October 18, 2011 at 8:18am
UPDATE 1-Coca-Cola quarterly profit rises
Oct 18 (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co reported higher
quarterly earnings on Tuesday, helped by sales increases in
North America and internationally.The world’s largest soft-drink maker, whose brands range
from Sprite to Minute Maid and Powerade, said net income was
$2.22 billion, or 95 cents per share, in the third quarter, up
from $2.06 billion, or 88 cents per share, a year earlier.Excluding items, earnings were $1.03 per share.Revenue jumped 45 percent to $12.25 billion.
October 17, 2011 at 9:46pm
El Paso CEO to get $95 million in exit pay - WSJ
CEO Foshee is eligible to receive $95 million as his exit
package, if he leaves within two years of an acquisition, the
media report said, citing its calculations from a regulatory
filing.About $69 million, would come from 4.27 million stock
options granted over his eight-year tenure at El Paso, the
report said.El Paso Corp and Kinder Morgan Inc were not immediately
available for comment.
2:39pm
Venezuelas embarrassment of riches oil
Todayâs special report, âPension fund scandal shakes up Venezuelan oil giant,â examines state oil company PDVSA and the problems it has exploiting what are said by OPEC to be the worldâs largest known reserves of crude oil.
At the heart of the latest scandal is a Connecticut hedge fund manager named Francisco Illarramendi who has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud, securities and investment advisor fraud. Prosecutors say he ran a Ponzi scheme that lost up to half a billion dollars, most of it money that had been entrusted to Illarramendi by PDVSAâs pension fund.
Check out this interactive graphic which shows how Venezuela has taken the top spot in terms of world oil reserves.
This one shows how despite rising estimates of the countryâs reserves, PDVSAâs production has actually declined in the decade since Chavez came to power.
2:39pm
Venezuelas embarrassment of riches oil
Todayâs special report, âPension fund scandal shakes up Venezuelan oil giant,â examines state oil company PDVSA and the problems it has exploiting what are said by OPEC to be the worldâs largest known reserves of crude oil.
At the heart of the latest scandal is a Connecticut hedge fund manager named Francisco Illarramendi who has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud, securities and investment advisor fraud. Prosecutors say he ran a Ponzi scheme that lost up to half a billion dollars, most of it money that had been entrusted to Illarramendi by PDVSAâs pension fund.
Check out this interactive graphic which shows how Venezuela has taken the top spot in terms of world oil reserves.
This one shows how despite rising estimates of the countryâs reserves, PDVSAâs production has actually declined in the decade since Chavez came to power.
October 15, 2011 at 3:01am
WRAPUP 2-US rejects plan to strengthen IMF in euro zone crisis
* Euro crisis wipes all else off agenda* Communique, closing news conference expected by 1500 GMT* German finmin confident about crisis action plan for Oct.
23 EU summit* BRICS favour boosting IMF capital; U.S., others opposedBy Abhijit Neogy and Glenn SomervillePARIS, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Proposals to double the size of
the IMF as part of a broader international response to Europe’s
debt crisis ran into resistance from the United States and
others, burying the idea for now and putting the onus firmly
back on Europe.The outlines of the plan that had the backing of several
developing economies emerged as G20 finance ministers and
central bankers met in Paris to discuss a world economy under
threat from European nations mired in debt.A second day of talks on Saturday may produce more robust
language on the urgency of tackling the euro zone debt crisis
but little of substance is likely to be inked in with an EU
summit in nine day’s time the make-or-break moment.A communique and round of closing news conferences are
expected around 1500 GMT with other decisions set up for a G20
leaders’ summit in Cannes on Nov. 3/4.One G20 source said emerging market policymakers backed
injecting some $350 billion into the International Monetary
Fund.U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his Canadian
counterpart poured cold water on the idea. The IMF’s dominant
shareholders, including the United States, Japan, Germany and
China, are content that the fund’s $380 billion worth of
resources is enough.”They (the IMF) have very substantial resources that are
uncommitted,” Geithner said.German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble agreed the euro
zone debt crisis was for Europe to solve, and expressed
confidence that EU leaders would produce a plan at the Oct. 23
summit that would be convincing for financial markets.The United States is among countries keen to keep pressure
on the Europeans to act more decisively to end the two-year-old
debt crisis that began in Greece but has since spread to Ireland
and Portugal and is lapping at Spain and Italy.”The first priority here is for Europeans to put their own
house in order,” Australian finance minister Wayne Swan said,
though his office in Canberra later released a transcript of a
CNN interview in which he added that the G20 should be willing
to support extra IMF resourcing if required.Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also said the G20
should keep up pressure on the euro zone on its “arduous”
journey towards a solution and not focus on IMF resources.If minds needed concentrating further, Standard and Poor’s
cut Spain’s long-term credit rating, citing the country’s high
unemployment, tightening credit and high private sector debt,
highlighting the risk of a much larger economy than Greece
coming under threat.French and German officials are trying to put flesh on the
bones of a crisis resolution plan in time for the European Union
summit.Fears about the damage a default by Greece — and possibly
others — could inflict on the financial system have driven a
confidence-sapping bout of market volatility since late July,
with global stocks falling 17 percent from their
2011 high in May.DIVISIONUnlike in 2009 when the G20 launched coordinated stimulus to
pull the world out of crisis, the rest of the world is chafing
at Europe’s slow response while Washington and Beijing are
sparring over the yuan currency.The Franco-German crisis plan is likely to ask banks to
accept bigger losses on their Greek debt than the 21 percent
spelled out in a July plan for a second bailout of Athens, which
now looks insufficient.”It will be more, that’s more or less certain,” French
Finance Minister Francois Baroin said.It should also lay out a system for recapitalising banks and
plans to leverage the euro zone’s 440 billion euros European
Financial Stability Facility to give it more punch.Schaeuble said European banks should be helped, if necessary,
with state means to strengthen their capital.Whilst the EFSF has the resources to cope with bailouts for
Greece, Portugal and Ireland, it would be overwhelmed by the
need to rescue a bigger economy such as Italy or Spain.The most effective method would be to turn the EFSF into a
bank so it could draw on European Central Bank resources. Both
Germany and the ECB are opposed to that. Attention has turned to
the idea of making the fund more like an insurer.For example, if the EFSF covered the first 20 percent of
losses a bank could suffer in case of a default — it could
multiply its firepower fivefold to over 2 trillion euros.ROLE OF IMFG20 sources said most BRICS economies were in favour of
bolstering the IMF’s capital as a crisis-fighting tool.”We have said this before and have conveyed this again, that
if emerging economies and the BRICS are called upon to
contribute, we can do it via the International Monetary Fund,”
one of the sources said. “India is open to it, China and Brazil
are also okay with the idea.”Another G20 source said the IMF would present a plan which
had broad support to its executive board to make short-term
credit lines available to fundamentally healthy countries hit by
liquidity crises. It could aid euro zone countries hit by the
current crisis of confidence in the bloc’s sovereign debt.Any real progress on bigger goals such as setting parameters
to measure global imbalances and reining in speculative capital
flows is unlikely to come before a Nov. 3-4 summit in Cannes,
where France passes the G20 baton to Mexico.A French finance ministry source said that for Cannes, France
hoped to have two or three measures agreed for countries showing
imbalances: consolidation measures for those with high deficits
and stimulus measures for those with surpluses.”We are going to try to make some progress and obtain,
perhaps not tomorrow or Saturday but by Cannes, a list of
measures country by country,” he said. “These must be measures
which will have an impact on the real economy.”A separate G20 source said after preparatory talks late on
Thursday that China would commit to boost its consumption
through a five-year plan, via households and companies as well
as infrastructure.The G20 countries make up 85 percent of global output.An April G20 meeting placed seven large economies under
review — the debt-burdened United States, export driven China
and the economies of France, Britain, Germany, Japan and India.
Officials have said privately the aim was to get Beijing to
discuss the yuan, and China’s cooperation is essential to the
success of the process.A G20 official said China would not commit to a quick
liberalisation of its yuan currency to help rebalance global
growth, but would offer to use expansionary fiscal policy to
fuel domestic demand.”No, they were pretty firm on that — there will be no
progress,” the official said.
October 13, 2011 at 7:01pm
UPDATE 1-U.S. judge says Samsung tablets do infringe Apple
Apple sued Samsung in the United States in April, saying
the South Korean firm’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and
tablets “slavishly” copies the iPhone and iPad.Apple then filed a request in July to bar some Samsung
products from U.S. sale, including the Galaxy S 4G smartphone
and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.The hearing on Thursday centered on this request from Apple
for an injunction. Apple must show that Samsung both infringed
its patents, and that its patents are valid under the law.Koh on Thursday also said she would deny Apple’s request
for an injunction based on one of Apple’s so-called “utility”
patents.She did not say whether she would grant the injunction
based on three other so-called Apple “design” patents.
6:17am
UPDATE 1-Volvo Bus to double annual capacity by 2015
* To double global annual capacity to 30,000 units by 2015BANGALORE, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Volvo Bus Corp, part of
Swedish truckmaker Volvo AB (VOLVb.ST), expects to double its
annual manufacturing capacity by 2015, as it ramps up its
presence in Asia, its chief executive told reporters on
Thursday.The company expects European and North American markets to
remain weak and is depending heavily on the Asian market to
drive growth.Volvo Bus plans to increase its global manufacturing
capacity to 30,000 units a year, from 15,000 units — half of
which will be made in Asia.The company, which is looking to make India a manufacturing
and product development hub, plans to invest 4 billion rupees
($81.7 million) in the country in the next 5 years, CEO Hakan
Karlsson told a news conference in the southern Indian city of
Bangalore.The company’s India unit expects revenue growth of 25-30
percent in 2012 from the 7-8 billion rupees expected this year.
October 11, 2011 at 12:38pm
India’s rich, richer than the French. Its poor, much poorer
By Annie Banerji
As India’s politicians struggle to manage an outcry over the definition of poverty — does earning more than $0.65 a day really mean you are not poor? — a new report shows the country’s rich doing very nicely from fast economic growth.
Rubbing shoulders with Singapore and Hong Kong, India appears in the top five countries where the affluent now have more than $1 million investable assets on average, according to the Global Affluent Investor study conducted by research company TNS.
“India and China have already surpassed major European markets like Germany and France. It’s interesting to see that the entrepreneurial spirit of people in these markets is already paying off in terms of personal wealth,” Reg van Steen, Director of Business and Finance, TNS, said.
But the report points to an important difference between the emerging Asian powers and their Western peers — wealth distribution.
“While 27% of the US are affluent this falls to around 1% in India and China,” the report said. It defined households with more than $100,000 of investable assets as affluent.
It will take some time for the number of rich in India and China to catch up with the U.S. — where the report found 31 million affluent households, 10 times as many as India and China each have.
“It is necessary perhaps to think in a different way, and to see that a country like India, like Schrödinger’s cat, exists in at least two forms simultaneously: rich and poor,” wrote British historian Patrick French.
Poverty looms large over the majority of the 1.2 billion population of the world’s largest democracy, where hundreds of millions continue to live below the bread line.
A couple of weeks ago, the government was hit by a storm of criticism for setting the poverty line at 32 rupees ($0.65) per day. The benchmark — barely enough to buy a return ticket on New Delhi’s subway — is used to gauge who gets subsidies in a country where malnutrition rates in some states are worse than sub-Saharan Africa.
Outcry from the opposition, economists and the media forced the government to say the controversial rate would not be used to decide who has access to welfare programmes.
Two decades of fast growth have brought huge changes to India, but there are growing calls for the boom to be put to better use.
“While economic growth is an important boon for enhancing living conditions, its reach depends greatly on what we do with the fruits of growth,” economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen wrote in an article in February.
