Yam yam gimme some…

1.Johnny Depp – From 21 Jumpstreet to crazy barber and mumbling pirate, this is one beautiful man.

2.Alexander Skarsgård – Put your teeth in me mister Vampire

3.Ryan Kwanten – The boy next door

4. Eric Dane – McSteamy / Patrick Dempsey – McDreamy

 5.Gerard Butler – Every girl loves a bad guy

TV watched:

• Being Human Season 1 Episodes 5 and 6
• Ugly Betty Season 3 Episodes 15-18
• Home and Away (mainly on FF)
• EDIT: The Daily Show. Jon Stewart needs to come to dinner.

Food eaten:

• KFC (I know, I know)
• 1 x Spooky Halloween Jaffa Mini Roll

Items bought:

• 3 pairs of children’s socks for the sock toy workshop with Sew Make Believe tomorrow.

Task contemplated:

• Load dishwasher (done!)
• Get the rest of my Sew Make Believe stuff together ready for our meetup tomorrow (will most definitely done before the meetup tomorrow)
• Finish tidying spare room / craft area (not so much done but there’s still time)

The upcoming big screen adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Thor has finally got a lead role. After months of speculation about who would be cast as the Norse Thunder God, 26 year old Australian actor Chris Hemsworth has been picked for the 2011 Movie.

You may know Hemsworth from his years spent playing Kim in Aussie soap Home & Away or more recently, his role as Captain Kirks’ father in JJ Abrams’ fantastic Star Trek re-boot last year. This comes after a long line of actors such as Brad Pit and Daniel Craig were linked with the film.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind Hemsworth for the five minutes he was on the screen at the beginning of Star Trek but Thor?!? For those of you who don’t know, in the Marvel Universe Thor is one of the most powerful superheroes around, second only to Hulk in terms of strength. Personally, i’d rather see the Rock play Thor than a young whippet. Unless Hemsworth beefs up considerably (which I can’t see him doing in the next couple of months prior to shooting commencing in Jan ‘10), the main character could turn out to be a joke.

Comics rarely make the transition to the big screen very well and the only comic book adaptations that I can think of that have been done well are  Jon Farveu’s superb Iron Man film and the 2008 Incredible Hulk movie. I can’t even rate the Spiderman films, pure garbage and total kids film cop-outs. The key to a good film is casting, and that applies even more so to comic book films. Edward Norton did a great job capturing the angst of Bruce Banner and Bob Downey JR is totally believable as Tony Stark but Toby Maguire as Spiderman? Kirsten Dish-Face Dunst? No thanks. The fantastic four films aren’t even worth a mention, the first film had me cheering on for Doctor Doom and they even managed to fuck Galactus up with the second effort.

I just don’t think this will be any good. It’s going to be directed by floppy-haired Mum’s favourite Kenneth Branagh(!) who has no experience whatsoever in directing an action flick and it also follows the weaker of the two Thor backstories. Rather than the Ultimate Thor story in which Thor is either a God or a madman, the film will go with the Earth 616 story that Thor is a disabled doctor who finds the strength within himself to become a God. Yawn.

I genuinely do hope that it’s a good movie, but only time will tell. Now all we need to do is sort out who will play Captain America….

Finally John Marsden’s classic Tomorrow series is being turned into a feature film.

It’s been a long wait, but fans of John Marsden’s Tomorrow when the War Began books will finally see their favourite story on the big screen.

Screen Australia recently announced that it will fund the development of the film  and screen writer Stuart Beetie (Australia, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) will be directing it. In casting news former Neighbours star Caitlin Stasey will be playing lead character, Ellie Linton, in the film.

The seven book series details the invasion and occupation of a Australia by a foreign army which is recounted in first person narrative by teenager Ellie Linton. On return home from a camping trip Ellie and her friends discover their town has been taken over by an unknown military, and band together waging  guerrilla warfare on the enemy soldiers in the fictional town of Wirrawee.

Tomorrow When the War Began  is one of the most favourite novel series in Australia, and has sold between 2 and 3 million copies in Australia alone.

Filming of Tomorrow When the War Began is scheduled to start late this year.

Updated: 17/09/09            

Home and Away star, Lincoln Lewis has quit the show which made him a household name to persue a career in movies. Lewis will start in the film adaption of Tomorrow when the War Began and play one of the lead roles, Kevin.

Lewis will film his lasts scene’s for Home and Away tomorrow and head straight to the movie set which is being shot in rural NSW.

If you’ve read the comments section of my recent post Games, Puzzles and Lies, you may have noticed that I claim Alf Stewart is my God.  This is not strictly true; part of the remit of Sherby57 is to investigate all new religions, and the best way to assess them is to live them.  At present, I am fully committed to being Alfian.

Alf Stewart is a long-running character in popular tea-time Aussie soap-opera, Home And Away.  He has portrayed by veteran actor Ray Meagher since 1988.  Followers of the religion have come to believe that Alf Stewart, the character, exists in the real world, and that he is roaming the earth looking for the true Summer Bay.  There have been many sightings of blessed Alf over the years, but they mostly turn out to be Meagher popping down the shops.  It gets quite confusing that they look exactly the same.

For the dedicated Alfian, every day starts by reciting the Alf Stewart prayer:

Our Father, who art in the surf club,
Alf Stewart be thy name.
Thy Ailsa come,
thy will be a great gullah,
on earth as it is in Summer Bay
Give us this day our flaming mongrels.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as, strewth, we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into the diner,
but deliver us from Don Fisher.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. for ever and ever.
Stone the flamin’ crows.
Amen

Good afternoon, everyone. This is DJ again. I am here to talk about a very interesteing subject named  ‘the code of Australian TV drama’.

I generally have been thinking that Australian dramas are not quite ‘attractive’ as much as American ones. Maybe because I am being an international student in Sydney, the dramas are neither representative nor really understandable at least for me, (then Why Americans’?).

Let me have a look at some of Australian’s favorite dramas that hopefully represent Australian identities.

1. The Secret Life of Us is the no.1 favorite drama of all time in Australia. It was aired from 2001 to 2005 features young adults trying to find their life goals.
2. Heartbreak High is the second best acclaimed Australian drama screened between 1994 and 1999. It deals with  tough high school students in a multi-racial area of Sydney, and proved to be a “more gritty and fast-paced show” than many of its contemporaries, according to Wikipedia.
3. Love My Way as you guess is ranked for the third. It was aired between 2005 and 2007 presents a life of thirty-somethings characters dealing with ups and downs of life.

If you want to know the full rank of Ausie dramas, click.

These top three have earned a number of awards as were husely popular in Australia. The dramas had mostly dealt with human relationship and carrer life. Yet, what I should be careful to mention is that many Australian dramas don’t account much of ‘multiculturalism’ that we actually experience in the real term, noticeably except ‘Heartbreak High‘. Heartbreak High does really capture multiculral aspects of Sydney environment even though it is perceived as a troublesome matter on the story line.

Not only to mention that various racial and ethinic communities that aren’t distictly shown in the dramas(if not about criminal kinds), but also to question where are the indigenous people that harmoniously integrate ‘Australian’ life represented in the drama?

In my next post, I will going to discuss on this matter more broadly with current famous Ausie dramas include ‘Home and Away’ and ‘Neighbours’.

Well, until then, let’s try some of great Australian dramas, umm?

….or at least this week I do!

Sorry for not getting that last South Africa post up yet, or my Wednesday’s Walk post which I had pretty much written yesterday morning, but just didn’t get a chance to finish it.

Basically a really good friend of mine is up from London with his girlfriend this week and we’re enjoying the delights of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!

And sometimes I’m working. Or spending time with smallgroupers. Or I’m getting upset about people in Summer Bay dying. (Damn that Seven Network!!!)

Been taking lots of pics, and doing a great job of acting like a tourist. In fact I’m doing such an amazing job of it, I got offered a free map of Edinburgh from some map-handing-out person in St Andrew’s Square on Tuesday afternoon!

Hopefully this will make for some good Flower of Scotland Friday posts to come.

Seriously though, as one proud Edinburger Scot, I absolutely love showing people round this city and country. Even at work today I was telling people about parts of the fringe they should check out, bits of the city they hadn’t realised were there and so on!

So yes, this is why I’m not blogging quite so much as I usually am.

Hope you’ll forgive me and my backlog of unfinished blog posts!

For three years, I have been watching The Bold and the Beautiful. It’s a top show, bro.

But why would a guy who wrote a 2000 word post on Die Hard have any interest in an American soapie whose target audience is little old ladies with not much else to do other than dwell on the drawn-out melodrama of an inbred elitist family that runs a high-end fashion empire in Los Angeles?  Either that’s one for the ages, or I have a legitimate explanation for this bizarre phenomenon.

Why the hell do I care if Ridge can’t decide between Brooke and Taylor? What does it matter to me if Eric prefers his little “hot tomali” Donna over his loyal, yet very butch wife, Stephanie? Does it make a difference to my life if Ridge can’t accept that his daughter Steffy is a complete idiot for constantly running back to that douchebag, Rick?  My friends, these questions are not easy to answer.

The soap opera hooks you in, it’s like a poker machine with the glitzy hypnotic lure and that catchy music, with all that blurry photography, which adds to the fantasy element of the American soap opera.  From watching Home and Away and Neighbours, I’ve noticed that Australian soapies aim to capture the realist setting much more, since all the exterior scenes are usually always shot outdoors, while on B&B, it’s always a phony set with Lost In Space style lighting (although they have been shooting dodgy outdoor scenes lately, complete with a visible boom mike behind Hunter Tylo on her right). However, I’ve never thought Australian actors can emote the melodrama like the Americans do, we just don’t have that larger-than-life persona to perform melodrama in an appealing manner, which is a great weakness in Aussie soaps.

The appeal of this show, and others like it, is probably because most of us don’t have any real melodrama in our lives to speak of (I don’t really have any in my life to speak of either, I lead a rather boring existence, and I cannot be anymore thankful for that, but soaps give me my fix), so we have to live through the box version that meanders on and on with the same unfolding relationship plots, where characters fall in and out of lust and love with each other like a merry-go-round that’s broken down like it’s consciously committed suicide from the torture it’s endured, to the point where the writers have to be careful which characters they pair up so they don’t end up with a couple who are too closely related.  Although these characters aren’t really inbred, looking at the family tree in the The Bold and the Beautiful 20th Anniversary Compendium, it’s a sight to behold, with a cast of characters linked together with more arrows and zig-zag lines than an econometrics chart.

In fact, I’m not even sure which is more confusing, this?

Or this?

With that in mind, the US government is like a bloody big soap opera to itself.  Could you imagine a soapie set in Congress? They wouldn’t be designing fashion, rather the main characters would be drafting legislation in their offices, their spouses would be in on the lawmaking, we’d see all the American elitist inbreeding that been rumoured to have been going on since well before the Articles of Confederation, and if you add Hugh Hefner in to the mix, it’s a soapie-writer’s wetdream for potential story ideas!

I’d call this show The Liars and the Manipulators. The overall story arc revolves around two elite political families with members in the House and the Senate, with a few cabinet members and interns in the White House for good measure because these families are appointed everywhere under the sun if they can sleep their way there – Bill Clinton even makes a cameo. One family is with the Democrats and the other family is with the Republicans.  Their rivalry is the basis of the show, with members of each family sleeping with members of the other like a fairy tale story of star-crossed lovers fit for a James Cameron movie. This political soapie will tell the story about how political royalty is all kept in the family like a line of pureblood Slytherin snobs. I’m not kidding, it’s a guaranteed daytime television hit!

Meanwhile, I’m just going to watch the episode of B&B my dad taped while I was away so I can steal some story ideas.

Seriously, how is this one of the highest rating shows in Australia?

How f..king stupid must young people be?

Dutch bank ING Group ING.AS has hired JPMorgan JPM.N to advise on the sale of INGs private banking business in Europe and Asia, which could fetch more than $1 billion, sources told Reuters on Thursday.The sale is part of INGs move to raise cash after being hit badly by the global credit crisis, which forced it into a loss in 2008 and led to the Dutch government injecting 10 billion euros into the bank.”The deal could be over a billion dollar,” said a source with direct knowledge of the deal, adding JPMorgan is advising the firm. “But its a bit early in the process.”ING declined to comment and JPMorgan was not available to comment.The Dutch bank has been working on a program to reduce risks, raise up to 8 billion euros from asset sales and exit from 10 of 48 countries where it operates.”I think it is a good sign that will give an extra buffer to ING. Secondly, in private banking, ING will never become a world leader. Strategically it makes sense to sell,” Rabo Securities analyst Cor Kluis said.Kluis said he did not expect ING to sell its Dutch private banking business, which administered 20 billion euros in assets out of the total 62 billion euros the Dutch bank had under management at the end of 2008.

via ING hires JPMorgan to sell private bank units: sources| Deals| Reuters.

Meanwhile, RBS has completed sale of the RBS Asia Pac units including ABN AMRO to StanChart and Goldman Sachs & BofA have earlier sold one third of their stakes in ICBC and China Construction Bank

zyakaira notes: sadly, not enough people have invested in the emerging markets or even in the next slice of America in this downturn..don’t they want to buy cheap anymore?

Stock markets rewarded companies such as Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N and Cisco CSCO.O who were brave enough to make acquisitions in the months after Lehman Brothers collapse, a study released on Monday showed.

Although firms who made purchases worth $100 million or more suffered an average 25.5 percent fall in their stock price, they outperformed the wider market by 6.3 percentage points, the Towers Perrin/Cass Business School research found.

Global mergers and acquisitions M&A plunged 40 percent in the first half of 2009 to $941 billion, as shrinking economies, volatile markets and scarce debt hammered corporate confidence. The World Bank forecasts the global economy will shrink 2.9 percent this year.”Companies with M&A in mind should be emboldened by our analysis: fortune favors the brave,” the studys authors, led by Marco Boschetti, wrote.

“Fears that M&A is riskier post-Lehman seem to be misplaced.”Repeat acquirers did even better, on average outperforming the MSCI World Index by 8.1 percent.Among them, Cisco Systems Inc, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories ABT.N, BG Group Plc BG.L, and Symantec Corp SYMC.O all outperformed world, regional and sector indexes.However, other multiple acquirers such as Eli Lilly and Co LLY.N, Medtronic Inc MDT.N and Banco Santander SA SAN.MC underperformed on some or all measures.

via Brave post-Lehman M&A rewarded by market -study| Deals| Reuters.

Manhattan apartment prices fell sharply during the second quarter of 2009, as the limited number of deals struck during the darkest months of the economic downturn began to close, according to a series of market reports released Wednesday.

The number of closings fell more than 50 percent, and prices in some categories were reported down as much as 25 percent, compared with the same quarter in 2008. Sale prices were also down from those reported in the first quarter of 2009.

One report, by Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property, put the average price of a Manhattan apartment in the second quarter at $1.26 million, a decline of 24 percent from the same period in 2008, and 16 percent below the previous quarter. It put the median sale price at $795,000, 19 percent below the figure in the first quarter of 2008.

Another report, by Prudential Douglas Elliman, found that the median sale price on the resale of existing apartments was down by 25.6 percent from a year earlier. The report, prepared by Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., an appraisal firm, said that the number of sales was down 50.3 percent compared with the same period in 2008.

The new figures on closed sales confirm the downward trajectory in the Manhattan market that brokers have been reporting for many months. But the report was issued at a time when b

via Sharp Price Drops in Manhattan Apartments – NYTimes.com.

Today’s summary from a newshound recmmended on linkedin.com ( the story was recommended.. )

Remember state-owned German lender KfW Bankengruppe ?

Well, back in September last year, the bank was busy cutting down its exposure to Lehman Brothers, but then someone executed an erroneous (and unstoppable) automated currency swap valued at $426m with Lehman on the very day it went belly up! The German government was up in arms and the bank was the object of ridicule at home, with Germany’s biggest-circulation newspaper, Bild, splashing a ‘Germany’s Dumbest Bank’ headline over its front pages. The upshot was that two of the bank’s management board members were suspended pending an investigation, and one, Peter Fleischer, ended up getting fired and taking the bank to court in Frankfurt.

And guess what ? Fleischer won the case. The bank was ordered to pay him 2 years salary, bonuses and interest. Nice.

FT Alphaville reports that shares in Commerzbank rose over 18% Wednesday, after the European Central Bank approved Germany’s ‘bad bank’ plan, which will allow participants to offload toxic assets from their balance sheets and pretend that they don’t exist

The Financial Times reports that Bank of America was hoping to raise about $3bn from the sale of asset management unit Columbia Management, but bids are described as ‘lukewarm’, and the unit may end up on

via World’s ‘Dumbest’ Bank Gets Caught Again :: Business News :: Here Is The City News :: The Latest Business & Financial Markets News And Views.

YOUR FAVE ROCK NOW AVAILABLE AT THE SUPER MARKET – Off the SHELF?

Is Tesco mulling a bid for Britain’s state-owned lender Northern Rock?The Times of London reported that the British supermarket chain had emerged as a potential bidder for Northern Rock, which the U.K. government is seeking to unload ahead a general election.However, Reuters, citing an industry source, said Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, is unlikely to be interested in a bid for the nationalized bank.Potential bidders, including Tesco, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and private equity funds, have shown interest in Northern Rock, Britain’s highest-profile victim of the credit crunch that was nationalized in February 2008, The Times said.Reuters, citing its source, said that while the supermarket group had expressed some interest in the past, this had not led to anything.Tesco said it did not comment on rumor and speculation, Reuters said.The supermarket group announced a major push into banking last July with a 950 million pound deal to buy out Royal Bank of Scotland’s stake in their joint banking venture.Eager to cash in on growing disillusionment with traditional banks, Tesco said in March it planned to open bank branches in 30 of its stores by the end of this year.

via Is Tesco Eyeing a Bid for Northern Rock? – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.

Standard Chartered and Australia’s ANZ are in advanced talks to acquire separate parts of the Asian retail and commercial assets being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland, according to people familiar with the matter.Standard Chartered is now in pole position to acquire RBS units being sold in China, India and Malaysia, while ANZ was closing in on assets in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, said people familiar with the situation.

The assets are expected to fetch around $1bn-$1.5bn for the stricken UK lender.“The process is progressing well but nothing is yet final,” said one person familiar with the matter.HSBC could also pick up some of the assets, should talks with the other banks fail to reach a successful conclusion, said people familiar with the situation.

RBS put the assets up for sale this year, after posting the biggest loss in British corporate history. The bank, which is 70 per cent owned by the UK government, made a loss of £24.1bn $35.3bn last year and is shrinking its £2,000bn balance sheet.Its regional retail banking platform vastly expanded after the 2007 acquisition of the Asian operations of ABN Amro, which had built up significant branch networks in countries such as China and India.

RBS’s Asian retail assets include 170 branches, including 28 in India and 13 in China.The sale of the Asian assets has been complicated by RBS’ decision to retain its wholesale banking footprint in key regional markets.There has been uncertainty about whether banking authorities in the eight individual markets would rubber-stamp the transfer of branch licences to the potential acquirers, some of whom already boasting large retail networks in countries such as China and India.

A successful conclusion of the talks would transform ANZ’s footprint in the region and bolster its strategy to become a “super-regional” lender. The bank in May announced a A$2.5bn capital raising to fund a potential bid for RBS assets.

via FT.com / Companies / Banks – StanChart and ANZ poised to split RBS Asian assets.

zyakaira notes: StanChart benefits from ANZ not being in a hurry to confront RBI and enter India with a fresh licence, i guess…Also, RBS’ new branches will also become Stamchart. While Stanchart has a large presence in India, they are hardly notable for Wealth Management

Office Depot said Tuesday that the private equity firm BC Partners has made a $350 million investment through a preferred stock purchase, giving it a stake in the office supplies chain of approximately 20 percent.

BC bought about $275 million of the company’s Series A convertible perpetual preferred stock and approximately $75 million of its Series B conditional convertible perpetual preferred shares.

Office Depot, which previously announced that it would close approximately 9 percent of its North American stores and cut 2,200 jobs, said it will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes.

The Boca Raton, Fla.-based chain, which plans to open fewer locations next year, has seen its sales and stock price slide as corporate customers, many of them small businesses, cut spending because of the recession. The investment by BC Partners is looked at by Office Depot as a way to improve its balance sheet and provide some ”financial flexibility.”

The Series A stock included in the preferred stock purchase can be converted into common stock immediately at a conversion price of $5 per share, which is a 32 percent premium to Office Depot’s Monday closing stock price of $3.79 per share.

The Series B stock will become convertible at the same terms as the Series A shares if stockholders approve shares being issued in connection with the conversion.

The investment also allows for three BC Partners executives to become part of Office Depot’s board, which has grown to 14 members. Among those joining the board include managing partner Raymond Svider, senior partner James Rubin and partner Justin Bateman.

The transaction, which was approved by Office Depot’s board, closed Tuesday morning.

This week’s FOTW goes to Lincoln Lewis’s mother Jacqui. You can investigate why here. You know I think the pejorative, objectionable way some Australian men view women is becoming more apparent and more important to the mainstream media and to the public.

However there are always some journalists, like one in a prominent online and print media, who writes articles crying about nasty feminists who call him names – and how there is a cultural war against men restricting their rights to be assholes. It’s not just women who are offended – so are men, not that their distaste against you legitimises ours, you are just in many senses of the word – a blight on the cultural  society. The opinion pieces that you write that you vaguely imagine to be insightful, are the muddled, tenebrous ramblings of a schoolboy, blemished by too much encouragement and money. When Ben Fold’s Rocking The Suburbs, you thought you’d found an ideological ally when you heard the lyrics:

You don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle class and white.

I wish your articles were satire if they were – they’d be comedic mastery – but it’s sadly from your mind grapes.

Woah – That rant was so much fun. I’ve almost totally forgotten about Jacqui. Ah! distraction!

The comments made by Jacqui Lewis are appalling. The judgement of an 18year old girl into trusting a partner was her only mistake. Creating tapes of sexual intercourse is a precarious game, but not slutty, not illegal and not worth vilification. In the history of sex tape ’scandals’ – it appears women get much of the blame for ‘allowing it to occur’. The exploitation and embarassment of women in this situation cannot be overstated – when this is a private, personal act between consenting adults it should remain so. However in our oversexed society – sex tapes are media gold. In a sex tape the man is a stud and the woman is a slut – sex tapes fall out of reality and become the narrative of a porn film. She’s unworthy, stupid and deserves it. Now this Lincoln Lewis kid hopefully now has a sign that says:

You do not ever want to get close to me or any of my family!

Jacqui Lewis did what was easiest – blame the girl. I’m sure the environment he was brought up in, the continual veneration of his father professional thrower and kicker of  things, has like for so many men made him respect women. Like Margaux Parker, wife of Corey from Broncos in the Sunday Mail several weeks ago, who said:

The skirts go up and the tops come down.

Yeah. Its easier to take criticism from women than from men – so go the easier route, blame those nasty, scantily clad women and the boys won’t think you’re hard, harsh or a bitch.

Hey Random Readers,

Tempany Deckert here.  I’m the co-author of IT’S YR LIFE, the new young adult novel that Random Australia have just published.  I’m an Aussie living in the United States and I’ve written a bunch of tween and young adult novels, as well as acting up a storm on TV shows, plays and films.

In fact, that’s where I met the co-author of IT’S YR LIFE, Tristan Bancks.  We were both teen actors on Home and Away many moons ago.

Living in Los Angeles is very weird….!  I try to keep Australian by bombarding all my Aussie friends back home with copious emails.  That’s in fact how IT’S YR LIFE came about.  I was emailing Tristan and we decided to do a writing exercise back and forth over the web.  He wrote a character from his home in Byron Bay and I wrote my character from Hollywood, Los Angeles.

That’s what is interesting about being a writer.  You can pretend to be any character, anywhere in the world.  Writing from the perspective of a bratty Hollywood teenager took me through a whole mindshift.  And it made me see Los Angeles from a very different perspective.

Tristan’s character was a freegan.  Know what that is?  I wonder, has Tristan ever been a freegan?  Tristan?  Please enlighten us!!

Reliance Capital who stock is almost up by more than 45 percent in just 4 trading session has informed that its looking to divest up to 26 percent in its insurance arm Reliance Life Insurance through an IPO as well as by inducting a strategic investor. Reliance Capital holds 100% in Reliance Life Insurance. Reliance Life Insurance would be valued well in excess of Rs 12,000 crore and they will have more clear picture on it in another 3 to 4 months.
Reliance Life insurance is considered to be 4th strongest in line next to ICICI, SBI Life and Bajaj Allianz. They have almost more than 10 percent share in the indian insurance market.
 via <a href=’www.rupya.com’>Rupya</a>

zyakaira notes: The 3-4 insurance IPOs including ICICI Bank IPO for separating capital structures and governance would themselves bring companies with a valuation of INR 120000 Crores or around $25 Billion to the listed markets at BSE and NSE. Along with the PSUs and Infra stocks we may be adding market cap equivalent to India’s GDP in these 1-2 years and raising more than $10 billion from the markets

After a long and fruitless hunt for acquisitions, Singapore Telecommunications is in sight of a growth booster. And going by its involvement in the Bharti Airtel-MTN Group merger talks, it is determined to grab it.

SingTel’s current business model depends on its foreign holdings, including Indian associate Bharti Airtel, to generate profit growth, with operations in Australia and Singapore yielding cashflow. But some of its foreign mobile associates are under pressure from increasing market competition while others are posting losses.

Bloomberg News/Landov

A Bharti-MTN merger would be a godsend for SingTel.A combination of Bharti and MTN would thus be a godsend for the Singapore company — Tuesday SingTel said it will “continue to be actively involved in due diligence and key aspects of the transaction,” emphasizing its interest.

If the $23-billion merger deal goes through, SingTel could own a piece of an outfit that would have more than 200 million subscribers in Asia, the Middle East and Africa combined, generating more than $20 billion in annual revenue. That’s almost twice SingTel’s revenue during the fiscal year that ended March.

Although the deal could dilute SingTel’s holding in Bharti to 19%-20% from the current 30.4%, SingTel could get as much 12% of MTN.

zyakaira’s update on the deal: Singtel is financing the sale as per its stake and additionally, planning to buy back the 10% odd that is being diluted from MTN as MTN looks for more cash from the deal. MTN is definitely the more profitable partner in a hyper growth market where India’s growth and that of Airtel is currently sluggish comparitively and EBITDA also compares favorably for MTN. Airtel’s expertise and hold on the sector is significant of course, and the requirement of good management may weigh over the ‘zyaada’ desire of MTN to exercise cash and control from the deal. Also, both parties would be having a harrowing time trying to handle the pursuant tax implications

On the telecom front the other ‘investment’ news to watch out for is the funding of the JV stakes in new circles and the 5000 crores reserve price worth auctions of 3G and WiMax spectrum. One feels they could easily have been combined instead of two different reserve prices as buyers are the same. Airtel in any case, would be one of the more forthcoming bidders and one of the first to roll out.

via Bharti-MTN a Dream Deal for SingTel – WSJ.com.

Here are the official shots of the 2009/10 Olympique Marseille home and away kits, by Adidas.