Gulf Finance House confirmed at the weekend they’ve placed a $100m convertible murabaha with Deutsche bank. It’s the second deal of its kind, bringing the total amount of finance raised by GFH this year to $500m, $300m of which has been brought in since last month. The deal with Deutsche further strengthen’s the bank’s ties with the international banking community after a placement with Macquarie earlier in the year.

GFH recently stated it planned to focus on investment banking in a move away from projects involving real estate.

It’s a testament to the growing global interest in islamic finance transactions.

More here.

MACQUARIE Group will reward its top bankers with a more tax-effective share scheme, as the board declared shareholders would receive a slashed dividend unfranked for the first time in the bank’s history.

MACQUARIE Media Group, one of Australia’s largest regional media companies, will pay its major shareholder Macquarie Group more than $40 million to break an onerous annual fee structure so it can take back management rights for the company.

The long-expected corporate shake-up, reflecting moves this year to dismantle the Macquarie satellite structure as high debt loads threatened to crush Macquarie offshoots, could also point to a consolidation in regional media assets next year.

MMG, which owns the Southern Cross regional TV network, as well as 68 commercial radio stations across Australia, is banking on a more conventional management and shareholding structure to spark investor appetite for its stock and drive takeover talk. Ernst & Young, the independent expert examining its planned divorce from Macquarie Group, said there would be “increased opportunity for corporate activity” at MMG if the deal was completed.

Critical to yesterday’s announcement is MMG’s plan to raise $294m to pay down $870m in debt. The capital raising is being pitched as a one-for-one entitlement offer at $1.55 a share — a steep discount to MMG’s trading price before yesterday’s announcement of $2.50 and one that was attracting plenty of interest from institutional investors. The stock floated in 2005 at $4.75 a unit.

Macquarie, which owns 24.8 per cent of MMG, is taking up its rights to the offer. It is also underwriting the offer along with RBS Equity.

MMG chief executive Mark Dorney said if the deal was completed, debt at the company would be reduced to $306m and that this would put the company’s debt levels at the bottom end of its media sector peers. As expected, its troubled US community newspaper business, ACM, is effectively being cut loose, and the business is expected to fall into the hands of bankers there.

Mr Dorney also told institutional investors that once the deal was complete the company’s shares, when measured against operating profit levels, would be much cheaper than those of comparative companies — MMG would be trading at 7.6 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) versus 12.3 times for its peer group. The so-called internalisation of MMG’s management is contentious, however, because of the break fee it has to pay its major shareholder for the privilege of taking back management rights.

Mr Dorney — who will return to the parent company Macquarie once the deal is complete and will be succeeded by MMG’s Southern Cross Media chief executive Rhys Holleran — defended the deal. He said the independent expert, which he noted had been commissioned by the independent board, “has opined that that internalisation is fair and reasonable to MMG security holders”.

It’s my dream to turn this blog into a book but I’ve long struggled with a beginning. As I’ve laid here tonight, stressing over my midterms in organic chemistry, biology and South Asia studies, I began facebooking my guide from the Red Center, Kate. That inspired me to read my Enter the Red Center post, which got me thinking about the blog and wishing I had time to finish it. Laying in bed at 2:00am spawned this. I think I like it.

“There you go,” the driver grunted, handing me my luggage. “Follow this pathway around the corner, take a left up the steps. Your doorway is the third on your right. Take the stairs to the top, apartment 61. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, I think I got it,” I muttered exhaustedly. I thanked him and he drove off.

I started rounding the pathway, stopped to look about and was hit with a 100-lb ball of reality to the chest. It was as though I was watching myself on a camera. It slowly began to zoom out, picking up speed. First a view of myself slumped over my luggage, then the apartment complex, the suburb of Marsfield, then city of Sydney, and finally Australia as a whole. I started to feel the 7500 miles of ocean between myself and those I loved-heck, those I knew.

MACQUARIE Media Group said today it plans to buy its management rights, effectively removing Macquarie Group as its manager following similar moves from other Macquarie Group-listed satellites.

In a statement, Macquarie Media said it will pay Macquarie Group $40.5 million for the management rights, and plans to simplify its corporate structure by converting to a single holding company.

The group also announced plans to raise $294 million through a deeply discounted underwritten 1-for-1 accelerated renouncable entitlement offer at $1.55 per stapled security, to help pay down debt.

The group’sshares last traded at $2.50 each.

This year the Australian Anthropological Society has instituted a distinguished public lecture in anthropology to be given by a prominent member of the discipline. Clearly this is an attempt by the society to give anthropology more of a public face in Australia, which I think is definitely a Good Thing.

The inaugural lecture will be given by Ghassan Hage, entitled “The open mind and its enemies: Anthropology and the passion of the political”. Scheduled for 8 December, the lecture will open the events surrounding the AAS annual conference 9-11 December, proudly hosted by us at Macquarie.

Details: (AAS lecture flyer)

Ghassan Hage is an internationally acclaimed thinker, both as an academic and an arresting public intellectual. He is the author of many works on nationalism, racism, multiculturalism and migration from a comparative perspective. The most well-known is White Nation (2000) examining White experiences of Australian Multiculturalism, and his latest is Waiting (2009). Prof. Hage taught Anthropology at the University of Sydney for fifteen years until 2007. He has held many prestigious visiting professorships including at Harvard University, L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the University of Copenhagen and the American University of Beirut. His provocative, insightful and sometimes moving press and radio discussions have been a valuable part of public life in Australia during the last decade.

Tuesday 8th December 2009
State Library of NSW
Macquarie Street, Sydney
Metcalfe Auditorium
FREE ADMISSION
Program:
6pm Refreshments will be served
6.30 – 7.15 Lecture
7.15 – 7.45 Questions from audience
8pm Finish

Please Visit www.aas.asn.au for further information

Well, here I am again. Just thought it’d be nice to have a (long) recap on the last few days of school.. seeing a lot has happened. Hardihar.

On Sunday I woke up early, at eight. Yes, I know Sunday’s not a “school day” but I just wanted to talk about it cus it was funtimes. For some reason I decided to have a go at playing “River Flows In You” on piano because it’s so beautiful. I’m getting there. D: Haha, it’s hilarious because my sheet music says “River Flows In Your.” Awesome. Anywhos, I just find it irritating that I’m starting to get into all these things when HSC is right around the corner. I’m starting to read books, play piano and I want to learn guitar now. Sadly they’re all going to have to wait until November 2nd- the day I can LET LOOSE (:

Anyway, SOMEBODY (Eddy) decides to sleep in and so John and Eddy arrive at 10, half an hour late. That’s okay, we still got to Cabra the same time as Sharon. We wandered around, looking at the Moon Festival stuffs and ditched Sharon while she tried stealing balloons from the little children. This was probably the highlight of the day? We were hiding behind the tent, and I was peeking through a tiny hole to keep an eye on Sharon. Eddy and John looked at Sharon’s reflection on a car window, just to make sure she was still there when suddenly Sharon looked at them through the reflection and signalled “I’m watching you.” Scared the crap out of us and we ran away. Hmmm, had yumcha for lunch yay! Second time everzzzzz and something I can cross of my TO DO AFTER HSC LIST. Paha. I was going to post up the really nice photos of our food, but Sharon hasn’t given them to me, so these photos will have to do:

Kevin look-a-like ;D

I don’t understand chicken feet. It just tastes like squish and has so many bones it gets so messy. WHY??????

After stuffing ourselves, we went to John’s place. Watched an episode of HIMYM and then went to the park nearby, the one Sharon discovered through Google Earth haha. The wind was blowing like crazy- even I almost stacked it from the strong winds haha. The park had really nice views as it was on the top of a hill and we just took a few luvos before I had to leave (BOO).

(Sharon being the young mother of Jonald)

Am I even talking in proper sentences with proper grammar? I can’t tell.

Monday marked our official graduation and man, it’s just really weird. People always go on about how it felt like yesterday was their first day of school, yada yada.. but it really is true! I remember thinking graduation was so far away and that I had ages til I had to leave such a wonderful place BUT IT CAUGHT UP WITH US. Time really is a scary thing.

I got to school, finished off my personal statement in the library (hehe, since trials I just haven’t had enough motivation to do ANYTHING.) I then joined the hall where I was.. pleasantly surprised with Single Ladies and the like. ;D We had a few rehearsals of Four Chords (which I think sounded better than the actual performance :\) and eventually it was SHOWTIME!

:)

I’ll refrain from the photos from the performance, cus I know everybody’s seen all those good looking single LADIES and such. Rest of the day was alright.. we finally got our rams! The rams (Ross Groves) we’ve been waiting six whole years for! It’s pretty soft, but I realise I can’t really do much with it.. it just sits there staring. It was a nice touch to see the baby photos (thanks Belle? or whoever did it) Children are so adorable! (:

Tuesday was our last “official” classes and the long awaited buffet – the luncheon. Everybody was just crazily writing messages on shirts, boobs, butts, books, everywhere! Thank you to whoever wrote in my book- I keep reading it over and over again cus I love it so much hehe.

People started grafiti’ing the place, including this masterpiece:

Luncheon was a huge disappointment. Not much variety in food, and there wasn’t much of it either! Pah, Winnie’s plate was packed full of food. I should’ve done that because by the time I came to get seconds it was ALL GONE. Blaaaaah. I swear the bulgogi was a fraud (Just like ACM) – too dried and looked gay. I don’t think Korean people made it (6). The cake was pretty but didn’t eat any of that either haha ;D Hmm, took another billion photos after that and then went to the field- only to find half the guys were walking around half naked.

After the assembly we went to Parra to buy stuff for Winnie & Carol which ended up being half successful.

Bus’ed it back to the hole named Carlo for Cabaret Night! There was a lot less year 12s than I thought would’ve come but still fun nonetheless. (: Dedicated our performance of The Look to Deva who is undoubtedly our number one fan! Uhh, not much to talk about from Cabaret actually, except that David’s little sister is a cutie.

Our Cabaret Table, sort of.

I realise we didn’t even have dinner that night, too busy for it I guess. Wow.

Cabaret ended on an awesome note- Grubsy and co. sang that song from Ice Age and Matilda (LOL I forgot it’s name) and everybody danced their way home (:

Wednesday marked our last official school day, and the eighteenth birthdays of our beloved CAROL and WINNIE! Balmoral party! Had a mini picnic party for our birthday girlies, which kind of flopped due to lack of food (thanks to those who did bring stuff) and I guess another crapload of photos!

I'm tall!

Tired, I shut my eyes for the bus trip back whilst singing to myself haha. We arrived back at school by 2 30 and filmed a mini Lion King movie on the field. Gosh we were gay… I was Mufasa (: We then caught the Epping bus.. to EPPING where Annie and I split off from the rest of the group (who went to Swami’s) and bus’ed it to Macquarie!

We wandered around ages for a bloody Squidward toy for Carol. We failed ==. In the end we found other nice stuff to finish the care package so it was all okay. Doing things last minute is SO BAD. ;D

Got a lift off Petey to THE RANCH only to find most of the party was going to arrive fashionably late. Once Swami’s gang arrived, we finished stuffing the boxes and presented (hoho) them to the birthday girls. I hope you guys liked them (: I found it so weird that we lined up to order and then got those beepers to wait for our meal to be ready D: Mindy and my order took forever thanks to my Chicken Avocado taking 30 minutes to cook ;D But it was worth it, I love avocado hehe. Heaps of luvo taking.. yet again and we left! Some of us walked to Macquarie to catch a bus whilst others rode in Jero’s taxi to KAREOKE!

Last one’s standing haha.

Sing sing sing. Winnie and Angelina did an encore dance of Single Ladies whilst Carol and I shrieked out the lyrics.. I think Danny or somebody filmed it. Pretty good dancing, I must say (; The last song we sang was “Can you feel the love tonight” as a dedication to somebody. Left at 1130 being the party animals we were and we parted ways.

Today. Thursday. Got up at 1 today, felt like I wasted a day.. which I did. Oh well.. slowly getting into the work routine. Only interesting thing that happened today was my telepathical spazz with Aryan. He had posted that retarded photo of me in sunnies (from Balmoral) which reminded me of MY photo of him in the sunnies.. being retarded. So I decided to copy paste them into one photo. Once I had completely my Paint masterpiece, I sent it to Aryan. Whilst THAT was loading, I received a facebook notification telling me Aryan had uploaded the SAME IDEA.

I then copy pasted another gay pose together and uploaded on Facebook. Most of you would’ve already seen it but here it is again:

And that was my day. Got a bit of maths done, but nothing spectacular. I’m hoping I’ll be more motivated tomorrow.

Now that we’ve graduated, I guess it’s time to start putting our heads down and studying. With only three weeks left, HSC is so close and it’s kind of scary how fast time goes. I guess that’ll just mean HSC will be over and done soon and we can start real lives!

Like I said in my previous post, TAKE CARE and BE SAFE. DON’T GET SICK AND STUDY HARD!

Love love.

INVESTMENT banks have earned an estimated $1.6 billion in the $90 billion-plus equity raising boom over the past year and it took Macquarie Group to highlight what a bonanza the banks have enjoyed.

The investment bank has agreed not to charge its 21 per cent-owned Macquarie Airports an underwriting fee for the $345 million it will pay itself for transferring management rights to the company from the bank.

MAp noted that Macquarie Group will receive only reasonable expenses for its efforts and this will total up to $20,000.

That leaves a fair gap between what are termed reasonable expenses and the $6m Macquarie Group would normally charge for a similar equity raising.

To read John Durie’s column on the latest Macquarie developments, click on MacBank hits MAp hurdle

I spoke to Tim Soden, who is a cadet journalist for the Macquarie network, which is the news service for 2gb, and 2ch. I met Tim when I was an intern at Macquarie, and because he basically has my dream job, I was able to ask him some questions.

(a) what skills they use in their jobs

Tim uses all of the skills a journalist needs to use. On top of that, he usesa number of skills that are exclusive to radio. In his job, Tim conducts interviews live and over the phone, he attends press conferences, writes and narrates stories, and reads bulleins.

Another important skill Tim uses in his job is choosing which stories to follow up, and what angles to go with.

(b) how they got in to their job
Tim got his job by being persistent. He volunteered at 2gb on weekends, and doing the less desirable shifts. (Midnight to dawn). It’s imporant to recognise that as a young journalist, you have to pay your dues. Which is why Tim took a job anwsering the phones at 2gb over summer, it meant that people would remember him when it came time to hire for new positions.

(c) advice on getting in to that job

“Do anyhing you can to get your foot in the door, and don’t let them forget who you are”
(d) what they like about their job

Tim gets to do something diffent every day. One day it might be covering a political story, the next day it could be going to a sport press conference. The next day he might be going on a harbour cruise to discuss future development plans.

He also gets to meet fascinating people from all walks of life, including politicians, sports stars, criminals, and people behind the microphone, such as Peter Harvey, who is full of good advice.

(e) what they don’t like about their job
“People see a young reporter, and almost instantly they don’t take me seriously” Which has some good points, because it can often be disarming for them

Saw Macquarie buying Lepanto Mining (PSE: LC) at 0.28 just a while, this after weeks of absence in the buy side. Is the buying real or this is just a fluke?

Satellite imagery indicates two tropical waves located over the far eastern Atlantic. Thunderstorm activity associated with the waves is disorganized. Global forecast models indicate increasing southwesterly wind shear to the west of the first wave from a rather extensive mid-upper level trough. There is a low risk of development over the next 24 hours before the initial wave encounters the unfavorably strong shear to the west. However, conditions are expected to be more favorable as the trough expected to shear the lead wave is forecast to weaken. The American and European models forecast this second wave to become a tropical storm by the middle of next week. However, a persistent break in the sub-tropical ridge along 50W is expected to remain firmly in place as a strong deep layer trough passes across the central North Atlantic later in the week. The trough should help to steer this potential tropical cyclone more northwestward by next weekend leaving little chance for it to make it into the western Atlantic. NO Gulf or Caribbean threats are indicated at this time.

About the unconference day.

Please Register to Attend!

In order to attend you must register by 24th September for the on campus event, in order for us to comply with a range of practical issues and ensure everyone has a great day. The conference will be split between physical space and virtual space through the islands of Jokaydia, home to the Macquarie Second Life campus. You only need to do this if you are intending to come on campus. Register here online

For more information, or to suggest a session you want to run/talk about – just visit the wiki - hope to see you there.

MACQUARIE has taken a $9.27 billion hit on writedowns across its embattled listed funds as the investment bank moves to further scale back its bull-market satellite model.

In the past year, Macquarie wrote down $2.54bn from the investment bank, $2.4bn from the Macquarie Infrastructure Group, $1.63bn from Macquarie Countrywide, $1.33bn from Macquarie Office Trust, $872 million from Macquarie DDR, $363m from MAp and $139m in Macquarie Media.

The cuts were the largest ever made across the portfolio and were seen by analysts as further evidence the bank wants to move from the listed funds model.

White Funds Management director Angus Gluskie, an investor across the Macquarie portfolio, said some of the writedowns were related to accounting standards, but the bank was increasingly keen to focus on the unlisted funds.

“Macquarie has made several moves to pull back or pull out of the listed markets,” Mr Gluskie said. “They are not quite abandoning the funds management aspect of their business — they are still running a number of unlisted vehicles, and there has been no indication they are going to pull away from these. I think they’re going to prefer the unlisted markets in the medium to long term.”

Major investors are warming to MAp’s proposal, released on Friday night, to pay a $345m fee to internalise its management rights in cash rather than by an equity issue to Macquarie.

The restructured deal came after intense criticism from MAp’s major investors that the issue of 150 million new stapled securities would dilute the remaining shareholder base.

The fund’s third-largest investor, Lazard Asset Management, will now back the deal. Mr Gluskie said the revised cash payment was in the best interests of MAp investors.

“On our numbers this is much better for MAP, because if you had a look the structure they were going to fund the buyout by virtually issuing equity to Macquarie, that was going to have a large dilutionary impact,” he said. “There will still be some debate about the actual price — there are some people who think it’s inappropriate. We think it’s a little bit pricey but not a killer.”

MACQUARIE Group today said it had formed a Shanghai-based trust company in a joint venture with two state-controlled companies, in the latest push by the Australian investment bank to access the mainland’s growing financial services sector.

Macquarie holds 19.99 per cent – the maximum a foreign company is allowed to invest in a Chinese trust company – in the newly formed trust company, Sino-Australian International Trust Co.

Through the new venture, Macquarie can offer yuan-denominated financial products and arrange domestic and equity financing in China, the Australian investment bank said.

Beijing Sanjili Energy, a state-owned power generation company, holds a 60 per cent stake in the venture, while another state-owned firm, Beijing Rongda Investment, has the remaining 20.01 per cent.

The joint venture has an initial capital of 300 million yuan ($53.2m), Macquarie said.

“The joint venture will allow us to extend our client service capability as we build a domestic distribution network and to arrange financing for international clients operating in China and locally based corporates,” said Andrew Low, head of Macquarie Capital Asia.

Yu Jian Ping, chairman of Beijing Sanjili, said the joint venture is aimed at tapping into the hefty savings pool in China, where household savings reached around Y20 trillion in 2008.

The new joint venture comes as Macquarie ramps up its China interests.

Earlier this month, Macquarie Group said it had formed a joint venture with Hong Kong and mainland-based conglomerate China Everbright, to set up two funds that will invest in infrastructure businesses in the greater China region.

The Australian firm also reached an agreement last December to set up an investment banking joint venture in China with Inner Mongolia-based Hengtai Securities, but that venture is still awaiting regulatory approval, people familiar with the matter said.

China’s trust market, on the other hand, faces fewer regulatory hurdles in making investments than the country’s brokerage or banking sectors. Getting approval to set up a trust is also easier to obtain. That’s why many foreign banks and brokerages have moved to form trust joint ventures before clinching other types of tie-ups.

Trust companies can invest their funds into the money or capital markets, or use their funds to buy unlisted equities at financial institutions. They can also conduct lending businesses. Many of China’s private equity funds are issued through trust companies. In contrast, the joint-venture brokerages now being approved by China are limited to underwriting and sponsoring deals in domestic securities and debt markets, as well as advisory work.

Last November, Morgan Stanley acquired 19.9 per cent of China’s Hangzhou Industrial & Commercial Trust, for Y200m.

Earlier in 2008, NAB bought nearly 20 per cent in Union Trust & Investment, becoming the first foreign lender to buy into a Chinese trust company.

Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays have also gained Chinese regulatory approval to purchase minority stakes in local trust firms.

A week after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its peer review analysis of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS-2)’s calculations of biofuels’ carbon footprint, including indirect land use changes (iLUC), two scholars in Australia just released a stinging critique of the underlying study that launched the whole debate over iLUC.

Press Release: ‘Too Diffuse and Subject To Too Many Arbitrary Assumptions To Be Useful for Rule-making.’

– Lack of transparency and scientific integrity in Searchinger et al. questioned;
- Searchinger et al. paper described as more ideology than science and seeking to put biofuels in worst possible light;
- Alternative approaches likely to be more fruitful in genuinely evaluating effects of biofuels grown around the world.

A scholarly analysis of the keystone of indirect land use study – Searchinger et al. – found the science fell far short of acceptable scientific standards. Professor John Mathews and Dr. Hao Tan, researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, undertook an exhaustive analysis of Searchinger et al. which revealed that the framework used was inappropriate in that it started with assumptions as to diversion of grain to ethanol production in the U.S. but then extrapolated these to parts of the world, such as sugarcane growing in Brazil, which are actually (much) more bio-efficient. Mssrs. Mathews and Tan’s analysis concluded that Searchinger et al. failed sound scientific standards on many fronts and that government agencies relying on Searchinger et al. findings for evaluating biofuels would be better served by utilizing other controls.

“Indirect land use change effects are too diffuse and subject to too many arbitrary assumptions to be useful for rule-making,” stated Professor Mathews. “The use of direct and controllable measures such as building statements of origin or biofuels into the contracts that regulate the sale of such commodities would secure better results.”

The issue is where to draw the boundary for life cycle analysis and how to address ILUC effects within the boundary. Non-industry experts are concerned that this is taking regulatory action too far, and the science underpinning such actions, including the ILUC calculations of authors such as Searchinger et al., cannot stand the scientific weight being placed upon them.

The Mathews and Tan analysis states that the real target of the Searchinger et al. paper would appear to be the model of U.S. ethanol production developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in the U.S. Researchers at Argonne have developed a model for biofuels production and consumption in the U.S. that takes full life cycle analysis issues into consideration as well as some attention to land use changes. But the Argonne work does not extend to indirect land use changes, which are considered too uncertain to be modeled – and so it has come in for much criticism from Searchinger et al. as well as others.

“If you wished to put U.S. ethanol production in the worst possible light, assuming the worst possible set of production conditions guaranteed to give the worst possible set of indirect land use effects, then the assumptions would not be far from those actually presented in the Searchinger et al. paper,” commented Dr. Hao Tan. “Frankly, better science upon which to base rule-making is available today.”

The Mathews and Tan analysis identified six areas in which Searchinger et al. fell short:

• Direct plantings of biofuels crops around the world are ignored, and instead a spike in U.S. corn-based ethanol is considered a trigger;
• The U.S. spike is met exclusively by growing corn – but other ways of meeting the U.S. spike, all involving fewer GHG emissions, are ignored;
• The U.S. spike met entirely within the U.S. – without regard to trade (such as half of the spike being met by Brazilian sugarcane and imported into the U.S.);
• The Searchinger et al. calculations of carbon release are based on trends recorded in the 1990s but are projected forward up to 2016;
• Improvements in biomass yields around the world are not considered;
• The U.S. spike leads to indirect effects around the world without regard to regulatory limits (even in the U.S.).

“These six shortcomings, together with the fact that the paper is not replicable, since the models and parameters used are not accessible, places a question mark over the refereeing procedures used for this paper by the journal Science,” added John Mathews. “A paper that seeks to place a procedure in the worst possible light, and refrains from allowing others to check its results, is perhaps better described as ideology than as science.”

The full analysis – Biofuels and indirect land use change effects: the debate continues – is available here.

About John Mathews. Professor Mathews is professor of strategic management at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. As a specialist in technology and innovation, he is interested in the renewable energy industries and in particular biofuels industries. He has worked internationally with UNCTAD, UNIDO and with the World Bank. He takes up the Foundation ENI Chair in competitive dynamics and global strategy at LUISS Guido Carli university, in Rome, in September.

About Hao Tan. Dr. Tan holds a doctor of business administration from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia (Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation For Excellence In Postgraduate Research). He is currently supervisor research analyst and conducts research on cyclical industrial dynamics which he has presented at numerous international conferences.

MSCI Emerging Markets Index to August 2009

Source: Bloomberg

Meralco stocks continue hot streak
By Zinnia B. Dela Peña Updated July 29, 2009 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines – Shares of power utility giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) continued its hot streak as its price zoomed up 21.1 percent yesterday on renewed speculations the company’s major shareholders are on a sustained buying binge to tighten their grip on the company.

Meralco shares peaked at P275 per share before closing at a new record high of P272.50 yesterday, an increase of P47.50 from the previous close of P225.

A total of 3.08 (million) shares were crossed at the market yesterday valued at P787.96 million, including two block sales facilitated by Macquarie Securities Philippines Inc. and Summit Securities. Data from the Philippine Stock Exchange showed 1.598 million shares were sold in two transactions consisting of 829,000 shares at P251 each share and 769,000 shares at P250 apiece.
Read the rest

by Angus Robertson for Research Recap, July 27 2009.

In a Special Comment, Moody’s said there is significant room for improvement in the risk governance of many large banks and added that it will be looking closely at the issue in determining bank credit ratings. Moody’s singled out JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Macquarie (MQG) and Santander (BSCH) as exceptions, with all three banks having a powerful Chief Risk Officer reporting to the CEO and the Board. By contrast the CROs at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and HSBC report to the CFO. Santander also leads in the frequency of risk committee meetings at 120, followed by BBVA at 45 and then by TBD at 10.

With a focus on 35 large banks in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific the report reviews risk governance practices, covering risk committee structure and frequency of meetings, risk committee composition and the existence, reporting line and status of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO)…

To read the complete article please click here.