DEBT FINANCING. Oppose Murdochs on News Corp board - fund group

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian pension fund group has called on its members to vote to remove several News Corporation (NWSA.O) (NWS.AX) board members, including James and Lachlan Murdoch, in order to ensure the independence of the board. The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, which represents pension funds that manage A$250 billion in assets, said in a statement that investors should vote against the two sons of chief executive Rupert Murdoch, and three other executives who have each served at least 20 years on the board due to their perceived close links to the founder. The...

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DEBT FINANCING. Ackermann Says Global Economy Is on Brink of Another Recession

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said the delay in solving Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis may push the global economy into another economic slump. Recent sentiment indicators suggest “that the global economy is on the brink of a recession,” Ackermann said in a speech in Zurich today. “At the heart of the turmoil lies uncertainty about the management of sovereign-debt problems.” Concern that European officials will fail to contain the region’s debt crisis and the U.S. recovery is faltering has wiped more than $9 trillion from the value of global stocks...

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DEBT FINANCING. Billionaire Potanin May Seek Norilsk Control

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Vladimir Potanin’s Interros Holding Co. may seek control of OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel after a $4.5 billion buyback and stock cancellation, gaining the upper hand in a shareholder dispute with United Co. Rusal. Interros will tender a stake “proportionate” to its holding in Norilsk, which is about 30 percent now, in the buyback, Potanin said yesterday in an interview in Moscow. The company will offer only those shares that aren’t needed as collateral or in other stock transactions, Interros said today by e-mail. It will then ask Norilsk to cancel repurchased stock,...

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DEBT FINANCING. Nuke-Free Germany Isn't Exactly Nuke-Free

Set in the lush, rolling Bohemian hills of the Czech Republic, the twin reactors of the Soviet-designed Temelín nuclear power plant lie just 44 miles from the German border. Since last spring, when Chancellor Angela Merkel began shutting down Germany’s nuclear reactors, Temelín has stepped up supplies of electricity to Bavaria, where big German manufacturers including BMW, Audi, and Siemens have factories. There’s a double paradox here. Germany says its future will be nuclear-free. For the present,...

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DEBT FINANCING. BP’s $7.1 Billion Argentina Sale to Cnooc May Risk Collapse

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc’s $7.1 billion deal to sell Argentine crude producer Pan American Energy LLC is at risk of collapse, jeopardizing China’s biggest energy acquisition this year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. BP’s agreement to sell its 60 percent stake to partner Bridas Corp., a company owned by Chinese oil producer Cnooc Ltd. and Argentina’s billionaire Bulgheroni family, has hit opposition from politicians and may not be completed when the accord expires in November, the person said, declining to be identified as the details are private. The London-based company...

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DEBT FINANCING. Philips Declines as HSBC Cuts Estimates on ‘Many Challenges’

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Philips Electronics NV dropped the most in six weeks in Amsterdam trading after HSBC Holdings Plc cut its earnings and stock-price estimates, citing “many” challenges for the Dutch household-appliance maker. Philips fell as much as 97 cents, or 6.8 percent, to 13.16 euros, the biggest intraday drop since Aug. 18, and was down 4.7 percent as of 4:48 p.m. The stock has declined 41 percent this year, valuing the Amsterdam-based company at about 13.6 billion euros ($18.2 billion). With more competitors in consumer electronics and lighting products, and with seemingly...

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DEBT FINANCING. Survey: Europe Meltdown, Global Recession

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Global investors anticipate Europe’s debt crisis leading to an economic slump, a financial meltdown and social unrest in the next year with 72 percent predicting a country abandoning the euro as a shared currency within five years, a Bloomberg survey found. About three-quarters of those questioned this week said the euro-area economy will fall into recession during the next 12 months and 53 percent said turmoil will worsen in a banking sector laden with government bonds, according to the quarterly Global Poll of 1,031 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers....

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DEBT FINANCING. U.K. Mortgage Approvals Hit 20-Month High

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. mortgage approvals rose in August to the highest in 20 months as borrowing costs at a record low helped provide support to the housing market. Lenders granted 52,410 loans to buy homes, the most since December 2009, compared with a revised 49,644 in July, the Bank of England said today in London. Economists forecast that approvals would rise to 49,700 from an initially reported 49,239 in July, based on the median forecast of 18 economists in Bloomberg News survey. The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate at 0.5 percent this month, which Nationwide Building...

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DEBT FINANCING. Buffett Says Europe’s Banks Shouldn’t Look to Berkshire for Help

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett, who has sold most of his company’s holdings of European sovereign debt, said his firm isn’t interested in helping to bail out lenders on the continent. “They need capital in their banks, in many of their banks,” Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu on “In the Loop” today. “We would not be a good prospect,” he said in an interview from the New York Stock Exchange. He’s received “very, very few” calls about putting capital into European banks. “Not quite none at all,” he...

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DEBT FINANCING. Nokia to Cut 3,500 Jobs, Fund Siemens Venture

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj will eliminate 3,500 jobs, shut a mobile-phone factory in Romania and inject 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) with Siemens AG into their unprofitable network-equipment venture. The closure of the plant in Cluj, which only began production in 2008, along with adjustments with suppliers will take out 2,200 positions, Nokia said today. The company will also reorganize its map business, cutting 1,300 jobs, and review the future of its handset plants in Finland, Hungary and Mexico. The reductions come on top of 4,000 job cuts announced in April, mainly in research and...

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DEBT FINANCING. Germany Approves Euro Rescue Fund

Eropean leaders are turning their focus to the next steps to stem the region’s debt crisis after German lawmakers approved an expansion of the euro-area rescue fund’s firepower.With the European Commission now expecting the overhauled 440 billion-euro ($594 billion) European Financial Stability Facility in place by mid-October, euro finance chiefs will next week discuss accelerating enactment of a permanent rescue fund that provides more capital and a tool for managing defaults. “I’m not convinced that this bailout package is going to be remotely enough for the euro zone itself,” Wilbur Ross,...

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DEBT FINANCING. Liverpool Faces New Reality Amid Spending Cuts

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- A month after taking office, David Cameron warned that no one would escape the spending cuts that lay ahead. Few cities will be hit harder than Liverpool, where the Labour opposition held its annual conference this week. Built on Victorian-era free enterprise, the port city in northwest England now relies on government spending for more than a third of its jobs. Its 12.2 percent unemployment rate last year was among the highest in the country. Despite the regeneration of the area, welfare accounts for over a quarter of household income, the highest of any major U.K. city,...

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DEBT FINANCING. Aging Canada will boost budget pain, watchdog says

Canada's aging population and other factors mean the country's finances are not sustainable over the long term, according to a report released Thursday by Parliament's budget watchdog. Government debt can't grow faster than the economy in order for a country to be considered fiscally sustainable, and in his report, Kevin Page estimates the amount of fiscal action required to achieve sustainability. He says that to fill the gap between debt and gross domestic product (GDP) and to restore sustainability...

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DEBT FINANCING. Spain nationalizes three weak banks

Spain says it has nationalized three troubled banks that failed to meet new capital requirements and says the process of restructuring its financial sector is now complete. The Bank of Spain identified them Friday as Unnim, CatalunyaCaixa and NovacaixaGalicia. All three are the result of mergers of smaller savings banks known as cajas, a sector that was heavily exposed to Spain's imploded real estate sector. After capital injections, the government now owns more than 90 per cent of the three banks' shares. The new core capital requirements were announced by the government in February. The Spanish...

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DEBT FINANCING. Anvil Mining soars on takeover bid

Shares in Montreal-based Anvil Mining soared Friday after a $1.3-billion friendly takeover offer from Chinese mining giant Minmetals Resources. The copper producer’s stock was trading at $7.66, up $1.89 or 33 per cent, at midday on the Toronto Stock Exchange on heavy volume of 16 million shares. It prices had reached as high as $7.75 The Minmetals bid of $8 is a 38 per cent premium over Thursday’s close. Anvil’s operations are in the Democratic Republic of Congo. If there’s a better offer, Minmetals...

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DEBT FINANCING. Greek debt inspection stalled by protests

Striking civil servants occupied the Transport Ministry building in Athens early Friday, forcing international debt inspectors to reschedule a meeting where they were to discuss reforms, including new licensing laws for taxis. Transport Minister Yannis Ragoussis's morning meeting was delayed to the evening after the debt inspectors, collectively known as the troika, arrived to find the building under occupation and protesting employees in the courtyard. A similar meeting Thursday with Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos was moved to a different government building in central Athens due to an...

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DEBT FINANCING. U.S. consumers spend more, bring home less

U.S. consumers spent slightly more last month but earned less for the first time in nearly two years. The new data on spending and incomes suggest Americans tapped their savings to cope with steep gas prices and a weaker economy. The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending rose 0.2 per cent in August after a revised 0.7 per cent increase in July. Incomes fell 0.1 per cent. That's the poorest showing since a similar 0.1 per cent drop in October 2009. Americans saved less money. The savings rate fell to its lowest level since late 2009. A decline in income growth could slow the economy,...

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DEBT FINANCING. Copyright changes: how they'll affect users of digital content

Canada has been trying to reform its copyright legislation, which was last updated in 1997, for several years now. There have been four attempts to date to pass amendments that would bring the Copyright Act in line with the digital age — one by the Liberals in 2005 and three by the Conservatives, in 2008, 2010 and, now, in 2011. In this latest attempt, Heritage Minister James Moore said the government "didn't alter a comma" in the original Bill C-32 it had introduced last year and would not be opening up new consultations on the proposed legislation. Instead, it would pick up where hearings left...

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DEBT FINANCING. TMX takeover bid extended

The $3.8-billion takeover bid from a group of Canadian financial companies and pension plans for the owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange has been extended to the end of October. The consortium, which is dubbed Maple Group, announced the extension Thursday. The bid from the consortium had been due to expire on Friday. Maple Group said it is still working to obtain the required regulatory approvals for the acquisition. In February, TMX Group and LSE Group, the parent of the London Stock Exchange, announced plans for a friendly merger, but Maple Group subsequently launched its own bid. After a round...

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DEBT FINANCING. Mandatory data breach reporting proposed

Under the proposed changes, disclosure of personal information without consent would be allowed for private sector investigations and fraud prevention. (Reuters) Proposed changes to Canadian privacy laws reintroduced by the government Thursday would force companies to report breaches of personal information to the privacy commissioner and affected individuals. But they also contain 'real dangers,' a privacy advocate says. Mandatory reporting of data breaches was among proposed amendments to the...

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DEBT FINANCING. Scale of Greek default would be unprecedented

If Greece defaults, it won't be the first government to renege on its financial obligations, but its failure would set a new record, both for scale and complexity. At the moment, the dubious honour of biggest deadbeat goes to Argentina, which failed to make good on its government debts in December 2001, to the tune of about $100 billion US. For some economists, a Greek default is just a matter of time. “It’s inevitable,” Thorsten Koeppl, a Queen’s University economics professor told CBC News. “Eventually...

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DEBT FINANCING. RIM denies leaving tablet market

Shares in BlackBerry maker Research In Motion slumped Thursday, despite the firm's denial of a report that it had halted production of its PlayBook tablet computer and cancelled additional tablet projects. "Any suggestion that the BlackBerry PlayBook is being discontinued is pure fiction," RIM spokesperson Marisa Conway told CBC News. "RIM remains highly committed to the tablet market." RIM shares closed down 70 cents, or 3.1 per cent, at $21.97 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. RIM described any suggestion that it was discontinuing its BlackBerry PlayBook as ‘pure fiction.’ Mike Cassese/Reuters...

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DEBT FINANCING. Loonie touches 12-month low

The Canadian dollar fell below 96 cents US and touched a 12-month low Friday, as traders moved into more widely traded U.S. dollar denominated securities. The loonie was trading at 96.32 cents US, down 0.15 of a cent, by midday. Earlier, it dropped as much as 0.93 of a cent to 95.54 cents US. It hasn't been that low since Sept. 8, 2010. It has lost 1.35 cents this week. Markets are concerned that a slowing global economy will hurt exporting countries such as Canada. The drop came even as Statistics Canada reported the economy registered a modest gain in July, with gross domestic product rising...

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DEBT FINANCING. Canada's economic growth rose in July

Canada's economy grew by 0.3 per cent per cent in July, buoyed by the manufacturing, wholesale trade and transportation sectors, Statistics Canada said Friday. The July report was in line with the forecasts of many economists. According to Reuters, 21 economists they surveyed had a median forecast for growth for July of 0.3 per cent. In June, the economy grew by 0.2 per cent. For the April-June period, Canada's economy had its first quarterly decline since the recession of 2009. The country's gross domestic product fell 0.1 per cent during the quarter, or 0.4 per cent on an annualized basis. Some...

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DEBT FINANCING. Recession threat demands 'immediate action,' NDP says

Investing in infrastructure and green energy programs would give the economy the kickstart it needs more than corporate tax cuts, the NDP said Thursday. The economy was once again front and centre in the House of Commons as MPs debated a motion from the NDP that calls on the Conservative government to take "immediate action" to avoid another recession, create jobs, guarantee pension security, and invest in deteriorating infrastructure. It was an opposition day Thursday, meaning the NDP controlled the subject matter of the day's debate. Before the debate got underway, Peggy Nash, the party's finance...

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DEBT FINANCING. Wealthiest self-made woman? It’s not Oprah

(CNN) – In the world of wealthy women, China is leading the way. Of 28 self-made female billionaires around the world, 18 came from China, according to a recent report compiled by Hurun Report ranking China’s wealthy. Hurun reported that of the top 10 self-made female billionaires in the world, seven are Chinese. U.S. media mogul Oprah Winfrey barely made the top ten, with her $2.7 billion fortune putting her as the 8th richest self-made woman in the world. Rosalia Mera of Spain’s fashion powerhouse Zara came in third, with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Benetton clothing’s Guiliana Benetton’s $2.5...

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