Wednesday, December 12, 2012

3 days is all it took...

...to sell-off a fortune to a rookie named Apple!

“How about earning $1 million worth of my company’s equity for 3 days in your garden (that’s where you basically do your research!)... Deal?” What if your competitor proposes this to you? Great deal, isn’t it? Well, not really... Cut to 1979, officials at Xerox Corp., learnt this lesson the hard way. Xerox, under David Kearnes then, had allowed engineers from Apple Inc. to learn the Graphical User Interface technology (GUI) during a 3-day learning session at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, for a consideration of $1 million in Apple’s pre-IPO stocks. What followed shocked Xerox. Apple’s engineers soon launched a GUI-clad personal computer named ‘Apple Lisa’, arguably the first hit product from Apple! Jobs’ foresightedness for the technology and Xerox’s myopia, gave Apple the much needed lead in this regard. “When a company is new and small, it doesn’t seem like a giant competitive threat, so doing deals with it is not important enough for anyone to pay attention to. These companies become large competitors and the deals that were done years ago, which made sense back then, don’t make sense anymore,” supports Jeff Kagan, a Tech analyst. Well, the GUI technology today forms a part & parcel of every major OS in the world.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, December 9, 2012

C‘z’eck and mate!

Klaus must follow a wait and watch strategy before taking any step

The Czech Republican political scene has been quite erratic since the 1989 revolution. So it came as no surprise when on March 24, Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek's government lost the no-confidence vote in the Parliament. Losing the fifth no-confidence vote for the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Christian Democratic Party (KDU-CSL) and Green Party (SZ) coalition (since it took power in January 2007), has also jeopardised the country's international reputation and worsened the pressing domestic issues. The government had to go through the whole exercise after one of its member shifted loyalties from ODS to the leftist Social Democratic party. The government lost the vote of confidence by just one vote.

To keep the tension in the country at bay, both the left wing and the right wing parties have now agreed to hold early elections. “There was an agreement on holding early election, but not on a date yet,” says Jana Bartosova, Spokeswoman, ODS. Czech Republic is currently sitting on the post of EU presidency and the political trouble brewing within the country would have an implication on how it handles its responsibilities in EU. And that too when the Czech presidency of EU has always been questioned from day one. Its stand to not ratify the Lisbon Treaty has been looked down by many EU members.

In such a scenario, it leaves President Vaclav Klaus with only one solution – to find the new government as soon as possible. But while Klaus looks for a quick fix solution, the problem is that none of the big parties are strong enough to form government.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, December 7, 2012

M & A

Are companies strategising their inorganic growth any better amid global turmoil? B&E presents an in-depth analyses of some top global and Indian M&As...

Boa: merrill lynch
Weekend fun!
Dine, wine and buy a company

The credit crisis sweeping across the American financial system has helped sound buyers to claim opportunity from ordeal; Bank of America (BoA) happens to be amongst the sound buyers. In a gut wrenching weekend when Lehman Brothers was headed for a possible liquidation and AIG was facing the investors’ wrath, Merrill Lynch (ML) was quick to strike a deal with BoA. In a deal valued at $50 billion ($29 a share with 70% premium over the last traded price of $17.05 a share), BoA acquired ML at about two thirds of its value a year ago and half its all time peak value of early 2007. The dramatic deal, a marriage of a commercial bank and an investment bank, which took less than 48 hours to be finalised, is one kind of a deal that has earned a dubious reputation.

Given the deal’s size, scope, complexity, and the short time in which the deal was completed; even a child could say it is humanly impossible that a thorough due-diligence could have taken place. Analysts argued that it will set a record for merger integration disaster and the fact that BoA’s shares have been massacred by 78% ever since the deal was announced on September 15, 2008, goes on to justify the same. According to Marco Boschetti, Towers Perrin’s Head of Global M&A and Restructuring, “Market turmoil has conjured up the concept of Express M&A… but increased speed brings increased risk and makes prioritisation critical.” The risks associated with the merger were not analysed and the shareholders were kept in dark that Merrill had hemorrhaged $13.8 billion during the final three months of 2008, leave alone the fact that ML had to write down $52 billion of credit related losses.

Ken Lewis, CEO, BoA, can continue to boast on the synergies and that acquiring ML was a great opportunity for BoA’s shareholders, but the reality is that investors have now filed a lawsuit against him accusing him of failing to disclose risks associated with ML takeover. And now after six moths of the deal, the only visible winners are the advisors of the deal, Fox – Pitt Kelton and J. C. Flowers & Co., who just reaped a handsome $20 million for a weekend’s work!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.


 
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Link-ups and break-ups…

Link-ups and break-ups… it’s all happening on the Internet.

One could praise this tech-creation for forging new relationships, but the same can also be the culprit of broken relationships. A space where youngsters log on to find that special ‘someone’, also has those who enter the cyber world to get away from his/her someone. The hit Facebook fad has seemed to catch on to all, young and old. If you’ve watched the movie, Mitr, you’ll know that there are circumstances in life which can make one resort to an alternate source of companionship, to which agrees Deepti, who has been married for seven years. “I have an account on Orkut and Facebook and there are times when I’ve added strangers from a common interest community to chat at times. Though I haven’t been attracted to anyone, it still, is addictive,” she giggles and adds that she wouldn’t find it surprising if someone gets intimate and perhaps even “romantically involved” through such sites. Priyanka, not a very net savvy woman, shares, “My husband is very fond of on-line chatting and keeps in touch with friends through Facebook. Sometimes, when he surfs for long hours, it makes me slightly insecure and although I shouldn’t, my mind still forces me to peep into his laptop and check on him!

Social networking sites, being a rather recent trend in India, haven’t been the reason for as many break-ups and link-ups as compared to the West. Pranav Akhauri, a student in New York says, “Facebook is almost like a ‘life-update wall’ for most people here. Many hearts meet and many hearts break on Facebook, and the world gets to know about it.” When asked about his opinion on this, he sums it all up saying, “Years ago, connections were made and broken through letters, then came the telephone, and then the SMS. It has all been developed to facilitate communication… Today it is the Internet and tomorrow there will be something else… and life will go on!”


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Reading the future

Reading the future of books and movies...

The story is quite the same in the west too. From romances like Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, My Fair Lady, to mafia dramas like Godfather to science fiction films like War of the Worlds, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, to fantasy films like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter – countless classic films have been made out of equally rivetting books.

Most would agree that the art of this age are movies, and since decades writers have made little money from their work. So, is it time for writers to ruminate about the subject of their books in context to their scope of becoming entertaining masala films? Ravi Subramanian, author of books like I bought the Monk’s Ferrari, opines, “Movies are one more viable option for authors to make revenue and get noticed. In Hello, for instance, the only person who benefitted from the movie was Chetan Bhagat. The movie bombed, the producers lost money, its actors didn’t profit much. The real benefit in terms of profile, money, visibility, was Chetan Bhagat. I think writing books with an eye on the movies, is not a bad option because it gives you a fair bit of recognition. The movies go far and deep in this country. In India as they say, only two things sell – cricket and Bollywood. If you can write a book that can be adapted to a movie, or if you can tweak your book to adapt around for a movie, I think you can be fairly successful. Though movie writing itself doesn’t pay you too much.”

Cinema is a medium that has the entire nation hooked. So is it not high time authors tweak their Modus operandi? A strong relationship can be forged between films and books, what remains to be seen is how long this will take to blossom.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, December 3, 2012

ISRAEL-RUSSIA WAR OF WORDS: SPAWNS GENERATIONS... LITERALLY

And on why mothers and grandmothers of this great nation play a critical role in the Israeli-Russia spar

Is it religious proximity? That doesn’t seem to be the case as Georgia is a certified orthodox Christian state compared to the predominantly Jewish Israel. While one can easily trace deep relations between Israel and Georgia – be their arms trade or the presence of Georgian Jews in Israel – what slips under the carpet magnanimously is the fact that important political leaders of Israel and Georgia are actually blood relatives. For information, the chairman of the Georgian parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Lasha Zhvania has an Israeli Jewish mother. God rest her soul, the grandmother of scam-fam Israeli Ariel Sharon is buried in Georgia. The ubiquitously sweet Georgian defence minister Davit Kezerashvili, holds the citizenship of, god rest our souls, Israel!!!

Strangely, despite its Pravda-driven spiel [Pravda skims close to being certified a lunatic bandwagon, with the past month’s chief story, for example, being Condoleezza Rice’s Sexual Worries], the Russian political powerhouse actually is still a big supporter of Israel. It’s not just about the recent acceptance of a visa free regime between Israel and Russia, even Russia’s nuclear fuel supply to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant – despite US rhetoric – is in fact an extremely clever move to dissuade Teheran from enriching its own fuel.

But as they say, there’s only this much that Putin can take, and there’s only that much that Israel can flirt with. Till the time Israel looks beyond US influence – and dare we say, even their mothers and grandmothers – and realises that Russia is actually on their side, this great nation might actually end up in creating their biggest foe in history! For hell hath no fury as Putin scorned, and it doesn’t require Einstein to know that!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, December 2, 2012

RATAN TATA: CONTINGENCY FUND

Ratan Tata seeks a special contingency fund to be created by banks to rescue Indian companies who have taken dollar and euro loans. A script not so hard to decipher!

After the rupee fall, the $6 billion odd loan seems even steeper. The debt-equity ratio of Tata Steel has now increased from 1:1 in 2006 to 2.74:1.

By the end of 2007, myopic people like us were talking about an imminent global recession. But group company Tata Motors took over struggling JLR from Ford Motors sometime during late May 2008 for $2.3 billion and a couple of billions of dollars in debt! And then Citicorp (the bad boy shedding 50,000 jobs) has the gall to downgrade the ratings of Tata Motors to high risk! Of course the fact that UK sales of Land Rover crashed by 58% last month is but a minor detail. Even minor perhaps are details like the huge $525 million profit from selling Glaceau to Coca-Cola (wow, that did vanish fast!) and JLR seeking a 1 billion pound bail out from the UK government.

Pardon our temerity, Sir. We are not at all doubting your intentions with respect to the ‘special fund’. We are anyways just a bunch of ignorant pessimists! If we knew any better, we perhaps would have been leading top notch conglomerates on our own, wouldn’t we?


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)