2000. Gold pared declines after touching a four-month low. Japan ’s currency slid 0.4 percent to 101.65 per dollar. Iran agreed yesterday to curtail nuclear activities in return for the easing of some sanctions on oil, auto parts, gold and precious metals, an accord that broke a decade-long diplomatic deadlock. The number of contracts Americans signed to buy previously owned homes unexpectedly fell in October for a fifth consecutive month amid higher borrowing costs that are denting the real-estate recovery. “One of the rogue nations of the world seems to want to participation in a rational dialogue about the nuclear situation,” Warren Koontz, co-manager of Loomis Sayles Value Fund based in Boston , said in a phone interview. Loomis Sayles & Co. manages about $191 billion. “Do I think that’s going to have an overall, long-term impact on the economy? Probably not, but at least it alleviates the fear if that, in effect, can occur.” WTI crude futures dropped as much as 1.9 percent before paring losses. Brent crude for January settlement slid 5 cents to $111 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe Exchange after tumbling as much as 2.7 percent. Iran Accord In return for Iran limiting its nuclear program, the interim agreement provides for the release of $4.2 billion in frozen oil assets and will let Iran continue exporting oil at current levels, rather than forcing continued reductions by buyers, as would be required under current law, according to a White House statement. “Sanctions have been hitting Iran oil dramatically,” Henk Potts , who helps oversee about $310 billion as a strategist at Barclays Wealth & Investment Management in London , said by phone today. “There is hope that in the long term the supply dynamics will improve. High commodity prices are one of the key costs to businesses and consumers so a decline in oil equates to lightening up the tax burden.” Energy Stocks Energy shares had the largest decline among 10 broader groups in the S&P 500, losing 0.8 percent. Schlumberger Ltd. and Noble Corp. declined more than 3 percent, pacing losses. Delta Air Lines Inc. jumped 2 percent, leading a rally in airlines amid the decline in crude. Alcoa Inc. climbed 3.8 percent and Caterpillar Inc. rose 1.8 percent after analysts recommended buying the shares. The S&P 500 has rallied 26 percent this year as the Fed continued its stimulus program of $85 billion a month in bond buying to stimulate economic growth. The gauge is challenging 2003 for the best annual performance for equities since 1998. The index is trading for about 17 times member companies’ reported earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the valuation reached the highest level since May 2010, it’s still below multiples reached at the market’s two previous peaks, when the ratio reached 17.5 in October 2007 and 31 in March 2000, the data show. “The market is not necessarily over-extended, but probably moderately rich,” Cam Albright, director of asset allocation at the investment advisory unit of Wilmington Trust, said in a phone interview from Wilmington. The firm oversees about $79 billion. “It’s probably difficult to envision this market getting a lot more upside unless it has this continued success on earnings and economic growth.” U.S. Rally The S&P 500 rose for a seventh straight week last week, its longest stretch of gains since February, as reports showed retail sales exceeded economists’ estimates and fewer Americans than expected filed for jobless benefits. Four out of five investors expect the Fed to put off a decision to begin reducing monetary stimulus until March 2014 or later, according to a Bloomberg Global Poll of investors, traders and analysts who are subscribers. Just 5 percent are looking for a move at the central bank’s Dec. 17-18 meeting, the Nov. 19 poll showed. A gauge of pending home sales decreased 0.6 percent after a 4.6 percent drop in September, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1 percent gain in the index from the month before. ‘Tapered Off’ “The real strong rebound in housing that we saw between 2011 and the first quarter of this year has tapered off now,” Charlie Smith, chief investment officer of Pittsburgh-based Fort Pitt Capital Group Inc., said in a phone interview. His firm oversees $1.5 billion. “The question people have is - can the uptrend in housing be sustained by what classically has been growth in income and therefore the ability to get loans?” Gold futures trimmed losses after declining as much as 1.5 percent to $1,226.40 an ounce, the lowest level since July 8. Trading was 52 percent above the average for the past 100 days, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Gold has tumbled 26 percent in 2013 after a 12-year rally. The yen slid as much as 0.7 percent to 101.92 per dollar and reached a four-year low of 137.99 per euro as demand for the safety of Japan’s currency waned. Euro, Krone The euro weakened 0.3 percent to $1.3514, extending declines after European Central Bank Governing Council member Ardo Hansson said the bank stands ready to cut borrowing costs further and is technically prepared to make its deposit rate negative. The Norwegian krone slid 0.6 percent to 6.1008 per dollar and the Canadian dollar depreciated 0.3 percent to C$1.0547 per U.S. dollar as currencies of oil-producing nations declined. The ruble lost 0.5 percent versus the greenback in Moscow. German government bonds rose, pushing 10-year yields down two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 1.72 percent. Spain’s 10-year yield climbed five basis points to 4.15 percent. Rates on U.S. 10-year notes fell one basis point to 2.74 percent. The Treasury’s sale of $32 billion of two-year notes drew above-average demand on speculation that the Fed’s efforts to hold down short-term yields will support the debt. “The market is increasingly trusting the Fed,” said Michael Lorizio, senior trader at Manulife Asset Management in Boston. “They want to see significant sustainable improvement before they even think of moving from the zero interest-rate policy.” Default Swaps The cost of insuring against losses on corporate bonds fell, with the Markit iTraxx Europe Index of credit-default swaps on 125 investment-grade companies decreasing 1.5 basis point to 78 basis points, the lowest since April 2010. The Markit iTraxx Crossover Index of contracts on 50 high-yield companies declined to 322, the lowest since October 2007. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed 0.4 percent. Air France-KLM (AF) Group, Europe’s biggest airline, advanced 1.9 percent. Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the second-largest in the region, increased 1.8 percent. Thomas Cook Group Plc rose 2.2 percent. Continental AG, Europe’s second-largest auto-parts maker, gained 2.2 percent. Valeo SA, France ’s second-biggest maker of car parts, added 2.2 percent. Emerging Markets PSA Peugeot Citroen gained 5.1 percent after people familiar with the matter said its chief executive officer plans to step down next year. Europe’s second-largest carmaker said after the market closed that it hired former Renault SA executive Carlos Tavares to lead the French manufacturer out of a six-year slump in European demand. He will replace Philippe Varin, the current CEO, in 2014. Peugeot may also benefit from the Iran accord as the country was its biggest market after France prior to the trade sanctions. Fresenius Medical Care AG climbed 7 percent after U.S. regulators scrapped a plan to cut Medicare payments next year. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose a second day, adding 0.1 percent. Benchmark gauges in India and Turkey climbed more than 1.1 percent while Brazil’s Ibovespa slid 1 percent. The Indian rupee strengthened 0.6 percent against the dollar. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.5 percent, led by energy producers, after an explosion at a China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. pipeline and the drop in crude. China Petroleum, also known as Sinopec, slumped 4 percent in Shanghai, the most in five months. Thailand’s SET Index (SET) fell 0.5 percent and the baht slid 0.7 percent to a 10-week low. Anti-government protests spread to military bases, government offices and television stations today after more than 100,000 people joined rallies yesterday against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. To contact the reporter on this story: Lu Wang in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Justin Carrigan at [email protected] ; Lynn Thomasson at [email protected]

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Azoty Seeks to Buy 66% of Chemiczne Police at 11.5 Zloty/Share

Azoty Tarnow, a Polish chemicals maker, offered to buy a 66-percent stake in fertilizer producer Zaklady Chemiczne Police SA (PCE) for 11.5 zloty per share. Investors have from July 6 through August 16 to tender their shares, Azoty said in a regulatory filing today. To contact the reporter on this story: Piotr Skolimowski in Warsaw at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at [email protected]

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SEA & LAND INTEG August Sales Rise 3.61% (Table) : 5603 TT

SEA & LAND INTEG said unconsolidated sales in August rose 3.61% to NT$124,534,000 from NT$120,194,000, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. (Figures are in thousands of New Taiwan dollars) ================================================================= 8/2011 8/2010 Sales 124,534 120,194 YOY% 3.61% -----------------Year-to-date----------------- Sales 1,006,475 773,703 YOY% 30.09% =================================================================

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Coal Strike Looms as Workers Protest Stake Sale: Corporate India

Coal India Ltd. (COAL) ’s employees plan to go on an indefinite strike should the government proceed with a plan to raise 200 billion rupees ($3.7 billion) selling shares in the world’s biggest producer of the fuel. The workers will “vehemently oppose” any such decision, said S.Q. Zama, secretary general at the ruling Congress Party- backed Indian National Mineworkers Federation, citing a memo to Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal. A day’s strike in Coal India may lead to a loss of about 1.2 million metric tons, worth about 1.7 billion rupees, based on the company’s average selling price of 1,438 rupees a ton in the quarter ended Dec. 31. The stoppage will squeeze supplies to Indian power plants , cement and steel factories. Coal India, which missed its output target for the year ended March 31, is battling law and order problems, labor unrest and delays in acquiring land and mining approvals to boost production and avoid resorting to imports to meet contracts. A peak shortfall of 9 percent in electricity supplies leads to outages that shave about 1.2 percentage points off the $1.8 trillion economy, according to the government. “The government has to win the support,” of the labor unions, said Prasad Baji, an analyst at Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd. in Mumbai, who recommends investors buy the stock. “To make the share sale attractive, the government may allow the company to raise prices and counter the increase in costs.” The shares fell 0.5 percent to 309.25 rupees at the close in Mumbai. The stock has lost 13 percent this year, compared with a 5 percent decline in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. Price Increase Coal India may raise prices this fiscal year, Macquarie Capital Securities (India) Pvt. analysts Rakesh Arora and Sumangal Nevatia wrote in a April 1 report. The company last raised regular prices in February 2011, while a reclassification of its products based on their heat value starting Jan. 1, 2012, led to a 3 percent increase in selling prices. The Kolkata-based company agreed to a wage increase starting in July 2011. The government, which owns 90 percent in the miner, is considering selling a 5 percent stake to the public and a similar holding to Coal India, according to a finance ministry draft proposal obtained by Bloomberg News. A directive by the market regulator to state-run companies to reduce the holding of the government to 75 percent by August this year may be used as a ground to convince the workers. “Any further sale in Coal India will be a breach of promise,” Zama said in a phone interview. “The government is not a beggar. It can find other ways to bridge the deficit.” NTPC, Oil India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ’s administration sold stakes in companies including NTPC Ltd., NMDC Ltd. and Oil India Ltd. for about 240 billion rupees in the year ended March 31 to shrink the widest budget deficit among major emerging economies, pay subsidies and invest in public works. The divestment list to raise 400 billion rupees this fiscal year also includes National Aluminium Co., Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd., Indian Oil Corp., Power Grid Corp. of India, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) “Workers fear a stake sale will lead to privatization and exploitation,” R. Mohan Das, director for personnel at Coal India, said in an interview. Five central worker unions, led by the Indian National Trade Union Congress, opposed a 10 percent share sale in Coal India in 2010, saying it would pave the path for privatization of the company and jeopardize employee interests. The 152 billion rupee sale, India’s biggest until then, went ahead on the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee ’s assurance that no further stake would be sold. ‘We Are One’ “All coal sector workers will go on a continuous strike from the day this decision is announced by the government,” said Jibon Roy, secretary at the Centre of Indian Trade Unions , a unit of the opposing Communist Party of India (Marxist). “On this matter, we are one.” Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has asked cash- rich state companies to use their surplus cash for projects, or give it back to the government as dividend, or buy back shares. Coal India has a cash reserve of $12 billion. “We anticipate some labor issues in going ahead with further disinvestment in Coal India,” Coal Secretary S.K. Srivastava said in a phone interview. “We will do our best to convince them.” Coal India workers went on a one-day strike in Oct. 10, 2011, asking for higher bonus payments for the year, a demand the company met. They threatened to go on strike again three months later and won an increase in wages. “Coal India has to improve its output and sales volumes to boost investor sentiments,” said Rahul Jain , an analyst with CIMB Securities India Pvt. in Mumbai, who has an underperform rating for the stock. “In absence of these, the company may see a decline in earnings this fiscal year because of the increase in costs.” To contact the reporters on this story: Rajesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi at [email protected] ; Siddhartha Singh in New Delhi at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at [email protected]

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Lockheed's Stevens Says F-35 May Need `More Time, More Dollars'

The development phase of Lockheed Martin Corp. ’s F-35 jet fighter, the most expensive U.S. weapon program, will likely take longer and more money than expected to complete, Chief Executive Officer Robert Stevens said. The U.S. Defense Department and the company are “probably going to examine the need for more time, more people and more dollars,” Stevens said in an interview today in Washington. The Pentagon is conducting a so-called Technical Baseline Review, led by F-35 program manager Vice Admiral David Venlet , in time for a scheduled Nov. 22 Defense Acquisition Board evaluation. The review may disclose broad ranges of potential cost increases and schedule delays on top of changes unveiled this year by the Pentagon, two government officials with knowledge of the program said this week. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter model being designed for the U.S. Marine Corps, with a short-takeoff and vertical-landing capability, is behind schedule, Stevens said. “We have to improve the performance of that airframe,” he said. “The software has been performing well when it’s on the aircraft, but it’s going to take some more resources.” The Pentagon has already mandated a 13-month extension to the current development phase to November 2015, shifting $2.8 billion in production funds for continued research and delaying the purchase of 122 jets to beyond 2015. The weapon program is estimated to cost $382 billion. Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Maryland, advanced $1.03, or 1.5 percent, to $71.96 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have declined 4.5 percent this year. Marine Corps Model The Marine Corps model is the most complex of the three versions being developed and has fallen short of flight-test goals. As of Oct. 31, it has flown 168 times compared with a target of 209 tests, John Kent , a Lockheed spokesman, said in a statement today. Including flight tests of the Navy’s carrier- variant and the conventional-takeoff model, the plane has completed 321 flights, 28 more than planned by October, he said. The model’s basic flying characteristics, propulsion system and structural integrity “are performing well,” Stevens said. By contrast, “supplier-provided components” such as cooling fans “are not demonstrating early reliability,” he said. As a result, Lockheed is focusing more attention than planned on correcting supplier deficiencies. “That takes time, and that means we’re going to have to re-examine the flight-test schedule and program,” he said. ‘Reallocate Resources’ The Pentagon review led by Venlet is looking at program changes in the past year and asking, “how has performance unfolded, are we doing that which we expected on plan, are we better than planned, are we behind and, importantly, how do we reallocate resources to assure this program is successful,” Stevens said. The $50 billion development phase may cost as much as $5 billion more, according to preliminary estimates in Venlet’s review, the two government officials said on condition of anonymity because the review hasn’t been made public yet. Separately, Pentagon cost analysts now estimate the JSF may be as much as 1 1/2 times more expensive to maintain than the warplanes it will replace. Slippage in the JSF’s timetable may be as much as one year for the Air Force and Navy versions, and two to three years for the Marine Corps model, the officials said. Leaks Regretted Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell today criticized release of the information, noting “the department regrets that someone chose to provide unauthorized and incomplete information to the press.” “Admiral Venlet has been doing a soup-to-nuts review of the JSF program,” Morrell said. “It is the most thorough, the most extensive, the deepest dive yet we have done into the F-35 program.” “But that assessment is not yet complete,” he said. “Therefore, what has been leaked to the press is premature, and I would suggest to you that in some respects it’s inaccurate.” Stevens and Joseph Dellavedova , a U.S. Air Force F-35 program spokesman, said separately that the first two production aircraft, which were supposed to be delivered this month to Edwards Air Force Base, California, are undergoing modifications and will be delivered in April. To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at [email protected] Gopal Ratnam in Washington at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at [email protected]

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TAIWAN SECOM May Sales Fall 0.16% (Table) : 9917 TT

TAIWAN SECOM said unconsolidated sales in May fell 0.16% to NT$512,091,000 from NT$512,934,000, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. (Figures are in thousands of New Taiwan dollars) ================================================================= 5/2012 5/2011 Sales 512,091 512,934 YOY% -0.16% -----------------Year-to-date----------------- Sales 2,535,721 2,528,497 YOY% 0.29% =================================================================

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Man Charged in Deadly Norway Attacks

Twin attacks in Norway , the deadliest since World War II, left at least 92 people dead after a gunman fatally shot 85 at a political youth camp near Oslo and a bomb in the capital’s government quarter killed seven. A 32-year-old Norwegian man, a former member of the anti- immigrant Progress Party, was arrested in the attacks, police said in Oslo today. Authorities declined to confirm local media reports identifying the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, upon the request of his defense lawyer, who has not been named. “He has been charged in both” incidents, Deputy Oslo Police Chief Roger Andresen told reporters. The two counts of “dangerous crimes to society” mean the perpetrator could receive 21 years in prison, Norway’s toughest punishment, Andresen said. The Oslo blast yesterday shattered windows at the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and other government buildings. About 600 people were on the island of Utoeya, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Oslo, attending the annual camp organized by the youth wing of Stoltenberg’s Labor Party when the shootings took place, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said. The suspect, who was wearing a fake police uniform when arrested on the island, was not a police officer, authorities said. “I heard a shot and someone came and said, ‘there’s a man with a weapon, just run,’ so I ran through the forest,” said 17-year-old Ahmed Rasooli, who was on the island. “When I came back I saw a policeman and I thought he could help us, so we went toward him. There was a girl in front of me and he shot her. She screamed, and then she died.” Dozens Injured Along with those who were killed, dozens more were hurt in the shooting and nine others were seriously injured in the bombing, Gahr Stoere said. Police roped off streets surrounding the bomb site, while the army blocked access to the area from onlookers. The rampage on the island lasted 90 minutes, Acting Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim told a press briefing in Oslo today. Breivik, who was using a pistol and an automatic machinegun, surrendered without any resistance when he was finally approached by a special police force, Sponheim said. He said he didn’t know if the suspect had acted alone. The death toll may rise, he said, as four to five people are still missing from the gathering at Utoeya. The attacks were the deadliest in Europe since about 350 people were massacred at a school in Beslan, Russia , in 2004. 6 Tons Fertilizer The suspect owned a farm in the small eastern town of Rena, which is listed as Breivik Geofarm on a Facebook page bearing his name and image. He bought 6 tons of fertilizer in May, said Jan Kollsgaard, a director at agricultural supply company Felleskjoepet. Breivik became a member of the Progress Party, Norway’s second biggest, in 1999 and paid his membership fees until 2004, party spokesman Mazyar Keshvari said in an e-mail today. He was also a member of the party’s youth movement from 1997 to 2007, acting as deputy chairman for one of the local Oslo chapters. On a Twitter account bearing his name, Breivik made only one posting, on July 17, paraphrasing English economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill: “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.” He’s a Christian fundamentalist with no previous record of criminal offences, Andresen, the deputy police chief, said. Interrogations could last several days, police said today. Crisis Centers Two policemen stood outside the 4-story brick apartment building listed as Breivik’s Oslo address in a quiet residential area in the capital’s west. Hemen Noaman, a 27-year-old accounting consultant living in the building, said Breivik’s mother resided in the apartment and that her son would often visit her. Sponheim said police had interrogated Breivik’s mother and that she not been aware of her son’s plans. Municipalities and cities throughout Norway were setting up crisis centers to aid relatives of the victims. From Tromsoe in the far north of the rugged Nordic country with 4.9 million inhabitants to Oslo in the south, flags were flown at half-mast in remembrance of the victims. The annual youth camp, which began July 19, was set to conclude tomorrow. “Not since World War II has our country experienced a greater tragedy,” Stoltenberg said. “For me, Utoeya was the paradise island of my youth that was transformed into hell.” Police, who would not speculate about a motive, “see a connection between the attack in the Oslo center and the attack on the island because both are at political sites,” Anders Frydenberg, an Oslo police spokesman, said by telephone. Police do not know whether the suspect was acting alone, Sponheim said. Progress Party The Progress Party, which posted its best result in Norway’s last parliamentary elections since it was formed as an anti-tax movement in 1973, is preparing to contest local elections on Sept. 12. A poll conducted by Norfakta earlier this month showed the opposition Conservative and Progress parties combined would obtain a majority in parliament, beating the ruling center-left coalition government. “The parties on the right have had strong loyalty recently while parties on the left have had less,” Frank Aarebrot, a University of Bergen political science professor, said today. After these attacks, “Labor supporters will rally to the flag. Progress Party supporters could become a little less certain.” Like other Nordic countries, Norway has a high rate of gun ownership, mostly semi-automatic and bolt-action rifles and shotguns, due to the popularity of hunting. As of January 1, 2010, 439,000 Norwegians were recognized by the Norwegian Register of Hunters, or about one in every 10 citizens. Scared Children Neighboring Sweden had a brush with what police treated as a possible terrorist attack in December when a suicide bomber injured two people in central Stockholm. “The attacks that were carried out in Oslo and at Utoeya were an attack on the Norwegian society we value so highly,” Norway’s King Harald said in an address to the nation today. “Across the entire country people have lost loved ones. There are many young people and children who are scared today. We need to take especially good care of them.” Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen sent a statement conveying his “deepest sympathy and solidarity” with the Norwegian people. U.S. President Barack Obama said the attacks showed that “no country large or small” is immune to such violence. U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “shocked” by the attacks, which NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen classified as a “heinous act.” To contact the reporters on this story: Josiane Kremer in Oslo at [email protected] ; Stephen Treloar in Oslo at [email protected] ; Toby Alder in Oslo via the Stockholm bureau at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at [email protected]

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MGM Resorts Plans $500 Million Sale of Six-Year Notes

MGM Resorts International , the biggest casino operator on the Las Vegas Strip, plans to sell $500 million of six-year notes as soon as today as bondholder interest in gambling company debt revives. MGM will use proceeds to repay some lenders whose commitments expire next year, it said in a statement distributed by PR Newswire. The debt may yield about 10.25 percent, according to a person familiar with the offering who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set. Casino company bonds are rallying as investors gain confidence the economy won’t slip back into recession and Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue climbs. MGM debt has returned 3.8 percent this month, the second-best performance among the top 50 issuers in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Master II index, trailing only Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. , the world’s biggest casino company. “MGM continues to hack away at near-term maturities,” wrote Barbara Cappaert , an analyst at Montpelier, Vermont-based KDP Investment Advisors, in a note to clients today. “We would be aggressive buyers at this level,” she said of the new bonds. MGM is selling the securities to repay some of the $1.2 billion owed to lenders under its senior credit facility, the statement said. These lenders haven’t agreed to extend their commitments beyond October 2011, according to the statement, after creditors holding $3.6 billion said they would push the maturity of their debt to February 2014. The offering follows MGM’s $845 million sale of 10-year, 9 percent notes in March. The company said it will also use $511 million raised last week in a sale of common stock to repay debt, it said in an Oct. 19 statement. Gambling Revenue Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc are managing the sale, the person said. Moody’s Investors Service ranks MGM’s unsecured debt Caa1, while Standard & Poor’s rates the company CCC+. MGM’s $732.7 million of 7.5 percent notes due in June 2016 traded at 89 cents on the dollar to yield 10.1 percent, according to Trace, the bond price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The debt has climbed 10.2 cents on the dollar since Aug. 31, Trace data show. Las Vegas Strip gambling revenue jumped 21 percent in August, according to Nevada’s Gaming Control Board. Revenue rose to $544.4 million, from $449.6 million in the same month a year earlier, the board said Oct. 8. Strip casino proceeds increased 4.5 percent in the first eight months of this year. Harrah’s debt has returned 6.05 percent this month, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Catts in New York at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at [email protected] .

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Polish Pension Changes to Take Effect in May, Boni Says

Poland ’s government maintains its position that contributions to private pension funds should be reduced to help curb the deficit, according to Michal Boni, an adviser to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The government will discuss the changes on March 8, allowing the Parliament to begin the debate on the plan a week later, Boni said at a press conference in Warsaw. Changes may take effect in May, he said. The government plans to cut transfers to private-pension funds to 2.3 percent of employees’ salaries from 7.3 percent, moving the rest to the state-run pension system to curb the budget deficit and keep public debt below a legal threshold of 55 percent of gross domestic product. As a result of the changes, Poland’s borrowing needs will fall by 180 billion zloty between 2012 and 2020, Boni said. To contact the reporter on this story: Dorota Bartyzel in Warsaw at [email protected] Monika Rozlal in Warsaw at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nathaniel Espino at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

What I Learned on My Junket to China

China Daily , the largest English- language newspaper in China, carried a front-page headline last week: “Village Gratitude Shows Integrity of Task.” Not clear what that’s about, and the opening sentence isn’t much help: “On a hot afternoon, Zhou Yi picked up a bag of freshly boiled eggs that had been left on the doorstep of the committee office in Chaqulak village in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.” I figured this must be some feel-good story (of the sort that even U.S. papers sometimes cannot resist) about the noble, uncorrupted country folk quietly taking care of the less fortunate in their midst. But read on. It turns out that Zhou Yi is not a local homeless man dependent on the generosity of his fellow peasants who have little enough for themselves, et cetera. He is one of a group of “regional-level officials sent to live in Chaqulak as part of an initiative to provide officials with first-hand experience of working at the grassroots.” The officials were grateful for the eggs. Apparently they don’t get a per diem. A program to send bureaucrats out into the countryside to see what real work is like? It’s possible the story is not so simple, and maybe the China Daily has an agenda here. But it sure sounds like the sort of thing that went on during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, doesn’t it? The founding editor of China Daily himself spent nine years doing menial work on a farm somewhere before he was allowed to return to Beijing. The Capitalist Road I thought that stuff didn’t happen anymore. In 1979, just three years after the Cultural Revolution collapsed, Deng Xiaoping reversed course. China started down the Capitalist Road, with stunning results that any visitor can see: small towns converted to huge cities with millions of people living in high-rises, driving cars (or taking the new subways) instead of riding bikes, and choking on pollution, but nevertheless happy to be enjoying the fruits of a free-market economy. Yet the Communist Party retains absolute political power (although there are now real elections at the village level, with multiple candidates and all the fixin’s). In fact, the party takes credit for reforming the economy -- and may even deserve it. So how do all these pieces fit together? How free is the average Chinese citizen now? How much communism is left in the Communist party? Will free-market capitalism inevitably lead to democracy? Or have the Chinese discovered some new Confucian synthesis of free markets and authoritarian rule? These are the kind of questions that an American visitor to China will naturally have. After eight days there (in a small group of journalists whose way was paid by a foundation funded by a Hong Kong billionaire), I now have all the answers. Actually, whatever insights I may have gained during my visit to China came mostly from reading James Fallows’s new book, “ China Airborne ,” on the plane coming home. Fallows spent several years in China with the explicit and full-time purpose of trying to understand it. He writes that to talk about “China” (population 1.3 billion) as a single entity is absurd: “When acting on the international stage, or when imposing some internal political rules, the central government can operate as a coordinated entity. But most of the time, visitors

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

EU Finance Chiefs Seek Deal on IMF Voting Rights Before Board-Seats Deal

European Union finance chiefs are seeking an agreement on voting rights at the International Monetary Fund before discussing proposed changes to the institution’s board to better represent emerging economies. European officials “are open” to discussing changes to the composition of the IMF’s 24-member board, Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders , whose government currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told a press conference in Brussels today after a two-day meeting also attended by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. “But first a revision of the quotas,” or voting rights. At stake is the governance of an institution that doesn’t fully reflect the rising economic clout of countries such India and China , which this year surpassed Japan as the world’s No. 2 economy. The U.S., which blocked a proposal to maintain the IMF board in its current 24-seat form, has said it is seeking stronger representation of emerging economies to bolster the fund’s legitimacy. “We will offer to reduce the representation of European countries at the executive board by as many as two seats through rotation with emerging countries in the voting groups,” German Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Asmussen told reporters in Brussels. The European nations, including Germany, are seeking to keep the total number of seats at 24. Separate Negotiations Europeans want to tie the board-representation issues to separate negotiations among IMF members on the weight of emerging nations’ votes. Quotas determine voting shares and access to IMF loans as well as members’ financial obligations to the institution. Group of 20 leaders pledged last year to enhance the voting power of China and others and planned to have details ironed out by a summit in November in Seoul. China has a 3.65 percent voting share, compared with Japan’s 6.01 percent. Germany, France and the U.K. each has its own seat, along with the U.S. and Japan. Countries such as Switzerland and Belgium have executive directors who represent groups of nations. Strauss-Kahn earlier this week said it would be “fair” to give emerging countries more say on the board, naming Turkey as an example. The Netherlands, which represents a group of countries on the IMF board, finds “it far too early to start on a specific solution as long as you don’t know which step by Europe is needed,” Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said in Brussels yesterday. “The reason we don’t want to speak about specific countries is because we want to know from the U.S. what will be enough, what we have to do.” To contact the reporters on this story: Jurjen van de Pol in Brussels at [email protected] ; Christian Vits in Brussels at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Fraher at [email protected] .

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

IMF Isn’t Contemplating Market Involvement With EFSF: Borges

Antonio Borges, director of the International Monetary Fund’s European Department, said today that “we do not have any additional requests for support from European members and we are not contemplating any market involvement with the EFSF.” He issued the statement by e-mail after a news conference in Brussels. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Costelloe at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Crude Oil Prices Fall in N.Y. After U.S. Payrolls Grow Less Than Forecast

Crude oil declined in New York after a government report showed U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew less in June than economists predicted. Oil for August delivery fell as much $1.17 to $97.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded down 75 cents at $97.72 at 1:33 p.m. London time. To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Buckley at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Airbus Chief Sees Weak Euro Boosting Profit, WiWo Reports

Airbus SAS may beat the operating profit numbers it forecast by 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) due to the weak euro, WirtschaftsWoche quoted Chief Executive Officer Fabrice Bregier as saying in an interview. The current exchange rate of 1.25 euros per dollars means an additional operating profit of “about a billion euros,” the magazine cited Bregier as saying in a preview of tomorrow’s edition. To contact the reporter on this story: Eva von Schaper in Munich at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Collahuasi Miners at Xstrata, Anglo’s Chile Unit End Strike

Workers at the Collahuasi copper mine, a joint venture between Anglo American Plc (AAL) and Xstrata Plc (XTA) in northern Chile , agreed today to end a strike over job dismissals after winning concessions from their employers. “Early this morning, the workers carrying out an illegal strike inside the mine stopped their action,” Collahuasi said in a statement. “The 30 dismissals announced yesterday will be maintained and we will review the situation of the 32 dismissals” that were scheduled to be announced today, it said. The workers union at Collahuasi agreed to abandon the mine site in exchange for a reduction in job dismissals, a union official, who isn’t an authorized spokesman and declined to be named, said by phone from the mine site. The union previously said the company will fire 62 workers. Workers in Peru , Chile, Bolivia and Indonesia have carried out strikes at copper, gold and zinc mines this year to push for improved conditions and a bigger slice of profits after metal prices surged. Workers at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) ’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia have been on strike since Sept. 15. Some Collahuasi workers called for an indefinite strike on Nov. 28 to protest the job losses. The union carried out two one- day stoppages this year and downed tools for a month last year. Anglo’s shares rose 5.6 percent to 2,439 pence at 4:09 p.m. in London after central banks agreed to cut the cost of emergency dollar funding for European banks. Xstrata rose 68 pence, or 7.2 percent, to 1,024 pence. Pits Blocked Workers had blocked the Ujina and Rosario open pits and ore stockpiles, according to the union. Production of copper concentrate was stopped, Collahuasi said yesterday in a statement. Output of refined copper was partially stopped and the company’s Pacific port was operating normally, it said. The company said yesterday that only 10 percent of the workforce went on strike because of the dismissals. Anglo American and Xstrata each own 44 percent of Collahuasi while a group led by Mitsui & Co. holds the rest. To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Craze in Santiago at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Hobbs at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Delta’s Anderson Sees Completing Virgin Stake Purchase Next Week

Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) will finalize its purchase of a 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. on June 24, Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson said. “On Monday, we’ll announce the closing,” Anderson said today in a weekly recorded message to employees. Delta President Ed Bastian will join Virgin Atlantic CEO Craig Kreeger in New York for the event, Anderson said. The carriers will begin a codeshare agreement that allows passengers to book tickets on each other’s planes on a single itinerary, he said. Delta, based in Atlanta, can proceed after winning regulatory approval from the European Commission and the U.S. Justice Department yesterday, Anderson said. Delta and Virgin Atlantic, which is 51 percent owned by U.K. billionaire Richard Branson , are still seeking antitrust immunity from the U.S. Transportation Department that would allow them to jointly set fares and schedules and act as a single entity. Delta is buying the Virgin stake from Singapore Airlines Ltd. (SIA) for $360 million to increase its share of the trans-Atlantic market, the world’s richest segment of premium passengers. The move is also a challenge to British Airways (IAG) and AMR Corp. (AAMRQ) ’s American Airlines, who now control more than half of that service. To contact the reporters on this story: Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta at [email protected] ; Leslie Picker in New York at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Satyam Profit Declines in First Quarterly Earnings Announcement Since 2008

Satyam Computer Services Ltd ., the software exporter embroiled in India’s biggest corporate fraud probe, reported its first quarterly earnings in almost two years, ahead of a merger with Tech Mahindra Ltd. Profit fell 76 percent to 233 million rupees ($5.2 million) in the three months ended September from the previous quarter ended June, Hyderabad-based Satyam said in a statement to the National Stock Exchange today. The company last announced quarterly earnings in December 2008. Satyam, whose former Chairman Ramalinga Raju disclosed in January 2009 that he overstated the company’s assets by $1 billion, will be absorbed by its largest shareholder, Tech Mahindra Ltd., within a year of announcing numbers for the quarter. “Clients are asking for discounts,” said Rahul Jain , an analyst with Dolat Capital Market Ltd. in Mumbai. “You are seeing lots of deal wins, but the revenue and rate is not up to the mark.” Jain has a “neutral to negative” rating on Satyam and an “accumulate” rating for Tech Mahindra. Sales in the three months fell to 12.4 billion rupees from 12.5 billion rupees in the quarter ended June, according to the statement. ‘Critical ICU’ Satyam “has been in critical ICU for almost a year,” said Chairman Vineet Nayyar at a press conference in Hyderabad. “The good news is that most of the damages inflicted on this company have now been repaired, but that doesn’t mean it has recovered.” Raju and five company executives surrendered before a trial court in the southern city of Hyderabad Nov. 10 after India’s Supreme Court canceled their bail, the Economic Times reported at the time, without saying where it got the information. Many clients “put us on hold, waiting for us to come out with results,” said Chief Executive Officer Chander Prakash Gurnani at the press conference. “Now, we should aggressively go back to our lost customers.” Satyam dropped 1.7 percent to 84.25 rupees at the 3:30 p.m. close of trading in Mumbai, before the earnings announcement. That compares with a 0.8 percent advance in the benchmark Sensitive Index, or Sensex. The stock has fallen 14 percent this year, underperforming the Sensex’s 16 percent advance. To contact the reporter on this story: Ketaki Gokhale in Mumbai at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Greek Financing Solutions Shouldn’t Be ‘Disruptive,’ IMF Says

The solutions chosen to fill Greece ’s financing gap “should not be disruptive” for financial stability, a spokeswoman for the International Monetary Fund said. “Any involuntary debt restructuring or credit event” would be “undesirable,” spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson told reporters in Washington today. To contact the reporter on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Paris at [email protected] ; To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Costelloe at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Chilean Stocks: Cap, Corpbanca and Lan Airlines Were Active

The following companies had unusual price changes in Chilean trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses, and prices are as of the close in Santiago. The Ipsa index retreated 1.4 percent to 4,414.92. The MSCI Chile index fell 2.2 percent to 2,454.74. Cap SA (CAP) , Chile’s largest iron miner and steel producer, lost 2.8 percent to 18,877 pesos, the biggest fall in more than five months. Base metals prices slumped today on speculation that a possible Greek exit from the currency union that uses the euro and a slowdown in China will erode demand. Corpbanca (CORPBANC) retreated 1.3 percent to 6.556 pesos, the steepest drop in more than six weeks. Chile’s fifth- largest lender set a price of 6.25 pesos per share for the planned sale of 43 billion new shares, according to a statement posted May 10 on the Chilean securities regulator’s website. Lan Airlines SA (LAN) fell 1.6 percent to 12,999 pesos, its fifth day of losses and its biggest drop since January. Latin America ’s largest airline by market value reported May 11 a 22 percent decline in first-quarter profit as fuel costs rose and growth in cargo operations slowed. To contact the reporter on this story: Eduardo Thomson in Santiago at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

BP Appears in Court to Enter Criminal Plea Over Oil Spill

BP Plc (BP/) appeared in federal court in New Orleans to answer U.S. charges brought over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. A not guilty plea today won’t affect its $4 billion criminal settlement with the federal government. BP announced the settlement with the U.S. Justice Department Nov. 15, agreeing to plead guilty and pay $4 billion to end all criminal charges related to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Under the plea deal, BP will enter a formal guilty plea at a later hearing. To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Cronin Fisk in Detroit at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

FAA Orders Airlines to Inspect, Replace Boeing Cockpit Windows

U.S. airlines flying Boeing Co. 757, 767 and 777 aircraft must inspect or replace the cockpit windows after 11 reports of fires tied to electrical wiring in the past two decades, the Federal Aviation Administration said today. The order is aimed at eliminating loose connections that heat the window and prevent ice from forming, the FAA said in an e-mailed statement. Loose connections in the electrical system may lead to cracked windows, smoke or fire, the agency said. The order covers 1,212 U.S. aircraft, and inspections will cost carriers a total of $103,000, according to the FAA. Operators can begin inspections within 500 flight hours of the July 13 effective date, or install a redesigned window, the agency said. The most recent incident was an emergency landing by a UAL Corp. United Airlines 757 at Washington Dulles International Airport on May 16, the FAA said. While no reports have been received about fires on Boeing 747s, the FAA said it plans a directive for those planes later this year because the windows are similar. To contact the reporter for this story: John Hughes in Washington [email protected] .

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Falling Wind Price to Spur Gains in Next Decade, Sieminski Says

Adam Sieminski , head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, said falling costs for wind power will make the alternate energy competitive with natural gas and coal, spurring expansion in the next two decades. Sieminski, whose office is independent and doesn’t set policies, said extending a tax credit for wind power, set to expire in December, would help increase use of the power. Even if that tax provision expires as scheduled, wind generation will grow, he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Drajem in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Geimann at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Extended Stay Surges in Debut After $565 Million IPO

Extended Stay America Inc. (STAY) , the largest owner of mid-price long-stay hotels in the U.S., jumped 19 percent in its trading debut after raising $565 million in an initial public offering. Extended Stay closed at $23.87 after selling 28.25 million shares at $20 each. The company, led by former Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jim Donald, initially offered the stock for $18 to $21. Charlotte , North Carolina-based Extended Stay, which was held equally by Blackstone Group LP (BX) , Centerbridge Partners LP and Paulson & Co., will use proceeds to pay debt, according to a regulatory filing. None of the firms sold shares. Extended Stay, which owns and operates almost 700 hotels with about 76,000 rooms in the U.S. and Canada , went public three years after its owners bought the company out of bankruptcy and invested about $626 million in renovations that are close to completion. The investors are taking advantage of hotel stocks close to all-time highs and a rebound in room rates and occupancies to extend the busiest year for real estate IPOs since 2004, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Extended Stay sold paired common stock, comprising one share of the company and one Class B share of a related entity that is taxed as a real estate investment trust, the filing shows. Each paired share is trading as one unit, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STAY. Extended Stay sold about 14.1 percent of the company in the IPO, giving it a market value of about $4 billion. The $565 million raised excludes 4.24 million shares the underwriters could sell to meet demand, called the overallotment, or green shoe. That would increase IPO proceeds to $649.75 million. Higher Occupancies Lower-priced long-stay hotels such as Extended Stay’s properties filled 69.8 percent of their rooms on average in 2012, compared with 61.3 percent for all U.S. lodging, according to travel-research firm STR. At higher-priced extended-stay hotels, occupancy averaged 76.3 percent last year. Extended Stay has added amenities such as Wi-Fi and breakfast to charge higher room rates. The company, whose average daily rate was $52.34 during the 12 months through June, has said it’s trying to attract more shorter-stay and corporate guests who would pay higher rates. “You’re just seeing more bifurcation in the industry,” said Steve Hennis, a director at the STR Analytics unit of Hendersonville, Tennessee-based STR. Lower-tier extended-stay hotels charged an average daily rate of $54.77 last year, compared with $119.88 for upper-level long-stay companies, according to the firm. Kansas Start Extended-stay hotel rooms are equipped with kitchens and are rented by the week or month by people including executives relocating, construction workers on a project away from home and families going through a move. The industry got its start in 1975, when real estate developer Jack DeBoer opened the first Residence Inn in Wichita, Kansas , eventually selling the chain to Marriott International Inc. in 1987, according to fact sheets provided by Marriott and DeBoer’s office. In 1988, DeBoer, now 82, co-founded the Summerfield chain, later selling that company to Hyatt Hotels Corp. and, in 1995, started the Candlewood chain, which was bought by InterContinental Hotels Group Plc (IHG) in January 2004, according to DeBoer’s office and Bloomberg data. Also in 1995, billionaire Wayne Huizenga and his business partner George Johnson founded Extended Stay America, expanding it to 472 properties by the time they sold the company to Blackstone in May 2004 for $3.1 billion. Blackstone sold it three years later, close to the top of the market, for $8 billion to Lightstone Group LLC, which put the debt-laden company into bankruptcy protection after the credit crisis. In 2010, the current owners bought Extended Stay for $3.9 billion. The IPO will almost triple the value of their realized and unrealized holdings in the company, according to Bloomberg calculations. To contact the reporter on this story: Hui-yong Yu in Seattle at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Exxon Valdez Barred Entry Into India Shipbreaking Yard

India barred Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez that caused the 1989 Alaska oil spill , from the nation’s biggest ship-breaking yard after an activist filed a petition in the Supreme Court saying the vessel contained toxic material. The Gujarat Pollution Control Board denied the ship entry into Alang, on India’s western coast, for scrapping, as the “matter is sub-judice,” Hardik Shah, its member secretary, said in a telephone interview last night from the state capital Gandhinagar. Gopal Krishna, a New Delhi-based activist with ToxicsWatch Alliance, told the Supreme Court last month that the ship had asbestos and heavy metals on board. Concerns that ships with hazardous material are entering India have mounted in recent years as Alang competes with yards in China , Pakistan and Bangladesh. Priya Blue Industries Pvt. a Gujarat, western India-based company that bought the ship for scrapping, will file a reply in the court next week, its founder Sanjay Mehta said. He denied the vessel, now converted into a bulk-carrier, had any toxic material on board. The ship is currently in international waters off India’s west coast, Mehta said. The Supreme Court asked the Indian government and Ministry of Shipping to provide information on the steps taken to prevent the ship’s berthing at any of the nation’s ports, according to a May 3 order posted on the court’s website. The next hearing on the case is scheduled for August 13. Alaska Oil Spill In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilt 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, devastating wildlife and local businesses. Victims of the spill sued Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and won a $5 billion punitive damage award in 1994. The award was cut after a series of appeals by Exxon over the next 14 years, and eventually in 2008 a divided U.S. Supreme Court reduced the punitive damages to $507.5 million. In the petition filed in India’s Supreme Court, Krishna said the 301 meter-long ship was purchased by Best Oasis Ltd., a unit of Priya Blue, for $16 million. Mehta declined to comment on the price of the vessel, built in 1986. Alang, which opened in 1982, has the capacity to break ships of about 4 million metric tons a year, according to Gujarat Maritime Board website. The yard gives direct employment to about 25,000 workers, according to the Board. To contact the reporter on this story: Siddharth Philip in Mumbai at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Winner Wouldn’t Take All as Pennsylvania Republicans Eye Electoral Votes

Pennsylvania Republicans are trying to eliminate the winner-take-all system for electoral votes, a move that might boost their presidential candidate’s chances in a state that picked the Democrat in the past five races. With the backing of Republican Governor Tom Corbett, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has proposed a plan, similar to ones under consideration in four other states, that would apportion 18 of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes according to victory in congressional districts. This would assure the Republican of some votes because of boundaries drawn to preserve party dominance, said Chris Borick, a political-science professor and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown. The move comes as Republicans across the country are fighting to tighten voting rules. “They’re all motivated by the same agenda to increase Republican share and representation,” said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University and associate director of its Election Law @ Moritz center. U.S. states have Electoral College votes equal to the number of their members of the House of Representatives , plus two for their senators. Forty-eight states grant all electoral votes to the statewide victor of the presidential race, who must claim 270 to win office. The nation’s founders created the system as a compromise between having Congress elect the president and having citizens do it directly. Giving a Voice Pileggi has argued that his proposal would more accurately reflect the will of Pennsylvania’s people. Dividing votes proportionally is fair, so that people throughout the state are “able to weigh in,” Corbett told reporters in Philadelphia on Sept. 21. Corbett said he didn’t think there would be any guaranteed electoral votes. Pileggi’s bill, which would hand out 18 votes by congressional district showing and award two to the overall statewide winner, is expected to have public hearings in October, said a spokesman, Erik Arneson. Republicans hold the majority in both chambers of the Legislature. Massachusetts , Minnesota , New Jersey and South Carolina have bills pending that would change the winner-take-all system to one by congressional districts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Similar measures failed in 30 states -- including Pennsylvania -- since 2001. Grass Is Greener Republicans in Nebraska , which along with Maine doles out electoral votes by congressional district, have proposed legislation to reverse that system to winner take all. In 2008, Nebraska’s electoral votes were split for the first time. Both parties tried to change the rules when in the majority, said Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote in Takoma Park, Maryland , which supports a national popular vote for president. “There’s a frustration on the losing side and a realization where we can receive a majority of the electoral votes,” he said. Although the Democratic candidate has won Pennsylvania for the past five presidential elections, it is still a swing state, said Borick at Muhlenberg. Because of the so-called gerrymandering of congressional districts, only about five may be competitive, he said. “It takes our valued position as one of the key swing states out of the mix,” he said in a phone interview. Fewer Blandishments Presidential candidates, who wouldn’t be able to sweep the electoral vote, would be less inclined to promise actions that would benefit the entire state, said Tokaji at Ohio State University. “It’s putting the interest of the Republican party over the interests of the citizens of Pennsylvania,” he said. Corbett said the state will still be “key” in the election. “It’s Pennsylvania,” he told reporters on Sept. 21. “They’re still going to advertise here.” Pennsylvania may also require voters to show identification at the polls. Such a measure has passed Pennsylvania’s House and 34 states have considered similar plans, according to the NCSL. Forty-seven states this year have enacted 285 election- related laws such as limiting early voting and requiring identification, and 60 percent were in states with Republican governors, according to the legislatures group. “They have the power, they don’t know how long they’ll have it, and they’re looking to perpetuate that power,” said Tokaji. To contact the reporter on this story: Romy Varghese in Philadelphia at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at [email protected] .

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Deyaar of Dubai Falls to Lowest in Week After Reporting Third-Quarter Loss

Deyaar Development, the property company part-owned by Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC , fell to the lowest intraday level in more than a week after it posted a loss of 145 million dirhams ($39 million) in the third quarter. The shares slumped 4.8 percent to 31.8 fils, the lowest since Oct. 27, at 12:25 p.m. in Dubai. Revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 was 63.45 million dirhams, the company said. Deyaar remains “committed to its consolidation and project completion strategy, including the handover of five projects in the Business Bay areas in 2010,” it said. To contact the reporter on this story: Zahra Hankir in Dubai at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Maedler at [email protected] .

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

MF Global Holdings Says More Units Move Toward Bankruptcy

MF Global Holdings Inc. won permission to have three more units join it in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as a lawyer said more units are likely to file for protection from creditors next year. MF Global Capital LLC, MF Global Market Services LLC and MF Global FX Clear LLC can consolidate their cases with that of the parent company, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan said today. The units sought protection Dec. 19 after a decision by the Chapter 11 trustee, Louis Freeh. “People had threatened to take action” and seize assets of the three units, so Freeh decided to put additional subsidiaries into bankruptcy, said Lorenzo Marinuzzi, a lawyer for Freeh. More are likely to enter bankruptcy in January, Marinuzzi told the judge. One of the units has $6.3 million in cash, related to the termination of its own trades, he said. They are unregulated entities not subject to the rules of the Securities Investor Protection Act, which authorized the takeover of the company’s main operating unit, now liquidating in a separate court proceeding. The money is believed to be related to house accounts, and not that of customers, Marinuzzi said. The new units can use existing cash-management systems and continue intercompany transactions, the judge said after asking if customers of the failed brokerage will be protected if the units held any of their money from the segregated accounts. Rights Protected Lawyers told Glenn that customers’ rights will be protected. These debtors hold $22.4 million, said Brian Matsumoto, a lawyer for the Justice Department office that oversees bankruptcies. MF Global Holdings, once run by Jon Corzine , a former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. co-chairman, filed the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy after a wrong-way $6.3 billion trade on its own behalf on bonds of some of Europe ’s most indebted nations. About $1.2 billion may be missing from segregated customer accounts, according to James Giddens, the trustee appointed to liquidate the company’s brokerage. Freeh is coordinating with Giddens and foreign trustees overseeing units in places including Hong Kong and Australia , and is studying the company’s organizational and transactional history, Marinuzzi said today. “The process of putting all the pieces together is going to take some time,” Marinuzzi told Glenn. MF Global Holdings filed for bankruptcy to apportion returns to creditors, including bondholders and lenders such as JPMorgan, while Giddens is overseeing distributions to customers at MF Global Inc. Giddens has set in motion distributions that will return around 72 percent to customers. MF Global Holdings’ Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing listed assets of $41 billion and debt of $39.7 billion. Corzine quit as CEO on Nov. 4. The brokerage case is Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. MF Global Inc., 11-02790, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The parent’s bankruptcy case is MF Global Holdings Ltd., 11-bk-15059, U.S. Bankruptcy Court , Southern District of New York (Manhattan). To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at [email protected] .

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Uganda Holds Key Lending Rate as Inflation Uptick Seen Temporary

Uganda’s central bank left the benchmark interest rate unchanged, after raising it last month, saying inflationary pressures stemming from rising food prices are temporary and may start abating by next year. The Bank of Uganda kept the key lending rate at 12 percent, central bank Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile told reporters today in Kampala, the capital. Two of four economists in a Bloomberg News survey predicted the decision, while the others forecast a 50 basis-point to 1 percentage-point increase. “Inflation has continued to edge up, largely driven by a temporary rise of food-crop prices,” according to a monetary policy report e-mailed today by the central bank. “In the second half of 2013-14, food price inflation is expected to decline somewhat owing to downward base effects and the decline in international food commodity prices.” Uganda’s financial year runs July through June. The central bank in August increased its policy rate for the first time in almost two years by 1 percentage point as inflation quickened. Inflation in Africa ’s biggest coffee exporter accelerated to 8 percent in September, the highest in 13 months, from 7.3 percent in August after drought cut crop supplies, pushing up food prices that have a 27 percent weighting in the consumer-price index. Core inflation quickened to 6.9 percent from 6.6 percent, moving further away from the 5 percent medium-term target set by the central bank. Lending Rates Commercial bank lending rates remain “elevated,” according to the statement. Lending rates stood at an average 23 percent in August, little changed from July, according to central bank data. Two years ago, complaints about the high cost of living and expensive loan charges amid record interest rates prompted protests led by the political opposition. “The central bank is trying to ensure commercial banks lower their prime lending rates,” Dan Edoma, an economist at African Alliance Uganda Ltd., a Kampala-based investment bank, said by phone. “It is, in general, looking at bringing down the cost of financing.” The government forecasts economic growth in Uganda may expand by more than 6 percent in the year through June from 5.8 percent in 2012-13 because of increased infrastructure investment and the expansion of agriculture and services. To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at [email protected] .

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BP Sells Jet Fuel a Second Day; Shell Buys Diesel: Oil Products

BP Plc sold jet fuel on the cargo market for a second day. Gasoil rose, snapping five days of declines on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. Royal Dutch Shell Plc bought diesel for delivery to Turkey. Gasoline rose for the first time in seven sessions. Light Products Gasoline barges for loading in Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp traded from $1,040 to $1,047 a metric ton, according to a survey of traders and brokers monitoring the Argus Bulletin board. That’s higher than deals at $1,029 to $1,038 yesterday. BP and Cargill Inc. purchased the Eurobob grade, to which ethanol is added to make the finished grade. Chevron Corp. and Trafigura Beheer BV were among the sellers of barge lots, which are usually 1,000 or 2,000 tons. The fuel’s crack , or premium to Brent crude , rose to $9.55 a barrel as of 2:20 p.m., compared with $9.14 yesterday, according to data from PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a London-based broker. That was the most in more than a week. Gasoline shipments across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe are set to fall to the lowest since July over the next two weeks, a Bloomberg News survey showed. Naphtha’s crack , or discount to Brent, was little changed at $8.68 a barrel, PVM data show. Middle Distillates Shell purchased the cargo of as much as 30,000 tons of diesel from OAO’s Litasco for delivery to the Turkish port of Mersin, a similar survey of the Platts pricing window showed. The deal was partly priced at $11 more than June low-sulfur ICE gasoil futures. Repsol YPF SA sold a similar-sized shipment of diesel to BP for delivery to Genoa in Italy at a $27 premium to the high- sulfur June gasoil contract, the survey showed. That compares with May 3 deals at $24 more than May gasoil. On the barge market, Vitol Group bought two lots of diesel at premiums of $16.50 and $17.50 to June gasoil, the survey of Platts showed. That compares with trades at $10 and $10.50 more than the May contract yesterday. BP sold a cargo of jet-fuel to Vitol for delivery to France ’s Le Havre that was partly priced at a $66 premium to May gasoil, the survey showed. That is lower than yesterday’s trade at $67. Total SA bought a 2,000-ton lot of jet fuel on the barge market at $76 more than June gasoil, the survey showed. Gasoil for delivery in May advanced 1.4 percent to $958.25 a ton as of 5:28 p.m. local time on ICE. The contract closed at $945.25 yesterday, the lowest in more than three months. June futures were at $950.50, widening the discount to front-month contract to $7.75 a ton from $6 yesterday. That’s the biggest spread since Dec. 12, excluding expiry day anomalies. The market has been in backwardation, a structure where near-term supplies are more expensive than later-dated deliveries, since April 13. Gasoil’s crack , a measure of refining profitability, rose to $15.17 a barrel as of 4:30 p.m. London time versus $15.05 yesterday. Brent dropped 0.2 percent to $112.51 a barrel on the ICE exchange. Residues High-sulfur fuel oil traded from $640 to $643 a ton, the survey showed. That compares with May 2 deals from $679 to $689. The low-sulfur grade changed hands from $690.25 to $692 a ton, down from $736 to $737. Tenders Tupras Turkiye Petrol Rafinerileri AS is seeking to buy a cargo of ultra-low-sulfur diesel for delivery in May, according to a tender document. The Turkish refiner plans to buy 30,000 tons of the fuel for delivery from May 22 to May 24 to either Izmit or Izmir, according to the document received today by e-mail. The tender closes tomorrow and offers are valid until the following day. Refineries OMV AG plans to shut part of its Petrobrazi refinery for six weeks from May for scheduled works, the company said today. The refiner will upgrade a crude distillation unit at the plant in May, it said. The maintenance will reduce the its capacity to 4.2 million tons a year and allow it to process all of the company’s Romanian crude output. The plant can process 4.5 million tons a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. To contact the reporter on this story: Lananh Nguyen in London at [email protected] Rupert Rowling in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at [email protected]

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LendingClub Said to Reach $2.3B Valuation in DST Funding

LendingClub Corp., the largest U.S. peer-to-peer lender, received a $57 million investment from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and Coatue Management LLC as the company nears an initial public offering. The transaction values LendingClub at $2.3 billion, said two people with knowledge of the deal, who asked not to be identified because the valuation is private. LendingClub Chief Executive Officer Renaud Laplanche said the share sale closed yesterday and consisted entirely of stock purchased from early backers. The San Francisco-based company is spearheading a surge in online consumer lending , by letting individuals and institutions provide credit to other people in return for yields that are more than three times higher than 10-year Treasuries. LendingClub’s valuation has jumped 48 percent since Google Inc. led a $125 million secondary purchase in May, which valued the company at $1.55 billion. LendingClub “uniquely combines the scalability and efficiency of online marketplaces with a large addressable market,” Milner wrote in an e-mail. He didn’t comment on the company’s valuation and Katherine Madariaga, a spokeswoman for LendingClub, also declined to comment on valuation. Loans facilitated by LendingClub for everything from debt consolidation to home remodeling more than doubled to $567 million in the third quarter from a year earlier, Laplanche said. At its new valuation, LendingClub is among the highest-priced private technology companies now that Twitter Inc. (TWTR) is publicly traded. Startups worth more than $2 billion include file storage provider Dropbox Inc., room-sharing service Airbnb Inc. and online billboard Pinterest Inc. Internet Deals DST, founded by Russian billionaire Milner, has also invested in Facebook Inc. (FB) , Twitter, Zynga Inc., Groupon Inc. and Airbnb. Laplanche, who started LendingClub in 2006, is weighing 2014 for an IPO. While some early investors are cashing in some of their stake, employees are holding, he said. He didn’t say which investors sold in the round. Early backers include Canaan Partners , Norwest Venture Partners and Morgenthaler Ventures. “There’s an expectation we’ll go public next year, and we feel we have a lot of visibility into the business,” Laplanche said in an interview. LendingClub competes in peer-to-peer lending with Prosper Marketplace Inc., which raised $25 million in September from Sequoia Capital and BlackRock Inc. Prosper, also based in San Francisco , said last month that originations in October climbed to $50 million, an increase of 500 percent from January. Revenue Triples Both companies make money primarily from fees associated with issuing loans. LendingClub’s third-quarter revenue almost tripled to $28 million from a year earlier, Laplanche said. Prosper generated revenue of $3.41 million in the second quarter, the most recent period that it’s reported. The loans of as much as $35,000 are often used as an alternative to high-priced credit cards. Instead of turning to banks, consumers are receiving online funds from other people and institutions, who are acting as investors. LendingClub said that from June 2007 to mid-2013, lenders earned an average annualized return of 9.5 percent. The yield on 10-year Treasuries is currently 2.77 percent. Separately, LendingClub said Jeff Huber, a Google executive, and Michael Barr , a law professor at the University of Michigan and former Treasury Department official, joined the company’s advisory board. To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at [email protected]

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Emirates Chief Says Boeing’s Dreamliner Stretch May Be Too Small

Emirates President Tim Clark said the stretched version of the Boeing Co. (BA) Dreamliner unveiled today may lack the capacity to satisfy its fleet requirements. The 787-10, for which Boeing has been drumming up orders at the Paris Air Show , might not meet the needs of the world’s largest international airline given operational constraints at its Dubai hub, Clark said in an interview. Emirates pushed for a larger 787 during the Dreamliner’s development and refrained from orders when Boeing opted to build the smaller -8 and -9 variants first. The average size of the Gulf carrier’s planes has been swollen by record numbers of Airbus SAS A380 superjumbos and Boeing 777s, while Dubai International airport is reaching its capacity limits. “We’ll certainly study the 787-10, but it could be a tad small for us,” Clark said in Paris, where he’s attending the world’s biggest aviation expo. The model would need to have a range of 4,000 nautical miles (7,400 kilometers) and be able to carry a 50-ton load to come into the reckoning for Emirates, he said. There may be more scope to add Dreamliners once the airline moves to the bigger Dubai World (DPW) Central airport, removing capacity hurdles, Clark said. The largest Dreamliner seats about 330 passengers, compared with 368 passengers on the 777-300ER, of which Emirates is the biggest operator. Emirates also has orders for 70 Airbus A350s, the model developed by the European company when carriers pressed to a response to the 787 targeted at a higher seating range. A380 Block “In the days when we placed the A350 order, the Dreamliner was too small,” Clark said. “The 787-10 wasn’t launched and the -8 and -9 were no good for us.” The first flight of the new Airbus A35-900 last week “looked fine,” Clark said. “It stayed up there for four hours and didn’t come racing back,” he said. “They exceeded their expectations.” Emirates is unlikely to be able to add further Airbus A380s to the world’s biggest superjumbo fleet until a scarcity of specially designed boarding gates at its current base is resolved, and perhaps not until a firm timetable for the move to Dubai World has been set, the executive said. Clark said he’s eager for Boeing to press ahead with a commitment to build an upgraded 777 plane, its largest twin-engine airliner, to help meet a requirement for the replacement of existing aircraft and the development of routes spanning as many as 20 hours. To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Jasper in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at [email protected]

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Big Shopping Opens Its First European Open-Air Mall in Serb City

Big Shopping Centers (2004) Ltd. (BIG) , an Israeli mall developer and operator, expanded its operations to Europe by opening its first retail park in Serbia. The 50 million-euro ($64.5 million) mall in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second biggest city, developed with Central European Estates NA opened today with stores including C&A Group, Robert Yahav, in charge of the Belgrade-based venture, said in a phone interview. The company will open the remaining 25,000 square meters of leasable space at the site in the first half of next year, he said. Big Shopping has bought land in three other Serbian cities, including the capital Belgrade. It plans as many as 10 open-air malls in Serbian cities with population of more than 100,000, Yahav said. To contact the reporter on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at [email protected]

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Euro Advances Most Since 2009 on Bets Europe Debt Crisis Will Be Resolved

The euro rallied the most against the dollar in more than two years on speculation the currency union’s political leaders will be able to resolve the region’s sovereign debt crisis. The 17-nation euro rose yesterday to a five-week high versus the yen as Group of 20 finance ministers convened in Paris. The yen fell this week against all of its most-traded peers on bets Japanese authorities will take steps to limit its gains next week. Commodity currencies led by the Australian dollar rallied versus the greenback on signs of stronger global growth including an increase in U.S. retail sales. “Markets are feeling more positive about the European leaders coming up with a comprehensive solution,” said Vassili Serebriakov , a currency strategist at Wells Fargo & Co. in New York. “The numbers still point to ongoing growth in the global economy and most importantly the U.S. It looks like a classic return of risk appetite.” The euro rose 3.8 percent to $1.3882 yesterday in the biggest gain since the week ended March 20, 2009. The shared currency advanced 4.4 percent to 107.20 yen after touching 107.45, the highest level since Sept. 9. The yen dropped 0.6 percent to 77.22 per dollar. The MSCI World (MXWO) index of stocks surged 5.4 percent this week while the Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of raw materials rose 4.5 percent. Aussie Rises Australia ’s dollar advanced 5.9 percent to $1.0340 in the biggest five-day advance since February 2009. The Aussie rose for a second straight week after losing 9.8 percent in September. Norway’s krone rallied 4.6 percent to 5.5627 per greenback. Canada’s dollar strengthened 2.9 percent to C$1.0098 per U.S. dollar after dropping as much as 1 percent on Oct. 13. “ Risk aversion has come in lower,” said Camilla Sutton , chief currency strategist in Toronto at Bank of Nova Scotia. “Markets feel a lot calmer than they felt even a week ago.” The yen slid after an improved economic outlook damped refuge demand and as Dow Jones Newswires reported government officials said they would take steps against a strong yen as early as next week. The steps may include more funding to encourage foreign mergers and acquisitions and won’t include a tax on currency transactions, Dow Jones reported. “This is a very direct response to people not wanting to be too long yen going into the weekend in case there’s some real meat in the talk of action early next week,” said Alan Ruskin , global head of Group of 10 foreign-exchange strategy at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. A long is a bet an asset may gain in value. Record Yen The yen increased to a post-World War II high of 75.95 against the dollar in August, making Japan ’s exports more expensive, even after the government intervened in the currency market for the third time in the past year, selling yen in an effort to curb its appreciation. IntercontinentalExchange Inc.’s Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, decreased 2.7 percent to 76.612 in the biggest weekly slump since May 2009 on reduced demand for a refuge in the world’s main reserve currency. U.S. retail sales increased 1.1 percent last month, the most since February, after a revised 0.3 percent gain in August, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. “This report is a game changer,” said Michael Woolfolk , senior currency strategist in New York at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodial bank, with more than $26 trillion in assets under administration. Fed Minutes Minutes from the Fed’s Sept. 20-21 meeting released this week showed some policy makers saw “considerable uncertainty” that U.S. economic growth will pick up. The Federal Open Market Committee decided to replace $400 billion of shorter-term Treasuries in the central bank’s portfolio with longer maturities to keep borrowing costs low under the policy known as Operation Twist. Hedge funds and other large speculators increased bets that the dollar will gain against the yen, euro, Australian dollar, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, pound, Mexican peso and New Zealand dollar. Net dollar long positions increased to 132,835 contracts in the week ended Oct. 11, figures from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed yesterday. That’s the highest level since June 2010. The euro rose this week as G-20 and International Monetary Fund officials said the finance ministers meeting in Paris are working on a European rescue plan including boosting the IMF’s lending resources. European leaders may complete the rescue plan at an Oct. 23 summit to present to a meeting of G-20 leaders on Nov. 3-4. The aim is to put together what the French and German governments call a “durable” fix to the turmoil that has propelled Greece to the edge of default and is roiling global markets. The euro has strengthened 1.1 percent in the past month, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes, which gauge the currencies of 10 developed nations. The yen has fallen 0.8 percent. To contact the reporters on this story: Catarina Saraiva in New York at [email protected] ; Allison Bennett in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robert Burgess at [email protected]

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KKR Arranges $150 Million of Senior Debt Financing for Fotolia

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP, the private equity firm managing $62.3 billion, said it arranged $150 million of senior debt financing for Fotolia, which offers digital images and videos. KKR also agreed to make a $150 million equity investment in the New York-based company founded in 2005, according to a statement from the private equity firm. To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Kuo in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Faris Khan at [email protected]

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RBA's Stevens Says Higher Interest Rates Likely Required `at Some Point'

Following is the text of a statement by Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens explaining the board’s interest-rate decision today: At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 4.5 per cent. The global economy grew faster than trend over the year to mid 2010, but will probably ease back to about trend pace over the coming year. Recent information is consistent with a more sustainable, but still strong, pace of growth in China and most of the Asian region. In Europe and the United States, growth prospects appear to be modest in the near term, a legacy of the financial crisis and its impact on private and public finances. Financial markets are still characterised by a degree of uncertainty, and are responding both to differences in growth outlooks between regions and evident strains on public finances and banking systems in several smaller countries in Europe. Most commodity prices have changed little over recent months, and those most important to Australia remain very high. Information on the Australian economy shows growth around trend over the past year. Public spending was prominent in driving aggregate demand for several quarters but this impact is now lessening, while the prospects for private demand, and in particular business investment, have been improving. This is to be expected given the large rise in Australia’s terms of trade, which is now boosting national income very substantially. Asset values are not moving notably in either direction, and overall credit growth is quite subdued at this stage, notwithstanding evidence of some greater willingness to lend. Inflation has moderated from the excessive pace of 2008. The effects of the rise in tobacco taxes aside, CPI inflation has been running at around 2.75 per cent over the past year. That looks likely to continue in the near term. The current stance of monetary policy is delivering interest rates to borrowers close to their average of the past decade. The Board regards this as appropriate for the time being. If economic conditions evolve as the Board currently expects, it is likely that higher interest rates will be required, at some point, to ensure that inflation remains consistent with the medium-term target. To contact the reporter for this story: Victoria Batchelor in Sydney at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Anstey at [email protected]

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Mandela’s Image to Appear on South African Banknotes, President Zuma Says

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma said new banknotes in the country will bear the image of former president Nelson Mandela. Zuma made the announcement in Pretoria today on the 22nd anniversary of the release from prison of the Nobel Laureate who led the country out of apartheid to become its first black president in 1994. “It is a befitting tribute to the man who became a symbol of his country’s struggle for human rights and democracy,” Zuma said. Mandela, 93, spent 27 years in prison for plotting the overthrow of segregationist rule and served as president before stepping down in 1999 after one five-year term. He is now retired from public life after campaigning for children’s rights, global peace and greater access to treatment for AIDS sufferers. South Africa ’s Constitution allows for no more than two presidential terms. Mandela’s image will be on all banknotes, replacing pictures of the so-called big five African animals -- the rhino, elephant, lion, buffalo and leopard. South Africa’s rand extended declines by almost 1 percentage point to a low of 7.7847 to the dollar yesterday after the central bank announced on its website it would hold a press conference with Zuma, central bank Governor Gill Marcus and Pravin Gordhan to make an announcement of “national importance,” without giving details. The currency traded at 7.7493 as of midnight local time. Marcus said she regretted the market speculation about the announcement. To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in Johannesburg at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at [email protected]

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London Finance Vacancies Slip as Firms Hold Off Hiring New Staff

Job vacancies at London’s financial-services companies slipped last month as securities firms held off from seeking new employees, offsetting more robust hiring at asset managers, recruitment firm Astbury Marsden said. New vacancies in the U.K. capital’s City and Canary Wharf financial districts fell 2 percent to 2,335 in October from 2,380 in September, the London-based recruiter said in a statement today. The figure was also 12 percent lower than the 2,640 new vacancies in October 2012. “The financial performance of the big investment banks is still not robust enough for them to initiate the levels of hiring that you normally associate with new stock market highs,” Mark Cameron , Astbury Marsden’s chief operating officer, said in the statement. “Banks have been badly burnt in the past hiring on a short-term bounce in business volumes and then having to go through costly layoffs, so many are being prudent and putting off bigger hiring decisions.” Investment-bank hiring is lagging behind a recovery in the rest of the U.K. job market, which saw unemployment unexpectedly decline in the quarter through July. Barclays Plc last week posted a 26 percent drop in third-quarter pretax profit, hurt by a slump in trading revenue at the U.K.’s second-largest bank by assets. Deutsche Bank AG , Germany’s largest lender, reported a 94 percent drop in third-quarter earnings last week, while UBS AG postponed a profitability goal. “Outside of the investment banks, the picture looks rosier with a pick-up in hiring activity in the asset-management sector, which is partly driven by the buoyant stock market increasing funds under management,” Cameron said. To contact the reporter on this story: Ambereen Choudhury in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at [email protected]

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Health Premium Increases Subject to U.S. Review as of Today

Health insurers will have to justify publicly annual premium increases of 10 percent or more under a U.S. regulation that takes effect today, the Department of Health and Human Services said. The rationales will be posted on company websites and on the agency’s site, www.healthcare.gov. HHS made the announcement on its site today. Regulations stemming from the 2010 health-care law, published in May, require insurers to explain proposed rate increases to state and federal officials, the department said in an announcement. U.S. regulators can’t compel insurers to halt or reduce premium increases under the regulation. The oversight will “shine a light on proposed double-digit increases” and tamp down coverage costs because health plans won’t want to be seen raising prices more than 10 percent, said Steve Larsen, director of the U.S. Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. Premiums are rising because of escalating health-care costs, and forcing companies to submit to the new requirements won’t bring them down, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans , the Washington lobby for health insurers. “Highly publicized provisions such as premium rate review may make for good sound bites, but literally do nothing to address the soaring cost of medical care,” the trade group said in a statement on its website. To contact the reporter on this story: Jeffrey Young in Washington at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at [email protected] .

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CSL Says Higher Australian Currency May Cut Full-Year Earnings Target

CSL Ltd. , the world’s second-biggest maker of blood-derived medical treatments, said full-year profit may fall more than forecast as the Australian dollar strengthens to near a record against the U.S. currency. Net income may drop to between A$880 million ($867 million) and A$940 million in the 12 months ending June, based on the Australian currency’s Oct. 8 exchange rate, Melbourne-based CSL said today. The Australian dollar traded at 98.5 U.S. cents on Oct. 8 after reaching a record 99.18 U.S. cents a day earlier. CSL said in August that profit may decline as much as 6.9 percent to between A$980 million and A$1.03 billion, using exchange rates for the year ended June 30. The company, which gets more than 85 percent of sales in foreign currencies, said every 1 percent gain in the Aussie against the U.S. dollar would wipe A$1.9 million from profit and a 1 percent advance versus the euro would cut A$3.9 million. The shares rose 0.2 percent to A$32.27 at the 4:10 p.m. close in Sydney trading. The Australian dollar was at 98.57 U.S. cents as of 4:26 p.m. in Sydney. CSL and its larger rival, Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, derive products from blood plasma, the watery liquid in which blood cells are suspended, to treat immune deficiency disorders, hemophilia, wounds and burns. The Australian company was founded in 1916 as Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, a government-owned provider of vaccines. It began trading on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1994. To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Gale at [email protected]

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Shirakawa's Professor Says BOJ Should Expand Asset Fund to Beat Deflation

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa ’s former economics professor said the central bank isn’t doing enough to lift the country out of deflation and curb a rising yen that’s hurting exporters. The BOJ ought to expand asset purchases to between at least 20 trillion to 25 trillion yen ($304 billion) to boost demand, said Koichi Hamada , a Yale-University professor who once taught Shirakawa at Tokyo University. Japan’s central bank unveiled a 5 trillion yen fund last month to buy government and corporate debt, exchange-traded funds and real-estate investment trusts. “That’s a big improvement in terms of direction,” said Hamada, 74, in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. Even so, a further strengthening in the yen and continued price falls after the BOJ’s Oct. 5 move suggest the measure may be “too little and too late” and “far insufficient,” he said. Hamada’s remarks echo concern among economists that the Bank of Japan’s steps so far won’t be able to stop a renewed yen rise to 15-year highs against the dollar or push up consumer prices, which have fallen for 19 straight months. The bank may need to increase its asset buys to 20 trillion yen by the end of 2011 if the economy slumps, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ‘Too Small’ The BOJ’s latest easing steps are “too small” and “BOJ officials are openly skeptical about its efficacy,” economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. wrote in a note this week. The yen has appreciated 1.4 percent against the dollar since the October BOJ move, when it also lowered the overnight rate target to between zero to 0.1 percent. The currency climbed to 80.22 against the dollar on Nov. 1, the highest level since April 1995. It was trading at 82.21 at 2:09 p.m. in Tokyo. Consumer prices excluding fresh food dropped for the 19th straight month in September. BOJ board members are forecasting inflation below the 1 percent increase they consider as stable in the three years through March 2013. Japanese exports grew at their slowest pace this year in September. “If the yen stays at this level in the mid- to long- term, this is an extremely painful prospect,” Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Satoshi Ozawa said last week. Hamada published an open letter in June to Shirakawa saying the BOJ ought to take unorthodox policy measures such as asset purchases to stoke inflation. The professor, wearing a tie with a blue ‘Yale’ logo, said he was encouraged that the BOJ now appears to think that asset buys may help beat deflation. Sun Around Earth “The BOJ used to be like a person who believed the sun revolved around the earth when everyone else had figured out that the earth goes around the sun,” he said. “When the common understanding around the world was that monetary policy was needed to fix monetary phenomena such as deflation and a strong yen, the bank seemed to have limited awareness of that connection.” Given that Japan’s economy is about half the size of the U.S.’s, the BOJ’s cash injections should also total at least 50 percent of the Federal Reserve’s $600 billion plan, he said. Hamada, who specializes in international economic policy and trade, also said that Japan’s sale of about 2 trillion yen in the currency market in September was inadequate to stop the yen’s gains. Japan sold around 35 trillion yen in 2003-2004, and authorities should consider intervention of a similar scale, he said. Serious Student Shirakawa has said that deflation can’t be overcome with monetary policy alone, and that the BOJ’s so-called quantitative easing from 2001 to 2006 had little effect in propping up economic growth. He’s also said that excessive bond buying by the BOJ could be interpreted as monetizing the government debt and cause sharp inflation. Hamada taught Shirakawa at Tokyo University in the early 1970’s, and said he was a “serious” student “who had a talent for understanding economic models mathematically and analytically,” he said. “I thought he would have succeeded even if went into academics.” The Yale professor said he wants his former student to do more against deflation because of the pain the falling prices is causing for Japanese citizens. Deflation in Roppongi As a result of deflation, only about 60 percent of new college graduates are finding work, incomes are falling and suicide and depression cases are rising, Hamada said. He detected the consequences of deflation even in the streets of Roppongi, a Tokyo neighborhood filled with bars, restaurants and shops where he was staying. “Roppongi used to always have traffic jams, but now even on Fridays the driving is smooth. My driver said it’s a sign that the economy is weak,” he said. “For the past ten or twenty years, the BOJ has been conducting monetary policy in the wrong direction. People’s perception isn’t going to change overnight just because it said it would spend 5 trillion yen.” To contact the reporters on this story: Mayumi Otsuma in Tokyo at [email protected] ; Tatsuo Ito in Tokyo at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Anstey at [email protected]

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Dubai Accelerates Asset Sales as $30 Billion Debt Wall Looms

Dubai, which teetered on the brink of default in 2009, is accelerating asset sales as more than $30 billion of debt repayments come due next year. Dubai Financial Group yesterday agreed to sell its stake in consumer lender Dubai First to First Gulf Bank PJSC (FGB) for 601 million dirhams ($163 million). Dubai Holding LLC plans to sell its 35 percent stake in Tunisie Telecom, the country’s ministry for information and communication technologies, said June 21. The second largest of the seven sheikhdoms that comprise the United Arab Emirates , Dubai is seeking to take advantage of a rebounding economy to regain investor confidence after its near default on $25 billion of debt roiled markets almost four years ago. State-owned companies such as Dubai Holding and Dubai World borrowed billions in a spending binge intended to make the city the preeminent trade and tourism hub of the Middle East. “Government entities are accelerating the pace of asset sales to meet upcoming debt,” Montasser Khelifi, a senior manager for global markets at Quantum Investment Bank Ltd in the city, wrote in e-mailed comments. “They’re trying to anticipate maturities as market conditions have been good. We’ve seen a surge in M&A activity both regionally and globally.” The emirate’s state-linked debt coming due totals about $32 billion next year and $9.6 billion in 2015, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Abu Dhabi , Dubai’s larger neighbour, probably won’t provide direct support next year after rescuing Dubai from the crash with a $20 billion lifeline, Moody’s Investors Service said in a March report. Dubai Recovery After almost four years of financial crisis, Dubai’s economic recovery has quickened with a rebound in tourism, trade and property. The economy will grow 4 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund , while the Dubai Financial Market General Index has risen 39 percent in 2013. The benchmark fell as much as 5.1 percent today before paring losses to close 1.9 percent lower amid an emerging-market rout after China signaled it will maintain efforts to curb credit. MSCI Inc. (MSCI) , whose equity indexes are tracked by investors with about $7 trillion in assets, upgraded stock markets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to emerging-market status this month. The average sale price of mid-range villas in the emirate soared 47 percent in the year to May, while mid-range apartment prices advanced 32 percent, according to data compiled by Cluttons LLC. The IMF estimates Dubai accumulated about $113 billion of debt as it pursued projects that included the construction of the world’s tallest tower, palm-tree shaped residential and tourism islands in the sea, and a real estate binge that saw vast tracts of land reclaimed from the desert. Dubai World, the state-owned entity whose inability to repay debt helped trigger the crisis, agreed to sell U.K. warehouse developer EZW Gazeley Ltd. earlier this month. The company needs to repay $4.4 billion to creditors in 2015 and a further $10.3 billion by 2018, according to its repayment plan. Bank Debt Dubai Group, which owns Dubai Financial Group, last month agreed on final terms for restructuring $6 billion of bank debt. The Dubai First sale is “part of our stated plan to sell down assets in order to support our broader ongoing restructuring process,” Dubai Group Chief Executive Officer Fadel Al-Ali said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Dubai Group unit Dubai Insurance Group in February sold a 41 percent stake in Oman National Investment Corp. to Oman Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, for about $57 million. The company also holds stakes in Dubai-based investment bank Shuaa Capital PSC (SHUAA) , Cairo-based EFG-Hermes Holding SAE and Bank Muscat SAOG, Oman’s biggest bank by assets. Dubai faces a “pivotal year” in 2014 amid an unclear legal framework for restructurings and uncertain support from its richer neighbor, Moody’s said in the March report. Earlier this month, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Co. said it will buy a 50 percent stake in state-owned Dubai Aluminium Co. and merge another aluminum smelter to create a $15 billion joint venture. “We are seeing more consolidation of assets between Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” said Tariq Qaqish, head of asset management at Dubai-based Al Mal Capital PSC. To contact the reporter on this story: Stefania Bianchi in Dubai at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at [email protected]

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Pemex Plans Refinancing After Yields Reach Seven-Month Low: Mexico Credit

America Movil SAB and Petroleos Mexicanos , the biggest Mexican issuers of debt in international markets last year, are considering selling bonds to refinance debt after their benchmark yields fell to a seven-month low. The yield on $2 billion of bonds due in 2020 from America Movil, the biggest wireless carrier in the Americas, fell to 4.08 percent earlier this month, the lowest since Nov. 23, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Similar-maturity bonds sold by Pemex, as Latin America ’s largest oil producer is known, yield 4.67 percent, the lowest since Nov. 12. “You have to take advantage of these moments that we don’t always normally have to make improvements in the structure of debt we already have,” America Movil ’s Chief Financial Officer Carlos Garcia-Moreno said at the Bloomberg CFO Summit in Mexico City on June 15. “We’re not always going to have these conditions of access.” The expansion in Latin America’s second-biggest economy is fueling demand for Mexican corporate debt. The economy may grow as much as 5 percent this year after a 5.4 percent expansion in 2010 that was the fastest in a decade, the central bank said on May 11. The average yield on Mexican corporate dollar debt fell 10 basis points in the past two months to 6.21 percent through yesterday, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Borrowing costs for emerging-market companies slid 4 basis points during the same period. The yield on Mexican government dollar bonds maturing in 2020 fell to a one-week low of 3.99 percent yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. ‘When It Rains’ America Movil sold $7.41 billion in overseas markets last year, including offerings denominated in Swiss francs and Chilean pesos, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It raised $1.2 billion of debt in Mexico. The company also opened two credit lines for a total of $4 billion “a couple of months ago,” Garcia-Moreno said. “The English say that no one lets you borrow an umbrella when it rains,” he said. “The moment to buy an umbrella is when it isn’t raining.” Garcia-Moreno said the company may consider arrangements this year similar to a deal announced in March that refinanced $370 million of debt from its fixed-lined unit. Pemex, based in Mexico City, plans to use about 60 percent of the $8 billion in debt it’s seeking to raise in local and overseas markets this year to refinance debt, Chief Financial Officer Ignacio Quesada said at the Bloomberg CFO Summit. It sold $6.1 billion of debt abroad in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Citizen Bonds The company plans to sell so-called citizen bonds in the “coming months” to fund the refinancing and pay for additional exploration, Quesada said. The Finance Ministry has said the company may sell as much as 10 billion pesos of the securities, which are tied to the company’s operating performance. “The 2008 crisis reminded us that liquidity is critical, and one has to make sure you have the adequate levels of liquidity,” Quesada said. The extra yield investors demand to hold Mexican government dollar bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries narrowed 4 basis points to 147 at 5 p.m. New York time, according to JPMorgan. The cost to protect Mexican debt against non-payment for five years fell 2 basis points to 110, according to data provider CMA, which is owned by CME Group Inc. and compiles prices quoted by dealers in the privately negotiated market. Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent if a government or company fails to adhere to its debt agreements. The peso rose 0.4 percent to 11.9023 per U.S. dollar. Rate Expectations Yields on futures contracts for the 28-day TIIE interbank rate due in December dropped 2 basis points to 4.99 percent, indicating traders expect the central bank to raise the rate by then. Mexico is the only major Latin American nation to keep its benchmark lending rate unchanged in the past year. The central bank left the rate at a record low 4.5 percent last month. Concern Greece will default may curb demand for higher- yielding assets, prompting Mexican companies to refrain from selling bonds abroad, said Alonso Madero , who helps oversee $5.5 billion of debt at Mexico City-based Corp. Actinver SAB. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about what will happen if they default, and it seems they’re getting closer to that,” Madero said in a telephone interview. Mexican corporate bond sales in overseas markets totaled $10 billion this year, down 29 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “For all of the CFOs that are considering the possibility of going to the market, a unique opportunity is presenting itself,” Garcia-Moreno said. “The situation in this market can change rapidly. The markets by nature are volatile, so we should be aware of that.” To contact the reporters on this story: Andres R. Martinez in Mexico City at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at [email protected]

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Agrium Plans to Expand After Fending Off Jana Challenge

Fresh from beating back a proxy challenge from activist investor Jana Partners LLC, fertilizer maker Agrium Inc. (AGU) plans to refocus on expansion in the face of a commodities slump. Agrium said at its annual meeting yesterday that investors rejected five Jana-backed nominees to the board. Agrium’s largest shareholder with a 7.5 percent stake, Jana has been pushing the Calgary-based company to spin off its retail division, a network of agricultural outlets that sells seeds, fertilizer and crop-protection chemicals to farmers. Jana “obviously chose the wrong target,” Agrium Chief Executive Officer Mike Wilson said after the meeting in Calgary. “Now we can go and focus on what’s important to shareholders and that’s growing the company.” Agrium’s victory allows Wilson to proceed with his strategy of building the company’s retail network to help counterbalance volatile fertilizer prices. “Everyone would agree that now it’s all about execution, doing what the company can do to improve results,” Mark Gulley , a New York-based analyst at BGC Partners LP, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Now the debate is all about operational excellence, it’s about the nitty-gritty.” Agrium is the latest Canadian company to face activist shareholders aiming to boost returns. Last year billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman succeeded in unseating board members and installing a new CEO at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) Shareholder Pressure Other company’s shares, including those of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. (SNC) , have rallied after minority investors sought to shake up management to boost earnings or spin off businesses. Jana, which was founded in 2001 and invests in companies undergoing changes such as mergers, spinoffs and bankruptcies, promised to keep up the pressure on Agrium’s management. Jana Managing Partner Barry Rosenstein , accompanied by two bodyguards yesterday, declined to say what his New York-based hedge fund planned as he left the meeting, which was attended by more than 200 people. “This is the worst example of entrenched, power-hungry-at- any-cost behavior I have ever witnessed,” Rosenstein told investors before the vote. He said Agrium’s board lied to shareholders and labeled him a “ New York hedge fund billionaire.” Rosenstein said he plans to “investigate” how shareholders changed their votes after the deadline on April 5. Falling Prices Agrium fell 0.3 percent to C$96.24 at 11:01 a.m. in Toronto. The shares have gained 14 percent in the past 12 months. Agrium faces the headwind of falling grain prices that may leave farmers with less money for agricultural chemicals and other farm inputs. “In the short term, we believe the stock will be challenged as the activism story that had driven so much interest in Agrium now transitions to one of ‘‘What now?’’” Matthew Korn, a New York-based analyst at Barclays Plc, said yesterday in a note to clients. Corn, soybeans and wheat, the biggest U.S. crops along with hay, have slid into bear markets with drops of more than 20 percent from 2012 highs. “Agrium’s got long-term value,” Bob Schulz, a professor at the University of Calgary business school, said in an interview. “The shares aren’t going to surge up in the next couple of days, but in the long-run there’s value there.” Retail Unit Agrium’s farm retail division accounted for 66 percent of Agrium’s revenue last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with 31 percent at the company’s wholesale fertilizer business, which makes nitrogen, potash and phosphate-based products. Jana contends the full value of the retail unit is lost within Agrium, while Agrium has argued it provides a useful offset to downturns in commodity markets. Since Jana first approached Agrium in May, the Canadian company has improved transparency, bought back shares, increased its dividend and added directors with experience in bulk agricultural-chemicals distribution. “Our integrated strategy is working,” Wilson said yesterday. “We don’t expect any changes to our strategy.” To contact the reporters on this story: Jeremy van Loon in Calgary at [email protected] ; Christopher Donville in Vancouver at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at [email protected] ; David Scanlan at [email protected]

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Canada’s Budget Deficit Triples in July to C$1.6 Billion

Canada ’s federal budget deficit more than tripled in July from a year earlier, on falling revenue from corporate and sales taxes, according to a statement released today by Canada’s finance department. The federal deficit widened during the month to C$1.6 billion ($1.54 billion), from C$473 million a year earlier. Revenue from corporate income taxes fell 13 percent to C$2.2 billion, while income from the federal sales tax was down 13 percent to C$2.63 billion. The deficit for the first four months of the fiscal year that began April 1 narrowed to C$7.1 billion from C$7.7 billion as income tax revenue increased 6.6 percent. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has said the government’s fiscal projections for the current year remain consistent with forecasts even amid indications the economy has slowed. The government has benefited from higher tax revenue from personal income taxes and a job market that is driving up employment insurance premiums and reducing benefits. The finance department didn’t say why corporate income taxes fell in July. Flaherty released a fiscal plan in June that seeks to balance the budget by 2014 through government operating cost cuts of up to C$4 billion annually, and by closing tax loopholes. Canada projects a deficit of C$32.3 billion this year, from C$36.2 billion for the fiscal year that ended in March. To contact the reporters on this story: Theophilos Argitis in Ottawa at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at [email protected]

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Dow Chemical Earnings Top Analyst Estimates as Prices Gain

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) , the largest U.S. chemical maker, posted first-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates as prices for products such as caustic soda gained and demand increased in all regions. Net income rose 29 percent to $710 million, or 54 cents a share, from $551 million, or 41 cents, a year earlier, Midland, Michigan-based Dow said today in a statement. Earnings excluding costs for early debt repayment and an acquisition were 82 cents a share, topping the 67-cent average estimate of 14 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Revenue climbed 9.8 percent to $14.7 billion from $13.4 billion. Dow, benefiting from low U.S. natural-gas prices relative to oil, plans to boost output of Gulf Coast ethylene, used in plastics. Higher product prices outpaced a $700 million increase in raw-material and energy costs, expanding profit margins, Dow said. Profit more than doubled in the basic-chemicals unit on higher prices for caustic soda, used to make paper and alumina. “The standout performer was chemicals,” Hassan Ahmed , a New York-based analyst at Alembic Global Advisers who rates Dow shares “overweight,” said today in a telephone interview. “All the geographies had significant volume growth, even in some of the slower growth areas like North America .” Dow rose 48 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $40.40 at 9:21 a.m. before the start of regular New York Stock Exchange trading. The shares gained 17 percent this year before today. Prices Rise Excluding divestitures, Dow increased product prices 12 percent from the year-earlier quarter and sales volumes gained 8 percent. The region that includes Europe and the Middle East led gains with prices rising 15 percent and sales volumes up the same amount. North American sales volumes rose 3 percent. “The economic recovery in the United States , Western Europe and other developed markets continues to gain solid footing, despite lingering unemployment concerns in the United States and ongoing sovereign debt issues in Europe,” Chief Executive Officer Andrew Liveris said in the statement. “Demand continues to be robust in emerging geographies, despite rising inflationary concerns.” Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization jumped 58 percent in the performance-products unit amid higher sales of epoxies and materials used in polycarbonate, a hard plastic found in autos and optical media. Coatings Unit Ebitda in the coatings and infrastructure unit climbed 36 percent as higher prices and demand for packaging and construction materials in Latin America and Asia more than made up for “soft” demand for paint ingredients in other regions, Dow said. Profit in the agriculture unit climbed 5.7 percent to a record $406 million because of early-season sales of herbicides in the Europe-Africa-Middle East region and demand growth of more than 25 percent for crop seeds such as SmartStax corn, developed with Monsanto Co. (MON) to kill insects and tolerate herbicides with eight genetic modifications. Dow, founded in 1897 as a bleach maker, is the world’s biggest producer of chlorine, epoxy resins and polyethylene plastic. It’s the world’s second-biggest chemical maker behind Germany ’s BASF SE. Chemical profit at Exxon Mobil Corp., the second-biggest U.S. chemical maker, rose 21 percent to a record $1.52 billion, the Irving, Texas-based company said today in a statement. To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in New York at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simon Casey at [email protected] .

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Ghana Meteorological Agency Rainfall Report May 1-10

The following are rainfall figures for selected areas of Ghana , the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer, from May 1 to May 10, according to the Ghana Meteorological Agency. The Western Region, which includes the towns of Sefwi Bekwai and Bogoso, is Ghana’s largest growing area for the chocolate ingredient, accounting for 54 percent of output, according to the Ghana Cocoa Board. The Ashanti Region accounts for 18.5 percent of production, while Brong Ahafo generates 10 percent, the Eastern Region 8.2 percent and the Central Region 9 percent. Volta accounts for 0.12 percent, the board said. The Ivory Coast , which neighbors Ghana, is the world’s largest cocoa producer. To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at [email protected]

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ECB Said to Buy Bonds of Ireland, Portugal for Second Day to Counter Drop

The European Central Bank bought Portuguese and Irish government bonds for the second straight day, according to two people with knowledge of the transactions. The ECB bought large sizes of Irish securities, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the trades are confidential. A Frankfurt-based central bank spokesman, who asked not to be identified, declined to comment. The yield on the Portuguese 10-year bond fell 21 basis points to 11.09 percent at 3:20 p.m. in London. The Portuguese two-year yield slid 159 basis points to 13.22 percent. The Irish 10-year yield slid 32 basis points to 10.08 percent. “The message the ECB is sending to the market is that the central bank is willing to help countries that play by the rules and make efforts,” said Ciaran O’Hagan , the head of European interest-rate strategy at Society Generale in Paris. “Ireland and Portugal are pushing ahead with their fiscal consolidation, and they are being rewarded.” The ECB, which ceased buying bonds four months ago, was forced back into action from yesterday after European leaders failed to convince investors that a package of new measures agreed to last month will prevent the crisis from spreading. The extra yield investors demand to hold 10-year Italian bonds instead of the benchmark German bunds rose to a euro-era record of 4.16 percentage points today. The central bank hasn’t bought securities from Italy and Spain, which according to Bloomberg data have a combined 2.2 trillion euros ($3.1 trillion) worth of outstanding bonds. To contact the reporters on this story: Keith Jenkins in London at [email protected] ; Anchalee Worrachate in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Tilles at [email protected]

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ATP Oil Executives Sued by Macquarie Investments for $32 Million

Executives at ATP Oil & Gas Corp. (ATPAQ) , the bankrupt energy producer that was auctioned last month to lenders led by Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) , were sued by Macquarie Investments LLC for about $32 million. Sydney-based Macquarie accused ATP executives including Chief Financial Officer Albert Reese Jr. and board chairman T. Paul Bulmahn of misrepresenting Macquarie’s $110 million purchase of royalty interests from ATP, deeming the transaction to be a “disguised” loan that breached the defunct firm’s agreements with lenders. The executives “caused ATP” to take that position, injuring Macquarie, according to the lawsuit filed May 31 in federal court in Texas. Macquarie has been “injured as a result of their reliance on the intentional misrepresentations and fraudulent inducements by ATP and the management team,” it said in the lawsuit. Reese didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the suit. Bulmahn couldn’t be reached through a call to ATP, whose offices were closed. ATP, based in Houston, filed for bankruptcy last year, blaming the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and the subsequent drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. Macquarie sued the company in August over royalties claims as well. The bankruptcy case is In re ATP Oil & Gas Corp., 12-36187, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston). To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at [email protected]

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French Voters’ Support for Hollande Increases, Poll Indicates

Socialist Francois Hollande would get the vote of 29 percent of French voters if he were the party’s candidate for president and the election were held May 22, according to an Ipsos-Logica Business Consulting poll conducted yesterday, up from 26 percent on May 13 and 14. Current President Nicolas Sarkozy would receive 19 percent of the vote, the poll found. If Martine Aubry were the Socialist candidate, she would get the backing of 27 percent of voters, while 21 percent would vote for Sarkozy, according to the poll. The survey of 1,014 people 18 years of age and older was done by telephone, for France Televisions, Radio France and Le Monde, Ipsos-Logica Business Consulting said in an e-mailed statement. To contact the reporter on this story: John Simpson in Toronto at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Reynolds at [email protected]

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Potomac Gap Shows Court Foreclosures Delay Housing Recovery

The Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington are a lot alike, with similar populations of workers from the U.S. capital, incomes above the national average and unemployment rates below the norm. Their housing markets are going in opposite directions. Home prices rose 0.8 percent in Virginia last year while across the Potomac River in Maryland they fell 3.6 percent, according to data provider CoreLogic Inc. The reason is that Maryland, like 23 other states including New York and Florida , requires court approval to foreclose on delinquent homeowners, a lengthy process that has slowed comebacks across the country, said Thomas Lawler, a housing consultant and former chief economist for mortgage financier Fannie Mae. (FNMA) “States that have dealt with foreclosures in an expeditious way, whether or not it’s good from a social perspective, appear to be recovering,” Lawler said in a telephone interview from his office in Leesburg, Virginia. “The difference is the foreclosure laws.” The 24 so-called judicial states, which have about 42 percent of the 50.3 million U.S. residential mortgages, provide automatic court review of home seizures. That gives borrowers a legal forum to demand proof that lenders have the right to foreclose, or to argue for mortgage modifications -- while extending the process. Without Court Intervention In nonjudicial states, lenders send notices to delinquent borrowers and record defaults at the county level without court intervention. That has helped hard-hit states such as Nevada , Arizona and California reduce their foreclosure inventory quickly, paving the way for a rebound. For a recovery to take place, the supply of foreclosed properties, which usually sell for less than non-distressed homes nearby, must shrink before prices can find a floor. “I don’t think the housing market finds its footing until we’ve worked through that mountain of property that’s still sitting out there in foreclosure,” said Mark Zandi , chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The backlog of foreclosures may start to clear following the $25 billion settlement, announced Feb. 9, with the five largest U.S. mortgage lenders. Home seizures fell sharply while attorneys general in 50 states investigated allegations that the banks used faulty or forged paperwork for repossessions, a practice known as robo-signing. Stepping Up Foreclosures The settlement won’t change the legal framework that sets the pace of repossessions, and may lengthen the timeline because it prohibits banks and loan servicers from paying incentives to “encourage speed in the signing” of seizure-related documents. Still, lenders are expected to step up foreclosures 25 percent this year and surpass the 2010 record of 1.05 million, according to property research firm RealtyTrac Inc. While that will inflict pain on delinquent homeowners in the short run, it will make a long-term recovery more likely, Zandi said. States with nonjudicial foreclosures “are seeing the backlog of foreclosures clear more rapidly,” Jay Brinkmann , chief economist for the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association, said today in a report on delinquencies. “In contrast, the percentage of loans in foreclosure in the judicial system states has hit an all-time high of 6.8 percent, almost two and a half times higher than rate for nonjudicial states.” Judicial-State Increase In judicial states, loans were delinquent for an average of two years before repossession, 40 percent longer than in nonjudicial states, according to Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) The number of delinquent mortgages increased in 15 of the 24 judicial states last year while declining in 23 of the 26 nonjudicial states, according to the Jacksonville, Florida-based real estate services company. “It would take less than three years at current rates to clear the inventory of loans in nonjudicial states,” said Herb Blecher, a senior vice president at the firm. “In judicial states, we’re looking at closer to eight.” In Maryland, 13.4 percent of loans were delinquent or facing foreclosure in December, up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier, according to Lender Processing Services. The Virginia delinquency rate was 8.3 percent, down 0.7 percentage points from 2010. The U.S. average rate was 12.3 percent, down 0.7 percentage points. Milder Housing Bust The Washington metropolitan area had a milder housing bust than battered states such as Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona because there was less overbuilding and fewer job losses around the capital. The unemployment rate was 6.2 percent in Virginia and 6.7 percent in Maryland in December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, the rate fell to 8.3 percent last month from 8.5 percent in December. “Both markets worsened, but Virginia peaked and declined much earlier than Maryland, and it’s consistent across all counties for each state,” Sam Khater, senior economist for CoreLogic, said in an e-mail from his office in McLean, Virginia. “Given that the D.C. metro area serves as a control - - similar economies across the state border, similar housing market dynamics, etc. -- it’s interesting to note that foreclosure laws can make a difference at the local level.” Two Counties Fairfax County, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, have similar demographics and populations of about 1 million, both up more than 11 percent from a decade ago. The Fairfax County median household income was $105,416, compared with $93,373 in Montgomery County, according to U.S. Census data. Fairfax County home prices ended last year at $387,000, up 26 percent from a post-peak low in January 2009, while the Montgomery County median was $335,000, a 12 percent increase from a bottom in January 2011, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., a listing company in Rockville, Maryland. The recovery gap widens with distance from the center of Washington, said William Noel, a real estate broker with Re/Max Allegiance who is licensed in both states. The rebound has taken hold in northern Virginia, while southern Maryland is still hampered by foreclosures, he said. Prince George’s County (200MF) , Maryland, 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Washington, and Prince William County, Virginia, 29 miles southwest of the capital, experienced similar building booms followed by foreclosure outbreaks, Khater said. Median home prices in Prince George’s fell 9 percent last year to $160,000 while Prince William dropped 0.6 percent to $238,500, according to Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. of Chantilly, Virginia. ‘Exactly the Same’ “The dirt and the land are exactly the same,” Noel said in a telephone interview from Woodbridge, Virginia. “Three or four years ago, there were ‘for sale’ signs all over here, because people were losing their homes. Now people see things improving. They’re feeling better and we’re seeing multiple offers.” Florida, at 11.9 percent, had the highest rate of homes awaiting foreclosure as of Dec. 31, according to Santa Ana, California-based CoreLogic. (CLGX) Foreclosures bogged down there after September 2010, when banks imposed a moratorium amid the robo- signing scandal. The state had the third-highest number of foreclosure filings in both 2009 and 2010, then fell to seventh last year, behind six nonjudicial states that are clearing their property gluts, according to RealtyTrac. The bank settlement probably will help unplug the real estate docket and return Florida to the top five by the end of the second quarter, said Daren Blomquist , spokesman for the Irvine, California-based firm. Jump in Florida Default filings in Florida jumped 36 percent last month from January 2011, the state’s first annual gain in more than a year, RealtyTrac reported today. The effect of delayed distressed sales can be found in such places as the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the median single-family home price rose 36 percent last year to $123,400, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. Prices probably will fall again when the spigot reopens, said Marc Joseph, owner of a residential brokerage in Cape Coral. “Things may look good, but in the back of my mind, I know there’s that backlog,” he said. Pain before gain has been the rule in large swaths of California, a nonjudicial state that led the U.S. with the most foreclosure-related filings in 2011 and had eight of the 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, RealtyTrac said in its year-end summary. Stockton Foreclosures In Stockton , located in California’s Central Valley and home to more foreclosure filings per household than any city but Las Vegas, bank-owned and short-sale homes traded for an average 12 percent less than nondistressed properties in the third quarter. That’s down from a 24 percent differential two years earlier, when the distressed inventory was twice as big, the data seller said. Short sales are transactions in which the price is less than the amount owed. Prices that were in free fall early in the crisis have stabilized, with a median of $74 a square foot in December, down 4.9 percent from year earlier, according to real estate data provider Zillow Inc. (Z) “Our market has been pressed for so long, bank-owned sales are almost like a regular sale,” said John Morris, sales manager for broker PMZ Real Estate in Stockton. Protection for Homeowners Despite the speedier market recovery in nonjudicial states, some homeowner advocates argue that the protections offered in judicial states are necessary. Questionable bank behavior during the housing collapse shows the need for clear-cut avenues of redress, said Michael S. Barr, a law professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Judicial review is a needed protection that benefits individual borrowers, said Margery Golant, a homeowners’ attorney in Boca Raton, Florida. Lawyers in that state were among the first to bring the robo-signing allegations to light, leading to the probe by state attorneys general and settlement with companies including Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. “When you don’t have a judicial officer involved, there’s nobody home,” Golant said in a telephone interview. “It’s just a mortgage company and its attorneys and nobody else. In a nonjudicial setting, it’s just totally robotic.” New Nevada Law Nevada, a nonjudicial state with the country’s highest foreclosure rate, is adding legal protections. A new law that took effect in October compels lenders to obtain notarized affidavits before homes can be seized. Legislators expect it to provide “transparency and legitimacy” after homeowner rights were “trampled,” said Nevada Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, a Democrat from Las Vegas. “This law doesn’t stop foreclosure, but it does require proof that a trustee has the right to take action on a property,” Conklin, the Assembly majority leader who co- sponsored the legislation, said in a telephone interview. The protections offered in judicial states may do little to help borrowers. Automatic court review has added time and cost to foreclosures without helping homeowners pay off, or “cure,” their loans, according to Paul Willen, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston , who analyzed 310,351 mortgages from 2000 to 2011 with Kristopher Gerardi, a fellow Fed economist, and Lauren Lambie-Hanson, a researcher. No Borrower Upside A year after default, 26 percent of delinquent loans had cured in judicial states, compared with 25.6 percent in nonjudicial states, the authors wrote in a December working paper. Mandated reviews in judicial states slowed the rate of foreclosure sales by more than half, with no upside to borrowers or markets, they said. Previous academic studies suggest that the longer process also didn’t result in a greater likelihood of borrowers obtaining loan modifications, while it increased the chance they would choose so-called strategic defaults to stay in their homes for long periods without making any payments, Willen said. “Delaying does not help borrowers, and extra time is not allowing them to cure,” he said in a telephone interview. “Judicial foreclosure appears to block efficient foreclosure without promoting efficient resolutions.” Prolonging the foreclosure process will have one certain effect, according to Stan Humphries, chief economist for Seattle-based Zillow: It will delay a housing recovery. “Pick your poison,” he said in a telephone interview. “Either rip the Band-Aid off now or do it slowly, in which case your market’s going to remain in the doldrums.” To contact the reporters on this story: John Gittelsohn in Los Angeles at [email protected] ; Dan Levy in San Francisco at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at [email protected]

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Indonesia's Samurai Bond May Price at Investment Grade, Meiji Yasuda Says

Indonesia may sell its second Samurai bond at a similar yield spread to Mexico, whose debt is rated four levels higher, according to Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. and Asahi Life Asset Management Co. Southeast Asia’s largest economy may be able to price 6 trillion rupiah ($672 million) of 10-year yen-denominated debt being sold next month at close to 50 basis points above the 10- year yen swap rate, the premium paid by Mexico in an Oct. 20 sale of 150 billion yen ($1.86 billion) of similar-maturity samurai bonds, the Tokyo-based fund managers said. Indonesia’s government told investors it expects a spread of 55 to 60 basis, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said yesterday. An improving economy and credit-rating upgrades are bolstering demand for Indonesian debt as near-zero interest rates in Japan fuel demand for securities offering higher yields than domestic debt. The International Monetary Fund forecast this month that economic growth will accelerate to 6 percent this year from 4.5 percent in 2009, while Japan Credit Rating Agency, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s have all raised their assessments of the Southeast Asian nation this year. “Their credit rating is on an upgrading trend,” said Yoshihiro Nakatani , a senior fund manager at Asahi Life Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, which has $8.5 billion of assets under management. “Even with the tight spread, Indonesia’s samurai bonds are relatively very attractive for Japanese investors,” he said in an interview on Oct. 21. JBIC Guarantee Indonesia hired Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co. and Nomura Securities Co. to help sell the yen-denominated bonds, which are backed by the state-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The JBIC also guaranteed Mexico’s samurai bond offer. Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said Oct. 26 the government expects to receive the proceeds of the sale Nov. 12. Indonesia sold 35 billion yen of 10-year samurai bonds in July 2009 at 2.73 percent. The rate on Japan’s 10-year bonds was 0.82 percent on Oct. 6 and 7, the lowest level since June 2003, after its central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a range of zero to 0.1 percent and pledged to buy up to $60 billion of assets to stimulate growth. Indonesia has been selling debt on domestic and international markets this year to fund a budget deficit, which Martowardojo said may reach 1.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2010. It last tapped overseas markets with the sale of $2 billion of 10-year dollar bonds in January. Rating Upgrades The Japan Credit Rating Agency lifted its assessment of Indonesia to investment grade in July. Fitch Ratings raised its rating for Indonesia in January to BB+, the highest non- investment grade. Standard & Poor’s upgraded Indonesia in March to BB, while Moody’s Investors Service rates Indonesia Ba2. S&P and Moody’s both rank Indonesia two levels below investment grade. Mexico, Latin America’s second-largest economy, is ranked Baa1 at Moody’s, the third-lowest investment grade. S&P and Fitch assess the country at BBB, two notches above non- investment rank. “With the lowest spread five basis points more than what Mexico got, demand is stronger now,” said Toshiaki Takahashi , who helps manage about $300 billion at Tokyo-based Meiji Yasuda. “That means the spread may be probably set at 55 basis points. It would be very popular.” The extra yield investors demand to buy Samurai bonds instead of Japanese government debt has narrowed 68 basis points this year to 1.01 percentage points, according to Nomura, Japan’s biggest brokerage. The spread reached 0.98 percentage point on Oct. 14, the lowest since November 2007. Growth Outlook Samurai sales, excluding private placements, amounted to 1.52 trillion yen this year through Oct. 22, compared with 1.17 trillion yen in the same period in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Overseas investors have poured money into Indonesian assets to profit as the economy improves. Foreign holdings of the nation’s local-currency bonds increased 82.7 trillion rupiah ($9.3 billion) this year to 190.7 trillion as of Oct. 22, according to figures from the finance ministry. Bank Indonesia said on Oct. 5 it expects gross domestic product to increase 6 percent to 6.3 percent in 2010, and between 6 percent and 6.5 percent next year. “The local economy is very healthy,” said Tetsuo Ishihara , a senior credit analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. “This is a very good investment opportunity.” Samurai bonds, named after Japan’s feudal warrior class, were first issued in 1970 when the Manila-based Asian Development Bank, funded by regional governments to reduce poverty, issued the debt. To contact the reporters on this story: Lilian Karunungan in Singapore at [email protected] ; Yumi Teso in Bangkok at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sandy Hendry at [email protected] .

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UBS’s $26 Million Award for Orcel Dwarfs Pay of CEO Ermotti

UBS AG (UBSN) Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti ’s 2012 pay of 8.87 million Swiss francs ($9.3 million) was dwarfed by the 24.9 million francs in cash and stock investment bank head Andrea Orcel got on joining the bank. Orcel received 6.36 million francs in deferred cash and 1.76 million UBS shares with a fair market value of 18.5 million francs on the date they were granted, the Zurich-based bank said today in its 2012 report, without disclosing his annual compensation. The award replaces pay Orcel forfeited when he left Bank of America Corp., UBS said. Orcel, 49, joined UBS in July to co-head the investment bank with Carsten Kengeter before taking over as the unit’s sole chief in November after UBS decided to exit most debt-trading businesses and cut 10,000 jobs over three years to concentrate on money management. The investment bank posted a pretax loss of 2.73 billion francs for 2012 on reorganization charges, while UBS posted a net loss of 2.51 billion francs after booking costs for job cuts and a fine for rigging global interest rates. UBS changed its pay structures, limiting cash payouts, after almost 37 percent of shareholders voted last May against the bank’s 2011 compensation report. Swiss voters in a referendum earlier this month backed a proposal giving shareholders a binding vote each year on executive pay as part of an initiative that also bans big payouts for new hires and departing executives. Right Balance “We’ll probably never find a perfect solution that always meets with approval of all stakeholders, but we want to and have to find the right balance between employee interests and providing sufficient returns to our shareholders,” Chairman Axel Weber said in an internal memo to employees today. “No bank, including UBS, will be able to go through this process without looking at what the competition is doing.” Orcel spent 20 years at Merrill Lynch before joining UBS and was among the biggest dealmakers when the U.S. firm was independent, leading the team that helped Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc acquire ABN Amro Holding NV in 2008 in the biggest banking takeover. The Italian banker was paid $33.8 million for 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported in March 2009. Orcel’s UBS awards may be reduced under the bank’s provisions for harmful acts, which include contributing to a “significant financial loss” and violating company policies. Orcel holds the most unvested share awards of any member of UBS’s executive board, according to the report. CEO Pay CEO Ermotti’s pay, which includes a base salary of 2.5 million francs, compares with 6.35 million francs the previous year, when he joined the executive board in April and took over as CEO after Oswald Gruebel resigned in September, UBS said. Ermotti replaced wealth management Americas head Robert J. McCann as the highest paid member of UBS’s board. Barclays Plc said earlier this month it awarded CEO Antony Jenkins 2.3 million pounds ($3.4 million) for 2012, 63 percent less than the salary and long-term bonuses for 2011 given to his predecessor Robert Diamond , who was ousted following the bank’s fine related to Libor rigging. Jenkins was CEO for only the final four months of 2012. Wealth management Americas head McCann, who turns 55 tomorrow received 8.56 million francs for 2012, down from 9.18 million francs the previous year, according to the report. McCann’s unit, which includes the former Paine Webber brokerage business the Swiss bank acquired in 2000, “managed to deliver on a spectacular turnaround” and posted a record pretax profit of $873 million for 2012, Ermotti, 52, said yesterday in a speech at the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce in Zurich. Bonus Pool UBS gained 28 percent in Swiss trading last year, outpacing the 23 percent gain in the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index, which tracks 40 companies. The bank cut its total 2012 bonus pool 7 percent to 2.5 billion francs, and paid about 500 million francs of that in contingent capital bonds, which will be written off if UBS’s common equity ratio falls below 7 percent or the company needs a bailout. UBS said the bonds will be granted as a deferred cash award that vests in the fifth year, subject to continued employment and forfeiture provisions for harmful acts. An estimated 6,317 employees received the bonds, which pay notional interest of 6.25 percent for dollar and 5.4 percent for franc-denominated awards, the bank said. Libor Factor UBS said it took into account the cost of the fine related to the rigging of Libor, a benchmark for more than $300 trillion of financial products worldwide, when making compensation decisions. Bonus pools for the investment bank and the corporate center were reduced “to reflect the gravity of the matter,” the bank said. The company terminated employment of 25 people and had 27 individuals sanctioned with various warnings and pay cuts as a result of Libor-related misconduct, while 26 employees left the bank before disciplinary action could be taken, it said. The bonus pool of the investment bank was cut 20 percent, and more than 300 people, including Kengeter, forfeited 10 percent of performance awards that were due to vest in March, amounting to more than 14 million francs, UBS said. The board decided to not pay any cash bonuses to executives for 2012 and fully defer variable pay over three to five years, UBS said today. The bank announced last month that executive cash bonuses would be capped at a maximum of 20 percent of total performance awards under a new compensation structure. Shareholder Talks The bank also increased minimum shareholdings for executive board members and capped their total performance award pool at 2.5 percent of adjusted pretax profit. The 11 members of the executive board in office on Dec. 31 received total compensation of 70.4 million francs for the year, compared with 70.1 million francs paid to 12 executives for 2011. Kengeter, 45, and Alexander Wilmot-Sitwell, 51, were paid a total of 1.71 million francs for serving 10 and three months, respectively, as members of the board in 2012. The bank had discussions with its biggest shareholders to better understand their views on pay, UBS said last month. Executives who violate the terms of Switzerland ’s so-called Minder initiative on pay can be punished with as long as three years in jail. Chairman Weber was the highest-paid member of the board of directors, receiving total compensation of 3.57 million francs for 2012. Weber, who joined the board last year, also got a one- time payment upon his election of 2 million francs and 200,000 UBS shares blocked for one year, valued at 2.27 million francs at grant date. To contact the reporter on this story: Elena Logutenkova in Zurich at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at [email protected]

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Taiwan Opposition Draws Thousands to Protest Ma’s Administration

Taiwan ’s opposition rallied tens of thousands of people today to protest the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou, whose popularity has plummeted to the lowest since he won office. “We demand that Premier Sean Chen be held accountable for the island’s weak economy,” Jason Lin, spokesman of the Democratic Progressive Party , said by phone. More than 54,000 protesters joined the rally, according to Liao Heng-yu, public order division chief at Taipei City Police Department , Lin said 150,000 demonstrators took part. Organizers had targeted participation by 100,000. Ma’s approval rating has fallen to 13 percent since his re- election last January with 52 percent of the popular vote, according to a December poll by Taipei-based television network, TVBS. The International Monetary Fund estimates Taiwan’s economy grew at a rate of 1.3 percent in 2012, the slowest pace since the 2009 global recession. Protesters also called for regulators, including the Fair Trade Commission and the National Communications Commission , to block the sale of Hong Kong-listed Next Media Ltd. (282) ’s Taiwan assets to prevent a monopoly, Lin said. A group of companies plans to buy Next Media Taiwan print and television units for a total NT$17.5 billion ($604 million). Tsai Shao-Chung, president of Want Want Chinatimes Group, which publishes the China Times and the Commercial Times, is among the buyers. Fiscal changes and reforms to the island’s social welfare system are also among the opposition’s concerns. The island’s aging population is straining its welfare and pension system, Ma said on Nov. 21, adding that the government will review reform proposals by this month. To contact the reporter on this story: Adela Lin in Taipei at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at [email protected]

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UTECHZONE CO April Sales Fall 63.53% (Table) : 3455 TT

UTECHZONE CO said unconsolidated sales in April fell 63.53% to NT$55,375,000 from NT$151,821,000, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. (Figures are in thousands of New Taiwan dollars) ================================================================= 4/2012 4/2011 Sales 55,375 151,821 YOY% -63.53% -----------------Year-to-date----------------- Sales 186,028 537,884 YOY% -65.41% =================================================================

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Western Canada Select Spread Weakens After Enbridge Restriction

Western Canada Select oil weakened against benchmark West Texas Intermediate after Enbridge Inc. (ENB) said it would allocate space on two pipelines for July because demand for crude shipments exceeds capacity. Line 6B, which has a capacity of 283,100 barrels a day and runs between Griffith, Indiana , and Sarnia, can meet 75 percent of shipper requests for July, the company said. Line 5, which runs from Superior, Wisconsin , to Sarnia, Ontario, and has a capacity of 491,200 barrels a day, will be able to meet 96 percent of next month’s requests to move oil. The discount for Western Canada Select widened 50 cents to $20.50 a barrel less than WTI at 3:54 p.m. in New York , according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The premium for Syncrude was unchanged at $8.50 a barrel. Syncrude is a light, low-sulfur synthetic oil derived from the tar sands in Alberta. Heavy Louisiana Sweet’s premium lost 35 cents to $20.35 a barrel over WTI. Light Louisiana Sweet added 25 cents to $20.50 over the benchmark. Among sour, or high-sulfur, grades, the premium for Mars Blend gained $2.10 to $15.50 a barrel, while Poseidon added 75 cents to $13 over WTI. Southern Green Canyon’s premium widened 25 cents to $12.50 a barrel above WTI. West Texas Sour’s discount narrowed 20 cents to $1.30. Thunder Horse’s premium added 20 cents to $19.40 a barrel. To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Clark in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at [email protected]

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Crude Oil Climbs on Middle East Tensions: Commodities at Close

The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials rose 1.6 percent to settle at 667.25 at 4 p.m. New York time, led by energy. The UBS Bloomberg CMCI index of 26 prices gained 0.7 percent to 1,625.44. CRUDE OIL Crude oil advanced for the first time in three sessions as increasing tension in the Middle East countered concern that a global economic slowdown will curb demand. Radar-assisted Turkish guns fired on Syrian artillery units and tanks for six consecutive days after the deaths of five people struck by a Syrian shell in Turkey on Oct. 3. The International Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecasts today as the euro area’s debt crisis escalates. Oil futures for November delivery increased 3.4 percent to $92.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange , the highest settlement since Oct. 1. Brent oil for November settlement gained 2.4 percent to $114.50 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. BP Plc bought a second Forties blend for October at the highest in seven months after the company booked a supertanker to haul North Sea crude to South Korea from Hound Point in the U.K. Iraq will reduce its daily exports of Basrah Light from the Persian Gulf by 27 percent in the second half of October from two weeks earlier, a loading program showed. The nation cut the November price of the grade for customers in Europe. OIL PRODUCTS Gasoline rose as U.S. refinery shutdowns threatened supplies, boosting spot values in New York Harbor and sending California pump prices to record highs. On the Nymex, gasoline futures for November delivery rose 2.3 percent to $2.9587 a gallon. Heating-oil futures for November delivery advanced 1.9 percent to $3.2032 a gallon. NATURAL GAS Natural gas rose to a one-week high before a government report that may show a below-average inventory increase for last week. On the Nymex, gas futures for November delivery increased 1.9 percent to $3.467 per million British thermal units, the highest settlement since Oct. 2. U.K. within-day gas declined from the highest since February after pipeline shipments from Norway increased. The price dropped 1.8 percent to 64.1 pence a therm at 4:01 p.m. London time, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the equivalent of $10.25 per million Btu. LIVESTOCK Cattle jumped to a two-week high on signs of shrinking beef supplies after the worst U.S. drought in 56 years prompted ranchers to cull their herds. On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, cattle futures for December delivery increased 0.3 percent to $1.26725 a pound. Earlier, the price reached $1.27225, the highest for a most- active contract since Sept. 25. Feeder-cattle futures for November settlement rose 0.3 cent to $1.467 a pound. Hog futures for December settlement fell 0.1 percent to 76.8 cents a pound. GRAINS, OILSEEDS Wheat rose for the second straight day on speculation that the U.S. will lower its forecasts for global supplies as dry weather damages crops from Russia to Australia. On the Chicago Board of Trade, wheat futures for December delivery rose 0.4 percent to $8.6425 a bushel. The price gained 0.4 percent yesterday. Soybean futures for November delivery fell 0.1 percent to $15.50 a bushel. Earlier, the price reached $15.74, the highest since Oct. 1. Corn futures for December delivery were unchanged at $7.42 a bushel. Earlier, the price gained as much as 0.9 percent. SOFT COMMODITIES Sugar rose the most in a week on concern that supplies may tighten in Brazil , the world’s top grower. On ICE Futures U.S. in New York , raw sugar for March delivery rose 0.2 percent to 21.47 cents a pound, the biggest increase since Oct. 2. Cocoa futures for December delivery climbed 1.5 percent to $2,417 a metric ton, the biggest gain since Sept. 25. Arabica-coffee futures for December delivery dropped 2.2 percent to $1.653 a pound. Earlier, the price reached $1.641, the lowest since Sept. 10. Orange-juice futures for November delivery slid 0.7 percent to $1.12 a pound, the fifth straight decline. Cotton futures for December delivery increased 0.1 percent to 71.84 cents a pound. BASE METALS Copper prices declined for the third straight session after the IMF cut its forecasts for world economic growth, damping prospects for metal demand. On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months slipped 0.5 percent to $8,145 a ton. Aluminum dropped 1.4 percent to $2,054 a ton in London. Earlier, the price touched $2,044, the lowest since Sept. 11. Zinc, tin, nickel and lead also fell. Copper futures for December delivery were unchanged at $3.718 a pound on the Comex in New York. PRECIOUS METALS Gold declined to the lowest in more than a week as a stronger dollar eroded demand for the metal as an alternative investment. On the Comex, gold futures for December delivery fell 0.6 percent to $1,765 an ounce. Earlier, the price touched $1,762, the lowest since Sept. 27. Silver futures for December delivery dropped 0.1 percent to $33.985 an ounce. Platinum futures for January delivery fell 0.2 percent to $1,695.30 an ounce on the Nymex. Palladium futures for December delivery gained 0.2 percent to $658.20 an ounce. To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick McKiernan in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at [email protected]

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Geithner Says Tapping Oil Reserves Should Help Reduce Price

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the decision by the U.S. to tap oil reserves should “help reinforce some of the softness” recently seen in the prices. The cost of oil “obviously” will come down, Geithner said today in an interview on CNBC television, declining to predict the reduction. To contact the reporter on this story: Jeannine Aversa in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz in Washington at [email protected]

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N.Z. Post-Quake Exodus Enters Third Month

More migrants left New Zealand than arrived for a third straight month in May, the most prolonged decline in 10 years, as people relocated after an earthquake struck the nation’s second-biggest city. Permanent migrant departures exceeded arrivals by 360 in May following readings of 130 in April and 520 in March, Statistics New Zealand said in Wellington today. In the year ended May 31, arrivals outpaced departures by 4,625, the lowest number since the 12 months through January 2009. Slowing migration adds to the evidence for weaker growth and a declining labor supply this year after the magnitude 6.3 quake killed more than 180 people, wrecked houses and closed businesses in Christchurch on Feb. 22. The central bank may hold borrowing costs at record lows for longer after Christchurch was struck last week by aftershocks, pushing interest-rate swaps to the lowest this month. “Taxpayers fleeing the country will hamper the government’s desire to swiftly restore the budget to surplus, while a softer economy for longer keeps the Reserve Bank on hold for longer,” Annette Beacher , head of Asia-Pacific research at TD Securities in Singapore , said in an e-mailed note. New Zealand’s dollar was little changed after the report. It bought 81.08 U.S. cents at 12:25 p.m. in Wellington from 81.01 cents immediately before the release. The two-year swap rate, a fixed payment made to receive floating rates, rose one basis point to 3.32 percent, after touching 3.275 percent on June 17, the lowest since May 24. Gross domestic product will rise 2.1 percent in the year ending March 31, 2012, according to the average forecast of 11 economists surveyed by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research Inc. Christchurch Departures Permanent departures of Christchurch residents in the three months through May were 1,300 more than the year-earlier period, the statistics agency said. About 400 fewer people arrived in the city, the statistics agency said. Many of the residents departing are heading to Australia , a country with five times New Zealand’s population of 4.4 million people that is little more than three hours away by aircraft and offers employment and higher wages as its economy benefits from demand for mineral exports. There were 4,350 more citizens who departed permanently for Australia in the three months through May than a year earlier, today’s report showed. The annual flow to Australia was 38,899 persons, rising 12,128 from the year through May 2010. More New Zealanders also departed on overseas trips for holidays or business, today’s report showed. Short-term departures rose 9.9 percent in May from a year earlier, and increased 6.6 percent in the year ended May 31. Short-term visitor arrivals fell 0.4 percent from May last year, and annual arrivals rose 1 percent, adding to signs that growth is sluggish in the tourism industry , which makes up about 9 percent of the economy. More migrants left New Zealand than arrived for 16 straight months through March 2001, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. To contact the reporter on this story: Tracy Withers in Wellington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at [email protected]

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Who Pays When India’s Billionaires Don’t Go Bust?

Last month, the business empire of Eike Batista , once the world’s seventh-richest man and a mascot of economically resurgent Brazil , collapsed. The disaster ought to focus our minds on the perils of credit-fueled economic growth and highly leveraged corporations not just in Brazil but also in other BRICS countries. Batista secured extraordinary loans and investments from a government bank against the promise of high productivity from his oil fields ; he used taxpayers’ money to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself, with such plutocratic accessories as fast cars, yachts and a wife who was a former Playboy model. His debt-fueled engine spluttered to a stop when his fields were exposed as dry and his flagship oil company, OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, was left with no cash to service debts amounting to more than $5 billion. Last week, as I drove past the forlorn, deserted airport in Shimla, which India ’s high-flying Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. once connected to the world, I thought of India’s own version of Batista: the flamboyant owner of Kingfisher, Vijay Mallya , who was as much the poster boy for an apparently supercharged economy as the Brazilian businessman was. A liquor baron, Mallya worked hard to live up to his beer’s tagline “the King of the Good Times” by partying with Bollywood stars onboard his luxury yacht, the Indian Empress; he also ran a race-car franchise and supervised a swimsuit calendar. ‘Bikini-Clad Models’ Laden by debt , Kingfisher imploded last year after failing to pay its employees for seven months. Shortly after the wife of one of the unpaid staff members committed suicide in October 2012, Mallya’s young son posted on Twitter that he was playing “volleyball with bikini-clad models.” His business empire now imperiled at other weak points, Mallya has lowered his profile. In August, India’s state-backed banks, which are owed about $1.4 billion by Kingfisher, departed from their own culture of leniency and taped a notice to the door of the carrier’s headquarters: Their plan, unrealizable for now, is to seize the building in order to recover unpaid debts. You would be wrong, however, to conclude that the profligacy of India’s corporate borrowers and spenders belongs safely to the past. The dramatic slowdown in India’s economy over the last few months has exposed what many of us suspected all along: that the country’s economic boom in the last decade was largely fueled by debt, enabled by unprecedented inflows of foreign capital, rather than by broad, sustained and sustainable liberal reforms. Indeed, the idea of reform itself came to be confused with “the liberalization of economic policy restraints on organized business,” as Santosh Desai, an advertising professional and commentator, points out. Thus, in what a senior executive speaking to the Financial Times likened to a “ Ponzi scheme ,” large corporations making overambitious investments when the going was good were able to repeatedly restructure loans from state-backed banks, which the government faithfully recapitalized with its own money. One result of this collaborative capitalism with Indian characteristics was always very likely to be an extraordinary degree of corporate leverage and frothy asset markets. It is what we are witnessing today. An August report titled “House of Debt -- Revisited” from Credit Suisse Group AG reveals that 10 of India’s biggest industrial conglomerates, including Anil Ambani’s Reliance companies, Ravikant Ruia’s Essar Power Ltd., Gautam Adani ’s Adani Power Ltd. and the Essar Group, had combined gross debts of more than $100 billion. Much of this debt -- the highest leverage since the late 1990s -- is denominated in foreign currency. A weakened rupee has only increased the size of the debt in local terms; the overall slowdown in the construction, infrastructure and mining sectors hasn’t helped. According to Credit Suisse, the moment of reckoning will come early next year, in the fiscal period ending March 31. By then, slowing growth will have seriously affected the ability of these corporations to make profits and service their debts, repayments for which will be much higher in fiscal 2014. Brazilian Scenario According to Bloomberg News, the reckoning may come even earlier for companies such as Mukesh Ambani ’s Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s most powerful business house, and Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources Plc, which has $10.6 billion of bonds and loans maturing by Dec. 31 and $7.4 billion in the following three months. A Brazilian scenario -- overleveraged corporations with falling productivity -- looks to be developing in India. According to Bloomberg, the yield from Reliance’s biggest Indian gas field has plunged 75 percent from its peak in 2010. India’s Directorate General of Hydrocarbons has fined Reliance nearly $2 billion over the last three years for falling short of output targets. So could the next Batista-style implosion occur in India? There are several arguments for why it won’t. Large corporate bankruptcies are uncommon in India, where the nexus between big business and the government is stronger than it is in Brazil. State-owned banks are likely to refinance and restructure their loans to corporations, even at the risk of saddling their own balance sheets with nonperforming assets. (It is also nearly impossible for banks in India to recover large bad debts, as the desperation of Kingfisher’s hapless lenders reveals.) Mukesh Ambani may find his elusive profits from investments in the U.S.’s shale oil and gas revolution; last quarter, earnings from his multibillion-dollar American wager eclipsed those in India for the first time. Credit Suisse’s warnings may turn out to be “speculative and misguided,” as alleged by a Reliance representative. In any case, the Credit Suisse report, which focused exclusively on aberrations in the balance sheets of large Indian corporations, ignores their diversely sourced sociopolitical power. In recent years, they have been beneficiaries of a culture in which, as Desai writes, “the lives of the rich are discussed admiringly, and every act of indulgence greeted with applause.” This encourages them “to live on an island of delusion, aided by media and feted by the public that is visible to them.” Enviable Influence Batista had his connections and cronies, but he can only envy the influence of his Indian counterparts. Photographs from a lavish birthday party for Mukesh Ambani’s wife this month -- held in a royal palace in Rajasthan rather than the Ambanis’ 27-story Mumbai private residence -- show a loyal and gratified Indian elite in attendance, including the union minister for heavy industries and cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar. Guests, flown in on 32 chartered planes, included a maker of socially conscious cinema, Aamir Khan, as well as the new Bollywood teen icon Ranbir Kapoor. In 2009, a taped conversation between lobbyists quoted Mukesh Ambani as boasting that the ruling Congress party was now his dukaan, or shop. He may not have asserted proprietorial rights over the government so explicitly, even though his part ownership of, and immense influence over, the Indian media is barely concealed. Nevertheless, one can only marvel at how, responding to a demand from Reliance, the government doubled domestic natural gas prices from April next year, and how a decision with profound ramifications for small and medium enterprises and farmers, not to mention ordinary middle-class Indians, went almost entirely unchallenged by the political opposition and the mainstream media. The end of loose monetary policy in the U.S., a dramatic shrinking of capital inflows, and further blows to the rupee could worsen the situation for Indian corporations sinking in debt. But even if all the preconditions for it were to be present, a Batista-style implosion in India still seems unlikely. Rather, the damage will be inflicted upon the lending banks, some scapegoated politicians, the credibility of the media, and the usual suckers -- the voting taxpayers. ( Pankaj Mishra is the author of “From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia ” and a Bloomberg View columnist.) To contact the writer of this article: Pankaj Mishra at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this article: Nisid Hajari at [email protected] .

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Absolute Poker Agrees to Forfeiture in U.S. Settlement

Absolute Poker , an Internet gambling website, agreed to forfeit assets in a settlement of U.S. claims that the company conducted illegal online wagering inside the the country. The forfeiture will include deposited funds, receivables, hardware and intellectual property, according to court papers in the government’s lawsuit filed today in Manhattan federal court. Assets such as the database of Absolute Poker players are likely to “substantially decrease in value if not sold soon,” according to court papers filed by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office. To contact the reporter on this story: Christie Smythe in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at [email protected]

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Singapore Replaces Anti-Graft Head Amid Corruption Probe

Singapore said it will replace the head of its anti-corruption agency to help maintain trust after an assistant director was charged with misappropriation. Eric Tan will be replaced as director of the Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau when his term ends Sept. 30, according to a statement yesterday from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s Office. Supervisory lapses under Tan and former anti-graft chief Soh Kee Hean resulted in deficiencies in financial controls, according to the statement. Both Tan and Soh have been issued formal warning letters and have accepted responsibility, Lee’s office said. Singapore vowed to take “strong measures” after Edwin Yeo was charged last month with fraud and corruption over the misappropriation of S$1.7 million ($1.3 million). Lee ordered a government panel to probe the case and tighten financial controls. The anti-corruption agency didn’t immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment. Wong Hong Kuan , Chief Executive of the Singapore Workforce Development will join the anti-corruption bureau as director designate on Sept. 1. Wong was a former deputy police commissioner until 2010. The criminal case is Public Prosecutor v Yeo Seow Hiong Edwin. DAC028332-DAC028352/2013. Singapore Subordinate Courts. To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Tan in Singapore at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Linus Chua at [email protected]

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Samsung Apologizes After China State TV Criticizes Handsets

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) apologized to Chinese consumers after the national broadcaster criticized the company for making handsets that allegedly malfunction because of faulty memory chips. Samsung, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, pledged to provide free maintenance, according to Chinese rules, for the seven models included in China Central Television’s report, according to a statement posted on Samsung’s China website and dated yesterday. The warranty for handsets produced before Nov. 30, 2012, will be extended one year, it said. CCTV’s “Economic Half-Hour” program reported this week that Samsung’s Galaxy S and Note series handsets crash as many as 30 times a day and the chips need to be upgraded. The Suwon, South Korea-based company joins Apple Inc., Danone, Volkswagen AG and Starbucks Corp. in being accused by China ’s state media of mistreating consumers in the world’s second-biggest economy. “The Chinese government is trying to bring consumer sights back to domestic companies because they know it’s necessary to foster local companies to ensure stable economic growth,” said Lee Jin Woo, a fund manager at Seoul-based KTB Asset Management Co. in Seoul. “Samsung has read their mind well enough to keep a low profile to appear consumer-friendly.” Declining Shares Samsung “sincerely apologizes” to Chinese consumers for inconveniences caused by the company’s “management problems,” Asia’s biggest technology company said in the statement. The company also welcomes media scrutiny, it said. Samsung shares are sustaining a four-day losing streak, declining 0.6 percent to 1,434,000 won as of 10:37 a.m. in Seoul trading, while the benchmark Kospi index rose 1.7 percent. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook also issued a public apology to Chinese consumers in April after state media lambasted the company for arrogance and poor customer service. China accounted for 14 percent of Samsung’s consolidated sales last year, compared with 29 percent for the Americas and 25 percent for Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Samsung’s leading share of China’s smartphone market in the second quarter outpaced the largest local handset makers in the next five spots: Lenovo; China Wireless Technologies Ltd.’s Coolpad; ZTE Corp.; Huawei Technologies Co.; and Xiaomi Corp., according to Canalys. To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Penny Peng in Beijing at [email protected] ; Jungah Lee in Seoul at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at [email protected]

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Gold Rises to Record on Liyban Turmoil, Surge in Oil Prices; Silver Gains

Gold futures climbed to a record for the third time in a week as escalating violence in Libya and concern that inflation will accelerate boosted demand for the metal as an investment haven. Silver rose to a 31-year high. Gold reached an all-time high of $1,445.70 an ounce as Libyan rebels moved along the coast toward Tripoli and government troops loyal to Muammar Qaddafi escalated their use of force. Crude oil extended a rally to a 29-month high in New York on concern that turmoil will spread to Middle East producers. “The gold market is eyeing oil,” said Frank McGhee , the head dealer at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC in Chicago. “The concern is that the unrest will spill over to Saudi Arabia as an ever-expanding world is using more and more oil every day.” Gold futures for April delivery rose $5.90, or 0.4 percent, to settle at $1,434.50 at 1:32 p.m. on the Comex in New York. Last week, the metal climbed 1.4 percent, extending a rally to six weeks, the longest since September 2007. Silver futures for May delivery rose 53.8 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $35.865 an ounce. Earlier, the price reached $36.745, the highest for a most-active contract since March 1980. That year, the metal climbed to a record of $50.35. Saudi Arabia is the biggest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Surging food and commodity prices contributed to unrest that toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt with protests erupting in countries including Iran, Yemen and Oman. Saudi ‘Rage’ The United Nations estimated as of Feb. 26 that 1,000 people had died since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February. In Saudi Arabia , websites have called for a nationwide “Day of Rage” on March 11 and March 20, according to Human Rights Watch. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing on March 5 that reining in inflation is the nation’s top priority. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has signaled that the Fed will complete $600 billion of Treasury purchases through June. “You have an environment where you have rising inflation and increasing liquidity,” Juerg Kiener, the chief investment officer at Swiss Asia Capital Ltd. in Singapore , said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We have a very large physical position of gold and silver in the market.” Gold has gained 26 percent in the past 12 months, and silver more than doubled. The MSCI World Index of equities was up 14 percent. Palladium futures for June delivery fell $19.70, or 2.4 percent, to $790.10 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Platinum futures for April delivery dropped $17.50, or 1 percent, to $1,820.40 an ounce. Palladium has climbed 66 percent in the past 12 months, and platinum is up 15 percent. To contact the reporters on this story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at [email protected] ; Nicholas Larkin in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick McKiernan at [email protected]

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Diamond Seen Surviving Libor Storm After Barclays Plunges

Barclays Plc (BARC) ’s investors aren’t joining lawmakers in calling for Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond to quit, though they say record fines for Libor manipulation threaten to doom his turnaround plan for the bank. Shares of the U.K.’s second-biggest bank by assets plunged 16 percent yesterday, the most in three years, on speculation Diamond’s job is at risk and that billions of dollars of lawsuits will follow the $451 million in penalties imposed by the U.S. and U.K. Regulators worldwide are probing at least five other firms, including Citigroup Inc. (C) and Deutsche Bank AG. (DBK) “He’ll probably weather the storm,” said Julian Chillingworth, who helps manage 16 billion pounds ($25 billion) at London’s Rathbone Brothers Plc, including Barclays shares. “There’ll be more regulation. Governments globally are very much on the banks’ case. It may turn out he’s slightly bailed out as other banks have to come clean.” Diamond, 60, ran the London-based bank’s securities unit during the period probed. He and three top lieutenants will forgo their bonuses this year as a result of the fines, two months after his 12 million pound pay package for last year earned scorn from shareholders and lawmakers. After taking over as CEO in 2011, Diamond vowed to boost Barclays’ return on equity, a profitability measure, to 13 percent, about double last year’s 6.6 percent ratio. ‘Take Responsibility’ Barclays fell 1.7 percent to 162.85 pence in London trading, valuing the lender at 19.9 billion pounds. In the wake of yesterday’s plunge, Barclays is now this year’s worst performer in the five-member FTSE 350 banks index , with a 7.5 percent decline. “People have to take responsibility for the actions and show how they’re going to be accountable,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said in Brussels yesterday. “It’s very important that goes all the way to the top of the organization.” Barclays declined to comment further. A voicemail left for Chairman Marcus Agius wasn’t returned. Diamond has agreed to appear at a meeting of U.K. lawmakers to highlight “what we have done and are doing to put things right,” he said in a letter yesterday to Andrew Tyrie , chairman of Parliament’s cross-party Treasury Committee. “I appreciate that the nature of the settlements disclosed yesterday raises many questions, and I welcome the opportunity to provide answers,” Diamond wrote. Top Executives Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc , UBS AG (UBSN) , ICAP Plc (IAP) , Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) , Citigroup and Deutsche Bank are all being investigated in their role in how the London interbank offered rate is set. Though all of the banks’ share prices declined yesterday, none approached Barclays’ plunge. “If Bob Diamond does go, what does that mean for Anshu Jain, Stephen Hester ? What happens to Vikram Pandit? How ridiculous do you want to make this?” said Christopher Wheeler , a London-based analyst at Mediobanca SpA, referring to top executives of Deutsche Bank, RBS and Citigroup respectively. A total of 18 banks are surveyed as part of the process of determining Libor and related rates. Libor, a benchmark for more than $350 trillion of financial products globally, is set by averaging out submissions in a poll of banks, who are asked how much it would cost them to borrow from each other for different periods of time, from overnight to one year. ‘Complete Answer’ In 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, “a member of senior management” instructed Barclays’ Libor staff to lower their submissions to make them match other banks and dispel concern about the lender’s health, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a settlement document. Matthew Oakeshott, a member of the U.K. ruling coalition’s Liberal Democrat party who sits in Parliament’s upper House of Lords, said Diamond should resign. Paul Myners , who also sits in the House of Lords for the opposition Labour Party , said Barclays executives should face criminal charges. “What did he know and when did he know it?” Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said of Diamond, speaking in Parliament in London yesterday. Osborne also said prosecutors at the Serious Fraud Office are now investigating the case. Diamond had already scrapped in February a timeline of reaching his profitability target by 2013. Barclays was the last British consumer bank to have kept such a target as Europe ’s debt crisis and tougher regulation eroded earnings. Succession Concern “It does question the position of the top people there, but it’s difficult to see merely changing the boss would be the complete answer,” said Jane Coffey, who oversees 12 billion pounds as head of equities at Royal London Asset Management Ltd., which holds Barclays in its index funds. “The regulatory environment will become a lot tougher for them. That will ensure they will not be making the same money they were before.” It’s also unclear who could replace Diamond, according to Chirantan Barua, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein Research in London. Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier, Finance Director Chris Lucas and corporate and investment banking chief Rich Ricci are also forgoing bonuses this year due to the fines. “The simple fact is that there is no internal candidate” with the “industry experience, much-needed political credibility and expertise in running a large capital markets business,” Barua wrote in a note yesterday. “This will remain a driver of volatility for the stock as long as the pressure from political parties remains.” In the Libor investigation, the U.K. Financial Services Authority said derivatives traders requested false submissions from their colleagues as they were “motivated by profit and sought to benefit Barclays’ trading positions.” Criminal Charges In another blow to Barclays today, the lender will join RBS, Lloyds and HSBC Holdings Plc in compensating small and medium-sized businesses improperly sold interest-rate derivatives following a probe by the FSA. The regulator, which didn’t say how much would be paid out, FSA found “serious failings” by the banks dating back to 2001. Calls for Diamond to step down may not abate, especially if lawsuits follow the regulatory penalties and possible criminal charges. “Pressure for change could continue to mount as industry observers digest the released evidence,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts said in a note to clients. “We would expect any changes to the senior management team at Barclays to be negatively taken by the market.” Diamond told analysts led by Chris Manners of Morgan Stanley he has no plans to step down in a meeting yesterday. Manners and Huw Van Steenis met Diamond to talk about the impact of the publication of the bank’s Libor settlement, the analysts wrote in a note to clients today. “The CEO says he does not intend to stand down,” said the note. “Further, the CEO was appointed 18 months ago with the full approval of the FSA in knowledge of this investigation.” To contact the reporter on this story: Howard Mustoe in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at [email protected]

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Etisalat and Kuwait Real Estate: Gulf Equity Preview

The following stocks may rise or fall in Persian Gulf markets. Stock symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the last close. Kuwait ’s benchmark index dropped 0.5 percent, the most since March 23, to 6,294.50 at the 12:30 p.m. close in Kuwait City. Dubai’s DFM General Index (DFMGI) lost 0.8 percent. Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (ETISALAT UH): The Middle East’s biggest phone company by market value, known as Etisalat, said it decided not to proceed with a bid for a mobile license in Syria. The shares fell 0.5 percent to 10.9 dirhams. Kuwait Projects Co. (KPROJ KK): Kuwait’s biggest privately owned investment firm forecasts profit to increase this year as it seeks acquisition opportunities, Vice Chairman Faisal al- Ayyar told shareholders yesterday in Kuwait City. The shares fell 2.5 percent to 390 fils. Kuwait Real Estate Co. (KRE) : The Kuwaiti-based property company reported a loss of 20.7 million dinars ($75 million) in 2010 after a profit of 2.1 million dinars the previous year. The shares fell 3.7 percent to 52 fils. To contact the reporter on this story: Alaa Shahine in Dubai at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Maedler at [email protected]

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Midmorning Positive EPS Surprises for U.S. Companies, July 18

The following U.S. companies reported positive surprises or matched expectations today. This list ranks percent surprises of actual earnings to earnings estimates. Earnings estimates provided by Bloomberg. * - Company in Standard & Poor’s 500 Index To contact the reporter on this story: Wendy Soong in New York at at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alex Tanzi at at [email protected]

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U.S. Advance Report on Durable Goods for December (Text)

The following is the text of the U.S. durable goods report released by the Commerce Department. New Orders New orders for manufactured durable goods in December increased $6.2 billion or 3.0 percent to $214.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up five of the last six months, followed a 4.3 percent November increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 2.1 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 3.5 percent. Transportation equipment, up two consecutive months, had the largest increase, $3.0 billion or 5.5 percent to $58.4 billion. This was due to nondefense aircraft and parts, which increased $3.1 billion. Shipments Shipments of manufactured durable goods in December, up two of the last three months, increased $4.3 billion or 2.1 percent to $207.3 billion. This followed a 0.3 percent November decrease. Primary metals, up seventeen of the last eighteen months, had the largest increase, $2.2 billion or 8.2 percent to $29.0 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 5.0 percent November increase. Unfilled Orders Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in December, up twenty of the last twenty one months, increased $13.1 billion or 1.5 percent to $912.3 billion. This followed a 1.4 percent November increase. Transportation equipment, up eleven of the last twelve months, had the largest increase, $10.6 billion or 2.1 percent to $529.7 billion. Inventories Inventories of manufactured durable goods in December, up twenty four consecutive months, increased $1.2 billion or 0.3 percent to $370.1 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis and followed a 0.6 percent November increase. Transportation equipment, also up twenty four consecutive months, had the largest increase, $1.7 billion or 1.5 percent to $116.4 billion. Capital Goods Nondefense new orders for capital goods in December increased $4.6 billion or 5.8 percent to $84.4 billion. Shipments increased $1.8 billion or 2.6 percent to $71.5 billion. Unfilled orders increased $12.9 billion or 2.4 percent to $545.6 billion. Inventories increased $1.0 billion or 0.6 percent to $170.6 billion. Defense new orders for capital goods in December decreased $0.8 billion or 12.4 percent to $5.3 billion. Shipments increased $0.6 billion or 8.9 percent to $7.6 billion. Unfilled orders decreased $2.2 billion or 1.5 percent to $149.0 billion. Inventories decreased $0.6 billion or 2.7 percent to $20.0 billion. Revised November Data Revised seasonally adjusted November figures for all manufacturing industries were: new orders, $461.2 billion (revised from $459.2 billion); shipments, $455.9 billion (revised from $455.0 billion); unfilled orders, $899.2 billion (revised from $898.3 billion); and total inventories, $609.9 billion (revised from $609.8 billion). Revised and more detailed estimates, plus nondurable goods data, will be published on February 3, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. EST. The advance report on durable goods for January is scheduled for release on February 28, 2012, at 8:30 a.m. EST. See back page for survey description. SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Department. http://www.census.gov/m3 To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Middleton in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Marco Babic at [email protected]

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Midmorning Positive EPS Surprises for U.S. Companies, Aug. 24

The following U.S. companies reported positive surprises or matched expectations today. This list ranks percent surprises of actual earnings to earnings estimates. Earnings estimates provided by Bloomberg. * - Company in Standard & Poor’s 500 Index To contact the reporter on this story: Wendy Soong in New York at at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alex Tanzi at at [email protected]

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China Swaps Touch Two-Week High on Record PBOC Fund Withdrawals

China ’s one-year interest-rate swaps touched a two-week high on speculation the central bank will tighten monetary policy to temper gains in home prices. Premier Wen Jiabao called on local authorities to “decisively” curb real estate speculation and take steps to rein in the property market after data showed prices surged the most in two years last month. The People’s Bank of China drained 910 billion yuan ($146 billion) from the financial system this week, the biggest withdrawal since Bloomberg started compiling the data in 2008. “It shows determination of the central bank to tighten liquidity conditions as they need to guard against nascent inflation and asset-price gains, especially in real estate,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Credit Agricole CIB strategist in Hong Kong. The one-year swap, the fixed cost needed to receive the floating seven-day repurchase rate, climbed two basis points to 3.16 percent as of 5 p.m. in Shanghai , the highest level since Feb. 7, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The PBOC issued 10 billion yuan each of 28- and 91-day repurchase agreements today, contracts that are used to drain funds, according to a statement on its website. The monetary authority withdrew cash this week for the first time since June by resuming repo operations. The seven-day repo rate , which measures interbank funding availability, gained five basis points to 3 percent, according to a weighted average compiled by the National Interbank Funding Center. The overnight rate rose 16 basis points, the biggest since Feb. 6. The yield on the 3.39 percent government bonds due August 2022 declined one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 3.55 percent, according to the Interbank Funding Center. Yesterday, it slid three basis points, the most since Dec. 25, after the finance ministry sold similar-maturity debt at a lower rate than the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of six finance companies. To contact the reporter on this story: Kyoungwha Kim in Singapore at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at [email protected]

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Fujitsu, Toshiba Plan to Integrate Mobile Phone Operations, Nikkei Reports

Fujitsu Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. agreed to integrate their celluar telephone businesses and they may form a joint venture as early as October, Nikkei English News reported, without saying how it got the information. Fujitsu will hold a majority stake in the joint venture, Nikkei said.

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Shanxi Securities Plans to Sell Up to 600 Million Shares in Initial Offer

Shanxi Securities Co. plans to sell as many as 600 million shares in its initial public offering in China, according to a company statement posted to the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The securities regulator said in a separate statement that it will review Shanxi Securities’s IPO application on July 30. To contact the reporter on this story: Jian Guo Jiang in Shanghai at [email protected]

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MALAYSIA DAYBOOK: AirAsia, Atlan, EON, Hong Leong Industries

AirAsia Bhd., Southeast Asia ’s biggest budget carrier, said it will re-introduce fuel surcharges on all domestic and international routes from today. This is to offset escalating jet fuel prices, the airline said in an e-mailed statement. WHAT TO WATCH: * Malaysian April palm oil export data from SGS after 12:30 p.m. * EON Capital Bhd. (EON MK) received notice from Primus Pacific Partners Ltd., its biggest shareholder, that it will appeal a High Court decision rejecting its petition to block the lender’s takeover by Hong Leong Bank Bhd. (HLBK MK). * Sumatec Resources Bhd. (SMTC MK) directed by stock exchange to prepare plan to restore its finances or risk being de-listed. * Kawan Food Bhd. (KFB MK) to issue 1 free warrant for every two shares held. * mTouche Technology Bhd. (MTTB MK) proposed share premium reduction. * Unimech Group Bhd. (UGB MK) to buy warehouse for 5.9 million ringgit. * Dolomite Corp. (DOLM MK) awarded 22.2 million-ringgit building contract. EARNINGS: * Asiaep Bhd. (AEP MK) 4Q net loss 31.3 million ringgit vs 942,000 ringgit loss. * Atlan Holdings Bhd. (ALN MK) 4Q net loss 19.5 million ringgit vs 26.1 million ringgit profit. * Chin Teck Plantations Bhd. (CTP MK) 2Q net income rose to 13.8 million ringgit vs 10.1 million ringgit. * Hong Leong Industries Bhd. (HLI MK) 3Q net income rose to 60.1 million ringgit vs 52.4 million ringgit. MARKETS: * Malaysia ’s FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index was little changed on April 29. * The MSCI Asia Pacific Index increased 0.96 percent yesterday. * The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.02 percent yesterday. * Palm oil July-delivery futures fell 0.7 percent to 3,270 ringgit a metric ton on April 29. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Barry Porter in Kuala Lumpur at [email protected]

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RedPrairie Agrees to Buy JDA Software for $1.9 Billion

RedPrairie Corp., backed by private- equity firm New Mountain Capital LLC, agreed to acquire JDA Software Group Inc. (JDAS) in a $1.9 billion deal that merges two providers of software for managing corporate supply chains. RedPrairie and New Mountain Capital will pay $45 a share, a 33 percent premium over JDA’s stock price on Oct. 26 before speculation of the deal surfaced, according to a statement today. The board of Scottsdale, Arizona-based JDA has approved the transaction. The deal will create a supply-chain software company with more than $1 billion in revenue. Adding JDA, which is focused on merchandising and product pricing, will help RedPrarie expand beyond its traditional businesses in warehousing, store operations and e-commerce, said Richard Williams , an analyst at Cross Research. “A lot of customers were buying both, and there was not much overlap between the two,” Williams said in an interview. JDA shares advanced 17 percent to $44.76 at the close in New York , the biggest gain in more than three years. “This is a strong combination of two leading companies with highly complementary product suites,” Hamish Brewer, JDA president and chief executive officer, said in the statement. Brewer will retain the CEO role at the combined company, while RedPrairie CEO Michael Mayoras will serve on the board. The purchase, which the companies expect to complete this year, will be financed with debt from Credit Suisse Group AG. (CSGN) New Mountain Capital, based in New York, will invest additional cash to fund the transaction. Greenhill & Co. and Credit Suisse served as financial advisers to RedPrairie, with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP acting as legal counsel. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) was JDA’s financial adviser. DLA Piper LLP provided legal counsel to JDA, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP represented the independent directors on JDA’s board. To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Faughnder in New York at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at [email protected] ; Tom Giles at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Energy Company Earnings Forecasts Are Too High, Wells Fargo Say

Forecasts for energy industry earnings and the price of oil are too high and the companies’ stocks will “bear the brunt” of concern the economy is slipping into a recession, according to Wells Fargo & Co. Energy-company earnings will grow 15 percent in 2011 and 5 percent in 2012, according to Gina Martin Adams, a New York- based senior analyst at Wells Fargo, in a note today. That compared with the average analyst estimate of 40 percent in 2011 and 9.2 percent in 2012, according to the report. She cited waning economic momentum, oil-price forecasts that are too high and risk of a stronger U.S. dollar as factors that may weigh on the stocks. “We see the real possibility for the sector to bear the brunt of recession fears,” Adams wrote. She added, “Further economic downside, not upside, is the greater concern to us.” A gauge of energy companies in the S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent this year through Sept. 16, compared with a decline of 3.3 percent for the benchmark index for U.S. stocks, amid concern that growth is stalling in the world’s largest economy. American gross domestic product may expand by 1.6 percent this year, according to the median of 66 economist estimates in a Bloomberg survey. That’s down from a median forecast of 1.7 percent in August and below last year’s 3 percent rate. The median crude-oil price forecast is “in excess of $100” a barrel for 2012 and beyond, compared with Wells Fargo’s prediction of $88.75 a barrel in 2012, Adams said. She added that while the Dollar Index is still down from a year ago, “slowing growth and mounting political tensions in Europe may result in pressure on the Euro and continued flight to the dollar as a safe haven.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kaitlyn Kiernan in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at [email protected]

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Draghi Echoing Merkel Has Trader Raise Bets Against Euro

When European Central Bank President Mario Draghi vowed July 26 to do “whatever it takes” to defend the euro, he succeeded in stemming a slide that pushed the 17- nation currency down about 6 percent since late March against its major counterparts. Traders in the options market responded by raising bets against the currency of the developed world’s worst-performing economy by the most in 11 weeks. Options to protect against further weakness climbed in the past two weeks by the biggest amount since May. Between Jan. 12, 2011, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to do “whatever is needed to support the euro” and Draghi’s almost-identical pledge, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus sought bailouts and the region’s $13 trillion economy teetered on recession. Growth will trail its Group-of-10 peers through at least 2014, according to Bloomberg surveys, as companies from Siemens AG, Europe ’s largest engineering company, to sporting- goods maker Puma SE cut their outlooks. “Whatever the ECB does, it can’t conjure growth out of nowhere,” Frances Hudson , a global strategist at Standard Life Investments in Edinburgh, said in a telephone interview on Aug. 2. “The euro could go down further. The markets are not really willing to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.” Lifetime Average While traders aren’t anticipating a failure of the common currency -- it’s still above the average versus the dollar since its 1999 debut -- the euro’s depreciation shows investors see better opportunities almost anywhere else in the world. The euro slipped 0.1 percent last week based on Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes, which track it against a group of nine currencies from the dollar to Sweden’s krona. It rose 0.3 percent to $1.2426 at 11:20 a.m. in New York , from the close on Aug. 3, when it surged 1.7 percent. It gained 0.5 percent against the greenback last week. The lifetime average since January 1999 is $1.2087. The euro fell 0.1 percent to 97.09 yen. Even as the euro stabilized, the price of protecting it from further declines increased. Three-month options show that the premium for puts, which grant the right to sell the euro versus the dollar, over calls, which confer the right to buy, increased to 1.62 percentage points at the end of last week from 0.85 percentage point on July 20. The gain is the biggest since the period through May 18, when Greece headed toward elections critical for its continued membership in the currency union. More Bearish Traders are also growing more bearish over the next year. The one-year rate reached 2.60 percentage points on Aug. 2, from a 1.96 percentage points on July 20, which was the most bullish since July 2011. Futures traders are also wagering that the euro will decline against the dollar, figures from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on a decline in the euro compared with those on a gain -- so-called net shorts -- was 138,994 on July 31, compared with net shorts of 155,066 a week earlier. Even as the number dropped, the euro had a net long position, or bets on a gain, of 6,726 in August last year. Bank of America Corp. strategists lowered their euro forecasts on Aug. 1, predicting it will weaken more than 7 percent to $1.15 by year-end, from a previous prediction of $1.25. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender also sees the currency depreciating more than 7 percent to 90 yen. Spreading Malaise “We’re a lot less optimistic that policy makers will be able to get their act together quickly,” John Shin , a senior Group-of-10 foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of America in New York, said in a telephone interview on Aug. 3. Any signs of strength are an “opportunity to sell,” he said. The euro is declining against its major counterparts, reaching all-time lows of 1.16057 versus the Australian dollar on Aug. 2 and 1.4967 against New Zealand’s currency on Aug. 3. With Greece, Italy , Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain experiencing recessions, the malaise may be spreading to healthier economies. Germany , which accounts for about 27 percent of the euro area’s output, saw slower growth in each of the past four quarters through March from the year-earlier period as orders at exporters fell. Munich-based Siemens said July 26 that reaching its full- year earnings goal has become harder. Puma cut its 2012 sales and profit forecasts last month. The Herzogenaurach, Germany- based company is preparing for European doldrums “until at least 2013,” General Manager Finance Michael Laemmermann said July 26 on a conference call. High Deficits The euro-area economy may contract by 0.4 percent this year, compared with an average expansion of 1.29 percent in the G-10, surveys of economists by Bloomberg show. Output in Europe will then increase 0.6 percent in 2013, versus an average of 1.6 percent in developed nations, surveys show. Europe’s slowdown makes it harder for governments to generate enough tax revenue to reduce their budget deficits. Ireland’s shortfall this year will be 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, with Greece at 7.2 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Spain’s will probably be 6 percent, the forecasts show. At 3.2 percent of GDP, the region’s deficit would still be less than the 8.1 percent for the U.S., according to the Washington-based IMF. Fall Further “There’s further scope for the euro to fall,” Neil Williams, the chief economist in London at Hermes Fund Management, which oversees about $46 billion of assets, said in a telephone interview on Aug. 2. “We are in the third year of the crisis and even if we have a magic wand and manage to solve the problems in Greece and Spain, all that would do is take us back to the underlying problems,” such as the differences in productivity among euro-zone nations, he said. That’s unless the Federal Reserve takes more steps to boost U.S. growth, according to BNP Paribas SA. The euro will strengthen against the dollar as a slowing U.S. economy prompts the Fed to inject more money into the financial system through bond purchases as soon as September, debasing the greenback, BNP Paribas said. The currency will recoup its losses against the dollar since January to end the year at $1.35, a more than 4 percent gain from its 2011 close of $1.2961, the bank said. “More stimulus from the Fed is going to put pressure on the dollar,” Mary Nicola , a New York-based currency strategist at BNP Paribas, said in an interview on Aug. 1. The common currency may climb versus the dollar even as it declines against others, she said. Jobs Report The euro strengthened almost 15 percent against the dollar as the Fed bought $2.3 trillion of mortgage and Treasury debt from December 2008 to June 2011 in two rounds of so-called quantitative easing, or QE, seeking to cap borrowing costs. U.S. central bankers, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke , “will provide additional accommodation as needed” to bolster the expansion, the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement on Aug. 1. While payrolls in the U.S. climbed 163,000 in July, more than the 100,000 median estimate of 89 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 8.3 percent from 8.2 percent, Labor Department figures in Washington showed on Aug. 3. The euro retraced its QE-based gains as Europe’s leaders failed to resolve differences on how to end the debt crisis. Draghi “didn’t have the firepower to make the claim that he made” on July 26, said Hudson at Standard Life, Scotland’s second-biggest money manager, with about $240 billion of assets at the end of 2011. Standard Life holds a smaller percentage of the currency than is contained in benchmark indexes, she said. Germany’s Reservations ECB officials are devising a bond-buying plan that would focus on shorter-term maturities, be conducted in a way to soothe investors’ concern about which creditors get paid first, and not breach European Union rules prohibiting the financing of government deficits, Draghi told reporters in Frankfurt last week. He said Germany’s Bundesbank has reservations. Germany, along with AAA rated countries Finland and the Netherlands, has rejected the issuance of common debt favored by Prime Ministers Mario Monti of Italy and Mariano Rajoy of Spain as a way to cement European unity. Strategists have cut their euro forecasts in each of the three months through July as economic releases signaled the economic outlook was worsening. The median analyst prediction compiled by Bloomberg is for the currency to end the year at $1.23, down from a forecast of $1.30 on April 30. “A solution to the crisis will take a long time,” Brad Bechtel, head of sales at Stamford , Connecticut-based Faros Trading LLC, who forecasts the euro at $1.16 by year-end, said on July 27. “The decisions are very difficult to implement and that’s what is sowing all the seeds of doubt in the market. There’s probably going to be a temporary bounce in the euro, followed by further weakness and a move lower.” To contact the reporters on this story: Emma Charlton in London at [email protected] ; Lukanyo Mnyanda in Edinburgh News at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Tilles at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

U.S. Economy: Previously Owned Home Sales Unexpectedly Fall

Sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly declined, manufacturing in the Philadelphia region slowed and consumer confidence dropped, pointing to an economy that is struggling to regain momentum following the surge in energy costs. Purchases of existing homes decreased 0.8 percent to a 5.05 million annual pace in April, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index fell in May to the weakest reading in seven months, and the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index slumped to a nine-month low, other reports showed. Gasoline prices hovering close to $4 a gallon and rising grocery bills may discourage American households from taking on big purchases like houses just as manufacturing cools after leading the economy out of the recession. Another report showing claims for jobless benefits are retreating after an April surge raises the odds any economic slowdown will prove temporary. “We’re going through a soft patch,” said Eric Green , chief market economist at TD Securities Inc. in New York. “Housing is just bouncing along the bottom. Job demand is real, and we’re going to emerge past this soft patch.” Stocks advanced, helped by the larger-than-forecast decline in jobless claims. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 1,343.6 at the 4 p.m. close in New York. Earlier, stocks declined after the reports on housing, confidence and manufacturing, combined with a worse-than-projected reading for the index of leading economic indicators. Worse Than Forecast The median forecast of 75 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected sales of existing houses would climb to a 5.2 million rate. Estimates ranged from 5.09 million to 5.40 million. Purchases reached a record 7.08 million in 2005, and slumped to a 13-year low of 4.91 million last year. As of March 31, about 5.6 million houses were either in foreclosure or their owners were more than 30 days late in making mortgage payments, according to Bloomberg calculations, raising the risk that property values will keep falling. That would make any sustained recovery difficult to achieve. About 37 percent of all transactions last month were of distressed properties, which were either in foreclosure or short sales where a bank agrees to take less than the outstanding mortgage balance, according to today’s report from the agents’ group. Cash transactions accounted for 31 percent after a record 35 percent in March, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a press conference as the figures were released. The Realtors group began tracking the monthly figure in August 2008, and the share on a yearly basis before that was around 10 percent, Yun has said. Distressed Sales “Existing-home sales continue to have a strong bent to distressed sales and all-cash deals, which implies ongoing weakness in prices,” said Neil Dutta, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Manufacturers, facing a less pressing need to rebuild inventories and supply disruptions following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, may also be slowing down. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index fell to 3.9, the weakest reading since October, from 18.5 a month earlier. Figures greater than zero signal expansion in the area covering eastern Pennsylvania , southern New Jersey and Delaware. The report “points to a slowing, but not a dramatic slowing, in manufacturing,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York. “The inventory rebuilding cycle has tapered off and now we have a normalization,” he said, and “Japanese supply-chain disruptions are likely reflected.” Confidence Wanes The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index declined to minus 49.4 in the period to May 15, the worst reading since August, from the prior week’s minus 46.9. A gauge of personal finances plunged to the weakest level since October 2009, and a monthly measure of economic expectations held at a seven-month low. Retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) are among those seeing sales drop as energy prices climb, pointing to a slowdown in consumer purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy. The world’s largest retailer this week said sales at U.S. stores open at least a year dropped 1.1 percent, the eighth decline in a row. Customers are still struggling with economic uncertainty, buying more generic items rather than their more costly name-brand counterparts, executives said in a May 17 pre- recorded call. Customers are making fewer trips to stores because of the increase in fuel prices, U.S. stores chief Bill Simon said on the call. Leaders Drop The Conference Board’s index of leading indicators, a gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months, fell 0.3 percent in April, the first drop in 10 months, the New York- based group said. The measure was depressed by a pickup in jobless claims that reflected temporary setbacks including auto- plant shutdowns caused by the disaster in Japan. “Momentum is softening,” said Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Dutta. “The manufacturing sector is losing some of its luster, softening alongside the broader economy.” Another report today showed fewer Americans than forecast filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week. Applications declined by 29,000 to 409,000, according to figures from the Labor Department. Economists projected 420,000, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Applications for unemployment benefits surged last month due to events that seasonal variations failed to take into account, such as a late school holiday in New York, a new emergency benefits program in Oregon and auto shutdowns caused by the disaster in Japan, the Labor Department has said. Claims “are unwinding the run-up in April,” said Michael Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado. “The labor market is slowly improving. It allows slow, but positive growth in consumer spending .” To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Willis in Washington at [email protected] ; Shobhana Chandra in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Bahrain Candidates Sign Up for September Parliamentary Elections

Eighty-three candidates have signed up for next month’s special Parliamentary elections to fill 18 seats vacated by al-Wefaq, the largest Shiite Muslim opposition group, Bahrain News Agency said today. The three-day registration process for the voting, which will be held Sept. 24, ended at midnight, the agency said. It said more than 180,000 Bahrainis are expected to cast votes in the polls. Al-Wefaq said on Aug. 12 that it will boycott the elections. To contact the reporter on this story: Donna Abu-Nasr in Manama at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at [email protected] .

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RusHydro Dropping to VTB as Sales Slump: Russia Overnight

OAO RusHydro, the Russian renewable energy producer that sank to a record low in London yesterday, will extend declines as a second year of sliding revenue dims dividend prospects, according to VTB Capital. RusHydro, urged last month by President Vladimir Putin to investigate missing building funds, slid in London and Moscow yesterday and is the second-biggest decliner this year among the most-traded Russian stocks in New York. The Bloomberg Russia-US Equity Index (RUS14BN) fell 0.4 percent to 100.33, while futures on Moscow’s RTS Index slipped 0.1 percent to 152,890. The company, Russia’s biggest alternative energy producer, will post a 25 percent contraction in sales for 2012 when it reports earnings in international standards April 1, according to the mean of 15 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The government, seeking to steady support after protests around elections last year, wants to limit power costs, with Putin saying utility tariff growth will be capped at 6 percent, RIA Novosti reported Feb. 25. “It’s quite predictable that the company will report another decline in revenue as electricity tariffs are stagnating,” Mikhail Rasstrigin, an analyst at VTB Capital, a unit of Russia’s second-biggest bank, said by phone from Moscow yesterday. “Without better dividends, the stock has no chance to be of any interest to investors.” Rasstrigin recommends selling RusHydro (HYDR) ’s Moscow-listed stock and expects it to drop 6.9 percent from current levels. Dividend Yield RusHydro’s 12-month gross dividend yield was at 1.2 percent yesterday, the lowest level among the most-traded Russian equities in New York, data compiled by Bloomberg show. During an energy commission meeting with industry leaders last month, Putin told RusHydro’s Chief Executive Officer Evgeny Dod to investigate the disappearance of “billions of rubles” in a construction project in Moscow. The Interior Ministry opened an investigation into suspected embezzlement of funds in Karachaevo-Cherkessia region on March 7. “Investigation into the company’s finances has created a certain nervousness,” Vladimir Sklyar, an analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, said by phone yesterday. RusHydro fell 0.8 percent to $2.14 in London yesterday. The shares settled at a 2.6 percent discount to its Moscow-listed stock yesterday, the widest since Jan. 15. The company’s American Depositary Receipts were little changed at $2.13 yesterday. Shares on Russia’s Micex Index fell 0.2 percent to 67.69 kopeks, or 2.2 U.S. cents. ‘Under Pressure’ George Rizhinashvili, a deputy chairman at RusHydro, said on a Jan. 18 conference call with investors and analysts that business “was under pressure of sluggish power prices Europe and Russia.” The government owned 60.5 percent of the company as of June 30 according to RusHydro’s website. Sales in 2012 probably fell to 272 billion rubles ($8.83 billion) from 363 billion rubles in 2011, according to the mean estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The Market Vectors Russia ETF, the biggest U.S.-traded exchange-traded fund that holds Russian shares, fell 0.9 percent to $28.65 in New York yesterday, the lowest level since March 4. The RTS Volatility Index, which measures expected swings in the stock futures, rose 0.7 percent to 20.44. Sberbank Falls ADRs of OAO Sberbank (SBRCY) , Russia’s biggest lender, fell 1.8 percent to $13.59 in New York yesterday. Ten-day volatility jumped to an almost two-week high. Sberbank futures , which were little changed in U.S. hours, expire today, stoking price swings as investors decide whether to roll over the contracts or take delivery of shares, Luis Saenz, head of equity sales at BCS Financial Group in London, said in an e-mail yesterday. Futures expiring in March on Russia’s ruble showed the currency falling less than 0.1 percent to 30.831 per dollar, after losing 0.3 percent to 30.7940 in Moscow yesterday. The currency was little changed at 34.9052 against the dollar-euro basket used by the central bank. Crude for April delivery settled little changed at $92.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. Brent for April settlement dropped 1 percent to $108.52 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Urals crude , Russia ’s major export blend, decreased 0.5 percent to $106.26. United Co. Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer, dropped 2.2 percent to HK$4.04 in Hong Kong trading as of 12:32 p.m. local time. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.4 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Halia Pavliva in New York at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emma O’Brien at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Telefonica to Bid for Airwaves in Brazil, Chile This Year

Telefonica SA (TEF) , Spain ’s largest telephone company, plans to bid for airwaves in Brazil and Chile this year for building faster networks as it prepares for a boom in demand for mobile data in Latin America. The company, which gets about half of its revenue from the region, needs the wireless frequencies for networks based on the long-term evolution standard already used in the U.S. and in parts of Europe , Chief Technology Officer Enrique Blanco said in an interview yesterday. The Madrid-based operator will invest “all the money it needs,” he said. “We plan to bid for LTE radio frequencies in Chile and Brazil toward the second half this year,” Blanco said in Barcelona before the start of the Mobile World Congress. In Spain, Telefonica is gearing up for a potential LTE deployment in 2014, he added. Phone companies including Telefonica need to bolster strained networks as more customers use increasingly high- quality video, music and games. Spain’s former monopoly is struggling to stop a loss in market share as Spaniards switch to cheaper rivals amid a weak economy and high unemployment. Instant Messaging Telefonica and a group of operators including Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) and France Telecom SA (FTE) ’s Orange are working on a project for the so-called Rich Communications Suite that will include instant messaging, Blanco said. The JOYN instant messaging application, which can transfer voice and data, will be part of the suite, Inaki Cabrera, innovation director for Vodafone Spain, said today at a press conference in Barcelona. It is now in beta testing and will be available to customers in Spain in the summer, he said. The software will come with new tariffs to help customers improve control over spending, he added. “Ten years ago SMS wasn’t very popular because you could only send a message to other people within your own operator,” Ian Miller, Telefonica’s director for radio access networks, said in a separate interview. “We need to partner with other vendors because this will be the only way that this new generation of messages will be become popular and take off. This needs to be inter-operable between all operators.” After Chile and Brazil, Telefonica predicts it will bid for LTE frequencies in other Latin American markets such as Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico or Peru within 18 months, said Miller. “These markets are catching up, but the real challenge is the devices, whether they become cost effective enough to be massively available,” Miller said. “How much we’re willing to invest and whether we team up or not with other operators will vary market to market.” Alcatel-Lucent Chief Executive Officer Cesar Alierta is also counting on Latin America’s economic growth to win back investors. Telefonica said last week sales in the region climbed 13.5 percent to 29.2 billion euros ($39.3 billion) last year. Telefonica operates in 14 countries in the region. Telefonica shares fell 0.1 percent to 12.85 euros as of 3:19 p.m. in Madrid. Telefonica is working with Firefox browser maker Mozilla on mobile applications using HTML5 language, Carlos Domingo, director of product development and innovation at Telefonica, said today in Barcelona. Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) and other phone operators are also involved in the Mozilla accord, he said. “The performance of devices can be much higher thanks to this, while it can also lower prices for smartphones and bring them to the mass market in emerging markets in Latin America,” Domingo said. 4G Trial Telefonica yesterday unveiled a 4G trial in Barcelona based on Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) ’s light radio technology and Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) ’s Galaxy S II LTE smartphone and Tab. 8.9 tablet. This trial will be extended to other cities across Spain depending on demand and radio frequencies and devices, which are the two biggest challenges, according to Blanco. Besides Spain, this technology is set to expand in other European cities, Miller added. “We are planning to do other trials like this one in Barcelona in other European cities in Germany , Czech Republic, U.K., and so on,” Miller said. “We are now also considering network sharing with other operators for LTE where we can’t get all the frequencies need.” To contact the reporter on this story: Manuel Baigorri in Barcelona via [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

ABN Amro Boosts Covered Bond Issuance to $26 Billion in Europe This Month

ABN Amro NV, Landesbank Baden- Wuerttemberg and UniCredit SpA’s planned covered bond offerings will add at least 1.125 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to this month’s issuance, as sales rebound from the lowest this year. Sales of the bonds, backed by mortgages or state-sector loans as well as the issuer’s pledge to pay, have risen 83 percent from May to 21.4 billion euros this month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. LBBW, Germany’s biggest state-owned bank, is selling 1 billion euros of covered bonds yielding 10 basis points more than the benchmark swap rate, while Dutch state-owned lender ABN Amro Bank NV is marketing notes at 83 basis points over swaps. Italian lender UniCredit SpA is adding 125 million euros to its 2015 bonds at a spread of 3 basis points. Borrowers are rushing to sell covered bonds before the European Central Bank’s 60 billion-euro purchase program aimed at freeing up lenders’ balance sheets ends this month. Sales of the debt dropped to 11.1 billion euros in May, the lowest this year, as the region’s debt crisis roiled investors. “The end of the European Central Bank purchase program in two weeks and the approaching summer break should be supportive for ongoing strong covered bond issuance activity,” Markus Ernst , a credit strategist at UniCredit SpA in Munich, wrote in a note to investors today. The extra yield investors demand to hold covered bonds rather than benchmark government debt rose 2 basis points to 154 basis points last week, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch EMU Covered Bond index. To contact the reporter on this story: Sonja Cheung in London at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

U.S. Stock-Index Futures Slide as China’s Trade Shrinks

U.S. stock-index futures fell, indicating equities may snap a four-day rally, as China ’s exports and imports unexpectedly dropped. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in September lost 0.2 percent to 1,641.6 at 9:52 a.m. in London. Contracts on the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 22 points, or 0.1 percent, to 15,200. A report from the General Administration of Customs in Beijing showed that China’s exports fell 3.1 percent in June from a year earlier. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey had called for a 3.7 percent gain. Imports dropped 0.7 percent last month, compared with the median projection of a 6 percent increase. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve releases the minutes of its June meeting at 2 p.m. New York time today. Speaking after that meeting, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may reduce the pace of its $85 billion in monthly bond buying later in 2013, and may halt purchases around mid-2014 if the U.S. economy performs as the Fed forecasts. U.S. stocks rose for a fourth day amid optimism companies will report better-than-forecast earnings and that economic growth is strong enough to withstand any reduction in Federal Reserve stimulus. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Srinivasan Sivabalan at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Canadian Stocks Rise as ECB Offers Loans to Tame Credit Crisis

Canadian stocks rose for a third day, led by financial and energy companies, on optimism that Europe is working to tame its debt crisis. Royal Bank of Canada (RY) , Canada ’s largest lender by assets, gained 3.2 percent after the European Central Bank coordinated with international policy makers to lend dollars to banks. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ) , Canada’s second-biggest energy company by market value, advanced 2.2 percent as crude futures climbed. Goldcorp Inc. (G) , the world’s second-largest gold producer by market value, fell 1.1 percent as the metal dropped to a September low. The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index increased 131.46 points, or 1.1 percent, to 12,424.84. The index has gained 2.3 percent over three days. “When you’re seeing the coordinated effort from the central banks to lend dollars to the euro-area banks, I think that’s giving investors a little bit more confidence,” said Allison Mendes, a money manager at Manulife Asset Management in Toronto. The unit of Manulife Financial Corp. (MFC) oversees about $217 billion. “This is definitely welcome news for investors.” The S&P/TSX is set to decline for a seventh straight month, the longest streak since 1984, as energy and financial stocks have retreated on concern the global economic recovery is in jeopardy. The Canadian stock benchmark has plunged 12 percent, and the MSCI World Index 13 percent, since Feb. 28 as bond yields in the most-heavily indebted European countries have surged on concern Greece may default. Lending Dollars The ECB said it will lend dollars to euro-area banks to ensure they have enough of the U.S. currency through the end of the year. The euro rallied the most since Aug. 15 against the dollar. Greek 10-year government bond yields fell the most since July 22 after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they’re “convinced” Greece will stay in the euro area. European policy makers are to meet in Wroclaw, Poland , tomorrow to discuss how they will implement the expansion of the euro region’s new bailout fund. Stocks extended their gains after the U.S. Federal Reserve said industrial production in the country increased 0.2 percent last month. Economists had forecast no change, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. All S&P/TSX banks and the three largest insurers climbed. Royal Bank increased 3.2 percent to C$47.47. Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) , its biggest domestic rival, rose 2.5 percent to C$75.17. Geared to Rates Manulife, North America’s fourth-largest insurer, rallied 6.3 percent, the most since November, to C$12.91. “Manulife is a stock very geared to long-term interest rates ,” Peter Routledge , an analyst at National Bank of Canada, said in a telephone interview from Toronto. “If the market believes long- term interest rates are headed back up, Manulife’s stock should benefit.” Energy stocks gained as crude futures advanced 0.6 percent. Canadian Natural increased 2.2 percent to C$35.22. Cenovus Energy Inc. (CVE) , the country’s fifth-largest energy company, climbed 3.3 percent to C$34.10. Vermilion Energy, Inc., an oil and gas producer with operations in Australia , Europe and Canada, jumped 5.4 percent to C$44.71. S&P/TSX gold stocks fell for a fifth day as the metal dropped 2.5 percent in New York. Goldcorp declined 1.1 percent to C$49.83. Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) , which mines in China and Turkey , decreased 2.8 percent to C$19.78. China Gold International Resources Corp Ltd. (CGG) lost 5.1 percent to C$3.74, extending its weekly plunge to 24 percent. Silvercorp Rebounds Silvercorp Metals Inc. (SVM) , which operates in China, climbed 6.8 percent to C$6.90 after saying it bought C$31.2 million ($31.6 million) of its own shares. The stock plunged to the lowest since February 2010 this week after Muddy Waters LLC, the research firm that published assertions of financial manipulation at Sino-Forest Corp., said it had sold Silvercorp short. The Ontario Securities Commission said Aug. 26 that Sino- Forest “appears to have misrepresented some of its revenue.” Base-metal and coal producers gained as copper futures rebounded from a 2011 low. First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM) , Canada’s second-largest publicly traded copper producer, advanced 4.5 percent to C$21.13. Teck Resources Ltd. (TCK/B) , Canada’s biggest company in the industry, increased 2.2 percent to C$40.01. Propane distributor Superior Plus Corp. (SPB) sank 7.4 percent to a record-low C$8.30. The shares have tumbled 12 percent since DBRS Ltd. cut its credit ratings on the company Sept. 12. To contact the reporter on this story: Matt Walcoff in Toronto at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Hedge-Fund Manager Diggle Starts Family Office, Shuns Banks

Stephen Diggle, co-founder of hedge- fund firm Artradis Fund Management Pte, has set up a company to pool his personal wealth with that of family offices in Asia and invest in assets worldwide. Vulpes Investments will enable Diggle to diversify his personal assets by co-investing with other family offices “as far as possible independently of commercial financial service providers,” he said in an e-mail. Banks including Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup Inc., UBS AG and Morgan Stanley have been sued by Asian clients as the global financial crisis slashed client assets in the wealth management industry worldwide by 17 percent to $14.5 trillion in 2008, according to estimates by London-based Scorpio Partnership Ltd. “The breakdown of trust that has happened in the financial world post-2008 has created opportunities for wealthy families to work together in a collaborative way,” Diggle, who is based in Singapore , said on Oct. 15. The number of individuals with at least $1 million of investable assets in Asia-Pacific rose 26 percent to 3 million in 2009, matching Europe and almost overhauling North America ’s 3.1 million, according to a report published in June by Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch. Singapore-based GFIA Pte, which currently manages money exclusively for Diggle, is overseeing the family-office venture, he said. GFIA advises investors seeking to allocate money to hedge funds and announced it started a wealth management business in January. Diggle’s family office targets investments in operating businesses, agricultural assets, commercial and hospitality real estate, as well as private equity, he said. It also has a philanthropic component, Diggle said. Vulpes has co-invested with other families and private groups, said Peter Douglas , the principal of GFIA, declining to disclose the value of Diggle’s assets. It seeks to “offer its operating resources to a small number of families with similar values” and is in “advanced talks” with another family, Douglas said. Diggle said he will continue to run the Artradis Barracuda Fund, AB2 Fund and Russian Opportunities Fund. The Singapore- based hedge-fund firm manages about $850 million, compared with about $4.5 billion in January 2009. To contact the reporter on this story: Netty Ismail in Singapore [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Republican U.S. Senator Snowe Cites Partisanship as Reason for Retirement

Republican U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine cited frustration with Congress’s partisanship for her decision not to seek re-election in November, an action that hampers her party’s chances to seize control of the chamber in November. Snowe, a three-term senator who at times votes with Democrats, said in a statement that she doubts another six-year term would yield results. She said her health is good and she had been prepared to win. Her announcement yesterday came two weeks before a March 15 filing deadline for candidates, with the primary election set for June 12. “With my Spartan ancestry I am a fighter at heart; and I am well prepared for the electoral battle, so that is not the issue,” said Snowe, the first Greek-American woman elected to Congress. “However, what I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term.” Snowe’s decision brings to 10 the number of senators who plan to retire after this year, seven of them Democrats. Democrats control the Senate, 53-47, and Snowe’s retirement will complicate Republican efforts to win a majority. “Putting a Republican seat in play is not what they needed; this makes it harder,” said Jennifer Duffy , Senate editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “But we have to see how this shakes out.” Bob Kerrey Snowe’s decision adds to a week of potential shake-ups in the battle for control of the Senate. As early as today, former Nebraska senator and governor Bob Kerrey , a Democrat, plans to announce whether he will run for the state’s open Senate seat. Republicans have been favored to take the seat of retiring Democratic Senator Ben Nelson , though a Kerrey run could change that. While Republicans have made gains in Maine, as underscored by Republican Governor Paul LePage’s win in 2010, the state leans Democratic. President Barack Obama won Maine in the 2008 election with 58 percent of the vote, his 11th-best showing among the 50 states. Senator John Thune of South Dakota , the No. 3 Senate Republican leader, said Snowe’s surprise announcement hinders the party’s drive for a majority, though he insisted the goal is still within reach. The party needs to gain three seats to govern the Senate if a Republican wins the White House, providing a Republican vice president who would be a tie- breaking vote in a 50-50 Senate. ‘Heavy Lift’ “I think we knew that it would be a heavy lift to start with, but realistically it’s another state that’s going to be a competitive state,” Thune said. “And it’s one that we’re going to have to pay a lot more attention to and spend probably a lot more resources on to try and retain it.” Snowe, 65, has been a target of the anti-spending Tea Party and had drawn a primary challenger from the movement, businessman Scott D’Amboise. Tea Party activists were angered that she voted with Democrats on the bank bailout, Obama’s economic stimulus and other issues. She was the only Senate Finance Committee Republican to back the president’s health-care overhaul, although she opposed the final bill. Favored to Win Still, she was heavily favored to win her primary and the general election in November. She was endorsed by LePage and had $3.4 million to spend on her race at the end of December. No other declared candidate in either party had more than $135,000 cash on hand, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington group that tracks political spending. Tea Party-related groups, including the Tea Party Express and FreedomWorks, had decided to turn their attention to two other Republican incumbents they want to defeat in this year’s primaries: Richard Lugar of Indiana and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Democrats already in the Maine Senate race include Matt Dunlap, former secretary of state, and state Representative Jon Hinck. Duffy of the Cook Report said Snowe’s decision may encourage others who had declined to run to reconsider, including Democratic U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree and Republican state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin. Snowe served in both chambers of Maine’s legislature before moving to Congress. She was a member of the U.S. Senate and House for a combined 33 years, making her the third-longest- serving woman in congressional history. Praise From Obama President Barack Obama yesterday praised Snowe’s service. Her career “demonstrates how much can be accomplished when leaders from both parties come together to do the right thing for the American people,” the Democratic president said in an e-mailed statement. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Snowe a “tireless advocate” for her home state, small businesses and the military. “Olympia’s colleagues have no doubt that she will add much to that record after leaving the Senate at the end of this year,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement. Snowe has long been viewed as a bipartisan consensus- seeker, and that continued after the Tea Party movement eyed her seat. Only Senator Susan Collins , her Maine Republican colleague, voted with Democrats more often in 2011, according to ratings released last week by National Journal. ‘Devastated’ About Decision “I am absolutely devastated to learn that Olympia has decided not to seek re-election to the United States Senate,” Collins said in a statement yesterday. Collins has served alongside Snowe since 1997. Snowe is a member of the Finance and Commerce panels, and is the top Republican on the Small Business Committee. In an interview this month, Snowe expressed frustration with Congress’s inability to pass a tax overhaul at a time of economic uncertainty. She said she advised Obama to make it a top priority when he took office in 2009. “It would have been another fundamental that would have been tackled in a way that would have provided certainty,” she said. “We are in an unusually heightened state of economic policy uncertainty. I am concerned about where we are today in the whole tax code. Why can’t we do it this year? We’ve had so many hearings this year.” She cited the “polarizing environment” as the reason. To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Cyprus Must Grant Rights to Gay Couples, Phileleftheros Says

Cyprus needs laws that will give legal protection to unmarried gay and heterosexual couples living together, Phileleftheros reported today, citing ombudswoman Eliza Savvidou. The need to modernize legislation arises from rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union, the Nicosia-based newspaper said, citing Savvidou. To contact the reporter on this story: Stelios Orphanides in Athens at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

German Solar Industry to Survive Insolvencies, Kemfert Tells DPA

The German solar industry will last regardless of the recent insolvency filings of some members, Claudia Kemfert, senior energy analyst at the DIW economic institute in Berlin, was cited as saying in an interview with Deutsche Presseagentur. Solar is an industry for the future and employs 120,000 workers in Germany , the newswire cited Kemfert as saying. The recent market consolidations were to be expected, Kemfert said, according to DPA. To contact the reporter on this story: Karin Matussek in Berlin at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at [email protected]

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PV Crystalox Plunges After Saying First Operating Loss Possible

PV Crystalox Solar Plc (PVCS) , the U.K.’s biggest maker of silicon wafers, fell a record 40 percent in London after saying it may report its first operating loss in the second half should market conditions not improve. The stock dropped to as low as 26.75 pence and traded at 28 pence as of 8:30 a.m. local time. First-half shipments will be “slightly below” the 210 to 225 megawatts forecast on May 19, the Abingdon, England-based company said in a filing today. Earnings are being eroded by “weaker-than-anticipated” demand from end users of photovoltaic devices, as well as increased production capacity and “high” inventories among its competitors. The potential operating loss and average sales prices weren’t given. Demand in Europe , the largest market for solar devices, was undercut this year by subsidy cuts in Germany and Italy. In Germany, the top national market for photovoltaic sales last year, about 1,000 megawatts of solar modules were installed in the first five months this year, down 41 percent. “Although demand in Germany is expected to increase in the second half of the year, we expect that trading conditions in the second half will be significantly more challenging than anticipated at the time” of the May 19 statement, the company said today. PV Crystalox had about 85 days of inventory on hand in the fourth quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That was above the 76-day average of the 37-member Bloomberg Global Leaders Solar Index, weighted by market capitalization. The potential operating loss in the second half might be offset if there were a significant improvement in average selling prices for its wafers compared with spot prices, a reduction in supplier prices or both, the company said. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Todd White at [email protected] David Altaner in London at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Brooks Asked Ex-PM’s Aide to Call Off Parliament Hounds

Rebekah Brooks, the executive charged with trying to cover up phone hacking at News Corp. tabloids, asked former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown ’s business secretary to stop lawmakers from “hounding” the company. Peter Mandelson would call Brooks to complain about the way Brown was being portrayed in the company’s newspapers, he told an inquiry into media ethics in London today. In return, Brooks, the ex-chief executive officer of the New York-based company’s News International unit, would “come to me and complain that Tom Watson, or whoever it was on the Culture Media and Sport select committee, were hounding them and couldn’t they be pulled away,” he said. The media-ethics panel, triggered by the phone-hacking scandal at News Corp.’s News of the World tabloid, is examining whether the relationship between reporters and public officials has gotten too close. Judge Brian Leveson, who is running the inquiry, has heard that Brooks and other executives at News Corp. (NWSA) hosted politicians at parties, weddings and on vacation. Parties hosted by News Corp. and the family of Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch were considered “a great treat” for U.K. politicians, former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said today. “If you ask anybody, if they’re honest, would they like to go to a great party, the answer is yes, but importantly, is this my only chance to have a conversation with the prime minister?” Jowell told the inquiry today in London. “It is a great treat, but it doesn’t actually impinge on the way we make decisions.” Elisabeth’s Wedding Jowell was responsible for overseeing a change in media- ownership rules, conducted while Tony Blair was prime minister, which made it possible for companies like News Corp. to expand. She said she declined an invitation to the wedding of Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, while the review was under way. The current culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt , is under investigation by a parliamentary watchdog over meetings with media companies. E-mails produced as evidence at the Leveson inquiry showed conversations between a former Hunt aide and a News Corp. lobbyist that shared confidential information on a review of the company’s attempt to purchase British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc. (BSY) The aide, Adam Smith , and the lobbyist, Fred Michel, are scheduled to testify at the inquiry later this week. To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Thomson in London at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at [email protected] ; Kenneth Wong at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

U.S. Treasury Says Currencies to Be at Center of G-20 Talks

Currencies and trade flows will be at the center of talks as Group of 20 finance ministers try to resolve differences over exchange-rate policies, a U.S. Treasury Department official said. Some emerging-market nations are resisting market forces and keeping their currencies undervalued, creating a competitive dynamic of resisting market forces, the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The U.S. wants foreign- exchange rates to reflect market forces and economic fundamentals, the aide said. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is traveling this week to Gyeongju, South Korea, to meet with his counterparts as tensions heat up over China’s currency. The finance ministers and central bankers gathering Oct. 22-23 will also try to make progress on ensuring that nations resolve current-account imbalances, the official said. The talks on coordinating economic policies are aimed at crafting an agenda for a summit of global political leaders next month in Seoul. “The weapon of choice today is a competitive devaluation,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “The Hays Advantage” with Kathleen Hays. “Of course, not everybody can weaken their currency relative to others.” “I think of it as a negative beauty contest,” Stiglitz said of exchange rates. Currency Report Delayed Secretary Geithner last week delayed a report on foreign- exchange markets, saying the yuan remained undervalued and that China needed to show continued commitment to allowing the currency to rise against the dollar over time. The yuan has risen 2.6 percent since a two-year peg against the dollar was scrapped on June 19. Without specifically naming China, the Treasury official said the actions of a country acting alone can present a challenge that should be the focus of G-20 discussions. The G-20 must help the International Monetary Fund fulfill its role overseeing global monetary systems, the official said. The IMF needs to give countries frank evaluations of their exchange-rate policies and how they accumulate reserves, the aide said. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said yesterday that the finance chiefs need to reach a “bargain” to coordinate economic policies, though real agreement would require a “revolution.” ‘Grand Bargain’ “What is needed now is a grand bargain among the major players in the world economy,” King said in a speech to business leaders in Dudley, England. “A bargain that recognizes the benefits of compromise on the real path of economic adjustment in order to avoid the damaging consequences of a move towards protectionism.” King isn’t alone expressing concern with the outlook for global policy making. European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said Oct. 16 that coordination of macroeconomic policy is the “least advanced” area of global governance. Today’s call for cooperation comes as Brazil’s top economic officials are unlikely to attend the G-20 meeting. Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega will probably stay in Brazil to oversee implementation of measures aimed at curbing gains in the currency, a spokesman for Mantega said yesterday. Central Bank President Henrique Meirelles is not traveling to the G-20 summit because it conflicts with the bank’s monetary policy meeting this week, the bank said in a statement. He will be replaced in South Korea by Luiz Pereira , the bank’s director for international affairs. Brazil has been more willing to relax its exchange-rate controls and is now finding that approach difficult to sustain because of actions taken by other large emerging-market nations, the U.S. official said. Brazil and India are now framing the issues that the G-20 will need to tackle, the official said. To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at [email protected] ; Ian Katz in Washington at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at [email protected]

Generate a suitable headline for the given input of a financial news article. Only output the headline, not the instruction and input article.

Raiffeisen May Report Second-Quarter Profit Almost Doubled

Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) , eastern Europe ’s third-biggest lender, may say second-quarter profit almost doubled from a year earlier, when it wrote down the value of derivatives and government bonds. Net income probably rose to 265 million euros ($383 million) from 138 million euros a year earlier, according to the average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The Vienna-based bank will report results on Aug. 25 at 7:30 a.m. Net interest income, Raiffeisen’s biggest revenue source, probably declined 1.7 percent to 905 million euros, while loan- loss provisions fell 17 percent to 235 million euros, analysts said. Raiffeisen, with units in 15 former communist countries, ranks behind UniCredit SpA (UCG) and Erste Group Bank AG (EBS) in terms of assets in the region. The following is a table of the analysts’ estimates and year-earlier figures in millions of euros. The following banks participated in the survey: Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank, HSBC, ING Groep, J&T Banka, Kepler Capital Markets, Macquarie, Mediobanca, Societe Generale , UBS, UniCredit, Wood & Co. To contact the reporter on this story: Boris Groendahl in Vienna at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at [email protected]

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Spain Said to Consider Palace Sales to Raise Cash

The Spanish government is considering a sale of a small, century-old palace in the heart of Madrid ’s business district as part of a plan to raise cash from 100 prime properties, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Castellana 19, built in 1903 and later used to house Spain’s stock-market regulator, would be sold outright rather than leased, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the plan’s details aren’t public. The property was valued at 28.7 million euros ($37 million) in 2010, the year before the agency moved out. The government said last month it had selected 100 buildings that could be privatized by the end of 2016. The properties, mostly in Madrid, will be sold outright or leased for as long as 30 years, the person said. They won’t be part of sale-and-leaseback deals because that would be too costly for the state in the long term, the person said. Spain is seeking to generate more money from its real estate as it tries to avoid following Greece , Ireland and Portugal by requesting a full bailout. Another small palace , owned by the Economy and Finance Ministry , may be leased, the person said. The historically protected property on Calle Duque de Medinaceli was designed by Gabriel Abreu and Fernando Garcia Mercadal and built in the 1920s. It was purchased by the state in 1928 and became the Spanish National Research Council’s library in 1952. Castellana 19 was designed by architects including Miguel de Olabarria, who helped conceive the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. Still Working A Budget Ministry spokesman in Madrid said officials are still working on the plan and no decision has been made on the assets to be included in the sale process. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is struggling to cut Spain’s budget deficit and reduce borrowing costs as the country copes with its second recession since 2009. In September, he announced a fifth package of budget cuts and tax increases, bringing planned savings to about 150 billion euros, or 15 percent of annual gross domestic product by the end of 2014. Spain’s budget shortfall will amount to 6.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2014, compared with a target set by the European Union of 2.8 percent. “Fiscal consolidation hardly advanced in the first eight months of 2012,” the EU’s executive arm said yesterday in Brussels. The state has more than 40,000 properties in the province of Madrid alone, excluding buildings owned by the state, police stations, social security and tax offices and museums belonging to the Culture Ministry, according to a 2010 study by Aguirre Newman. Space Renovation The state could raise 2.87 billion euros if it renovates the 777,000 spare meters of space it doesn’t need and sells it for office use, according to the Madrid-based real estate consultant. A further study is in progress, the firm said. Greece last year said it would seek to raise 50 billion euros by 2015, about 70 percent of it from real estate deals, to meet the conditions of its bailout. The country has brought in 1.8 billion euros so far and on Oct. 31 it reduced the revenue target to 11.1 billion euros by 2016. Italy may generate as much as 5 billion euros from real estate sales in the short term, Radiocor news agency reported, citing Italian Finance Minister Vittorio Grilli. Public-sector property sales in Europe increased to 2.3 billion euros last year from 1.1 billion in 2010, with Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Russia, the U.K. and France accounting for 75 percent of the total, according to CBRE Group Inc. Catalonia Rejection Madrid’s regional government plans to sell 100 office buildings in the city center over three years to cut its deficit and pay for services. The Catalonia region in January rejected a bid by Och-Ziff Management Europe Ltd. and Moor Park Capital Partners for a batch of 26 buildings including the Barcelona stock market because the offer was too low. Andalusia hired BNP Paribas SA last year to help raise at least 400 million euros selling 76 properties, including the cultural department in Granada and youth centers in Malaga. It offered to pay about 30 million euros a year to lease the buildings after their sale. No deal was reached. To contact the reporter on this story: Sharon Smyth in Madrid at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at [email protected]. Paul Armstrong at [email protected]

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Pirelli Forecasts Average Annual Revenue Growth of 8% During Next 3 Years

Pirelli & C. SpA, Europe’s third- largest maker of tires, forecast average annual revenue growth of 8 percent in the next three years, according to a statement distributed through the Italian exchange. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Marco Bertacche at [email protected]

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PANION & BF BIOT April Sales Rise 18.40% (Table) : 1760 TT

PANION & BF BIOT said unconsolidated sales in April rose 18.40% to NT$50,260,000 from NT$42,451,000, according to a statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. (Figures are in thousands of New Taiwan dollars) ================================================================= 4/2012 4/2011 Sales 50,260 42,451 YOY% 18.40% -----------------Year-to-date----------------- Sales 173,074 175,832 YOY% -1.57% =================================================================

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U.K. Banking Commission May Urge Competition Probe, Sky Reports

The U.K. Independent Commission on Banking may say in its interim report next week that a full- scale competition investigation is an option it will consider recommending in the next phase of its work, Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman reported in his online blog. Click here for web link To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Simpson at [email protected]

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Saudi Crude Oil Tanks in Rotterdam, Okinawa are Full, Naimi Says

Saudi Arabia ’s overseas crude storage tanks are full, according to the country’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi. “Our inventories both in Saudi Arabia and worldwide are full,” the minister said today during a meeting with seven reporters in Doha, Qatar. “Our Rotterdam inventory is full, our Sidi Kerir is full, our Okinawa is full. 100 percent full.” Saudi stockpiles held at international storage facilities are at about 10 million barrels, while local supplies are “significantly higher,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Doha at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at [email protected]

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JPMorgan Pays $920 Million to Settle London Whale Probes

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) , settling U.S. and U.K. probes of a $6.2 billion trading loss, agreed to pay $920 million in penalties and admitted violating securities laws last year as top managers withheld information from the board. Senior executives had evidence by late April 2012 that traders in the chief investment office in London were pricing a derivatives portfolio in a way that reduced reported losses, the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday in a cease-and-desist order. The losses at the unit, which was supposed to help reduce risk and manage excess deposits, forced the bank to restate results for last year’s first quarter. The episode shows that after weathering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression (INDU) , executives at the biggest U.S. bank engaged in what watchdogs called a “pattern of misconduct” by maintaining poor internal controls, failing to keep their board informed and allegedly misleading regulators. The firm also is grappling with probes of its hiring practices in Asia and criminal inquiries tied to mortgage-bond sales and energy trading. “The regulators were embarrassed, that’s why the fines are so big,” Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia , and former examiner for the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said on Bloomberg Television. “It should be a bigger concern to investors, but investors right now don’t really care because they feel it’s a drop in the bucket.” JPMorgan fell 1.2 percent yesterday to $52.75 in New York. The shares have climbed 20 percent this year, trailing the 25 percent advance for the 81-company Standard & Poor’s Financials Index. Jamie Dimon The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s $300 million fine was the biggest levied yesterday against the New York-based bank, led by Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority fined JPMorgan 137.6 million pounds ($221 million), followed by $200 million each from the Federal Reserve and SEC. The bank also agreed yesterday to pay $389 million in penalties and restitution to settle two regulators’ claims that it unfairly charged customers for credit-monitoring products, bringing the day’s total costs to more than $1.3 billion. Dimon said in a statement the bank accepted responsibility from the start, and is now a “stronger, smarter, better” company. Parallel Inquiries The accords don’t end all of the investigations of the trades managed by Bruno Iksil, the Frenchman known as the London Whale because of the size of his bets. The SEC said its probe remains open while the U.S. Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission run parallel inquiries. The bank received notice from the CFTC that its staff intends to recommend enforcement action as well, JPMorgan said yesterday. The agency has looked at whether the trades amounted to market manipulation, a person with knowledge of the matter said this week. The CFTC asked JPMorgan to pay $100 million, and the bank balked, the New York Times reported yesterday. Spokesmen for the bank and agency declined to comment. Earlier this week, two former traders were indicted on five federal charges including securities fraud and conspiracy in connection with the loss. “The settlement will not resolve the full extent of the bank’s liability and the consequences that could arise,” said Samuel Buell, a former prosecutor who now teaches at Duke University Law School. Dimon, 57, hasn’t gone far enough in taking responsibility for the trading debacle, said Charles Geisst , a finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. Robert Diamond resigned as CEO of Barclays Plc after his bank was accused of manipulating interest rates last year. While JPMorgan’s board cut Dimon’s 2012 pay in half over the loss, its members backed his fight this year to remain chairman. Reputation Tarnished “I can’t think of an American bank that’s had as much trouble” as JPMorgan, Geisst said. Dimon has “been at the helm of the bank while all this has been going on.” While the lender made admissions in yesterday’s SEC settlement that tarnish Dimon’s reputation, they may not make the firm very vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits, said Thomas Gorman, a partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Washington. “There’s no real allegation of fraud here,” said Gorman, a former SEC attorney. “Internal controls is not something that’s going to get a class action a lot of damages.” The FCA said the bank concealed the extent of its losses, initially failed to cooperate and “deliberately misled the Authority.” ‘Recklessly Unsafe’ Bloomberg News first reported on April 5, 2012, that Iksil had built an illiquid book of derivatives in the chief investment office so large that it was distorting credit indexes. About a week later, Dimon dismissed the attention on the bets as a “tempest in a teapot.” By late April, senior management knew that the CIO had used aggressive valuations to calculate losses to be $767 million less than they would have been under methods in other parts of the bank, the SEC said. The top managers failed to adequately update the board’s audit committee on the situation before the first-quarter earnings report, the SEC said. The bank’s credit derivatives trading “constituted recklessly unsafe and unsound practices, was part of a pattern of misconduct,” the OCC said in a consent order. The company failed to ensure that examiners received important information about the trading strategy and problems in internal controls, the regulator said. ‘No Impact’ Two investment-banking executives “initially expressed some reservations” at signing off on JPMorgan’s report, the SEC said. One of them, who was aware of the focus on the CIO, told senior managers he consulted with an outside lawyer before doing so, the agency said. Dimon and then-Chief Financial Officer Doug Braunstein certified the financial statements as required under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The bank announced in July 2012 that it had found a “material weakness” in its internal controls and amended its first-quarter report. “JPMorgan’s control breakdowns went far beyond the CIO trading book,” George S. Canellos, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Senior management broke a cardinal rule of corporate governance and deprived its board of critical information it needed to fully assess the company’s problems and determine whether accurate and reliable information was being disclosed to investors and regulators.” ‘Shame’ Needed Fines such as those levied yesterday will have “no impact” on the bank’s conduct, said James Cox, a professor at Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina. “Rather than burden the company further with penalties, the SEC needs to shame the company for its behavior and go after key individuals in senior and middle management,” he said. U.S. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said the settlement fails to hold JPMorgan executives accountable for misinforming investors and the public as the London Whale losses mounted, a topic examined by his Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The panel, in a 301-page report, accused JPMorgan of hiding losses and referred its findings to the SEC and Justice Department in April. Investigations Continuing “Other civil and criminal proceedings apart from this settlement are continuing, so there is still time to determine any accountability on that matter,” Levin said in an e-mailed statement. Senator John McCain, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, sent a letter to the SEC yesterday, calling the government’s actions incomplete and urging the agency to “hold accountable those individuals who compromised the integrity of our nation’s financial markets.” Canellos said the SEC’s probe “is continuing as to individuals.” While the agency didn’t identify people involved, it said senior management includes one or more of the following as of May 10, 2012: Dimon, Braunstein, former Chief Risk Officer John Hogan, the company’s then-Controller Shannon Warren and the bank’s general auditor. Iksil’s former boss, Javier Martin-Artajo, and junior trader Julien Grout were indicted Sept. 16 for allegedly seeking to hide losses as they began to mount. They have yet to appear in court. Prosecutors said Iksil, who wasn’t charged, is cooperating with the government. ‘Spreadsheet Miscalculations’ Grout, who reported to Iksil, was “totally dependent on Iksil’s instructions and relied in good faith on his expertise,” Grout’s attorney, Edward Little of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, said in a Sept. 17 e-mailed statement that declared that Grout will be proven innocent. A law firm representing Martin-Artajo said last month that he will be cleared of wrongdoing after the events at issue are fully examined. “The trading losses occurred against a backdrop of woefully deficient accounting controls in the CIO, including spreadsheet miscalculations that caused large valuation errors and the use of subjective valuation techniques that made it easier for the traders to mismark the CIO portfolio,” the SEC said in its statement. While the OCC and Fed censured JPMorgan this year and ordered it to strengthen internal controls, the agencies didn’t immediately assess fines. Mounting Costs JPMorgan increased spending on internal controls by about $1 billion this year and dedicated more than $750 million “to address several of our consent orders,” Dimon wrote in a memo to employees this week. At least 5,000 people at the company have been assigned to compliance, he said. The cost for the bank is still “open-ended,” said Charles Peabody, an analyst at Portales Partners LLC in New York. Investors want some clarity on the seriousness of the criminal probe, he said. “I’m not sure that these settlements will conclude anything because you still have the CFTC, the DOJ and state AGs investigating.” Former Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew and her head of international CIO, Achilles Macris, were among the top executives who left the bank after the losses were disclosed. Braunstein stepped down from the operating committee and became a vice chairman. JPMorgan clawed back more than $100 million in pay from Drew and other managers. Drew, 57, told lawmakers at a March hearing that she wasn’t aware of what she called the “deceptive conduct” of her subordinates until after she left the bank. JPMorgan’s board cut Dimon’s pay by 50 percent for 2012 after concluding that he bore some responsibility for the debacle. It also credited his leadership for the lender’s performance. JPMorgan reported a third straight year of record profit in 2012 with $21.3 billion in net income. FBI Probe The Federal Bureau of Investigation and SEC have been scrutinizing public statements, calls with investors and an April 2012 earnings presentation by Dimon and Braunstein, Bloomberg News reported in June, citing five people with knowledge of the probes. The criminal investigation has looked at, among other issues, whether traders painted the tape, a form of market manipulation that allows them to inflate the value of their positions, three of the people said at the time. The criminal case is U.S. v. Martin-Artajo, 13-cr-00707, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Martin-Artajo, 13-cv-05677, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). To contact the reporters on this story: David Scheer in New York at [email protected] ; Dawn Kopecki in Washington at [email protected] To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Scheer at [email protected] ; Christine Harper at [email protected]

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