TheChek News Flow

Link {http://bit.ly/1jFCYaf}

Hamburg - The production of the i3 run sluggishly on, the manager magazine reports in its new issue (Release date: February 21). Even before a good month they had almost 50 percent located behind the plan, report Leipzig responsible.

Especially with the carbon parts there is further a very high error rate. In addition, suppliers report that BMW Show Charttake yet only just over half the amount actually ordered from.

BMW sold the scooter since November 2013. The i3 is the first car with a body made ​​of the lightweight material carbon. To ensure the supply, BMW had in advance together with the industrial group SGL Carbon Show Chart built up its own supply chain.

In order to solve the supply problems with carbon, will now also invest at least 100 million euros in the production of carbon parts BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer.

The Group currently produces an average of 70 i3 per day. "We are dealing with a completely new type of automobile production. One or the other initial problem is as normal," said project manager Ulrich Kranz.

BMW have deliberately chosen a very flat start-up curve. So far, have ordered an i3 for Group Information 11,000 customers. Prospective report of waiting until September.

The deal, which will reduce the number of mobile providers in Europe's biggest market from four to three, is crucial for the European telecoms industry, which is keen to build up scale via consolidation and better compete with bigger U.S. peers.

The European Commission's objection to the deal as it stands would likely lead to the offer of concessions from the German unit of Spain's Telefonica.

The Commission, the EU's executive body, opened an in-depth investigation into the deal in December last year, saying it was concerned the takeover would reduce competition in Europe's largest economy and lead to higher prices for consumers.

"The next step is a statement of objections to the companies," said one of the people, referring to a Commission document which sets out the regulator's demands in order for the deal to be approved.

A third source said the Commission will likely send the document to the companies next week.

Commission spokesman for competition policy, Antoine Colombani, declined to comment. Telefonica Deutschland spokesman Albert Fetsch and KPN also declined to comment.

Companies typically offer concessions to allay regulatory concerns.

Hutchison Whampoa secured EU approval two years ago to buy Orange's Austrian unit after promising to help new operators enter the market there.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Humphrey and colleagues today issued a so-called Blue Paper research note to clients on the future of mobile payments technology, as an update to a paper issued a month ago, after soliciting feedback from investors, and pondering the implications of recent data breaches at Target (TGT), Neiman Marcus and others.

The original report posited that mobile payments as a market could be worth $75 billion in technology sales annually at some point, based on about 2 billion smartphones being in use versus 1.3 billion active credit and debit cards globally. But the industry, wrote Humphrey in that note, is caught between different payment models, including well-developed kinds in Japan and Korea, and emerging models such as Google‘s (GOOG) Google Wallet, and whatever Apple (AAPL) decides to ultimately offer. Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) are expected to maintain their dominant position in mobile payments, which will “remain unchallenged under all scenarios,” Humphrey writes.

Investors Humphrey spoke with are interested in so-called EMV, a technology that uses an embedded chip in swipe cards:

Most of the investors we’ve talked to are focusing on the potential roll-out of smartcard payment technology in the US, particularly chip-and-PIN and EMV (Europay MasterCard Visa). Questions have centered on whether the data breaches seen at Target, Neiman Marcus, and other as-yet unnamed retailers in late 2013 could accelerate the timeline for deployment of EMV. We believe the payment security questions raised by the data breaches are likely to lead to renewed focus on the US roll-out of new payment technology, including EMV, which could create a short-term earnings boost for both Gemalto (GTO) and Ingenico (ING.PA)

EMV might have prevented the Target data breach on December 19th that compromised 110 million shoppers’ accounts, writes Humphrey:

There has been much discussion around this. Consensus is that EMV would have partly prevented the Target breach – or at least have made the theft of payment card details significantly less likely (and less valuable). When a traditional magnetic card is swiped, the cardholder details contained in the magnetic stripe (similar to a VHS or cassette tape) are transmitted into the terminal, where they are encrypted using Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. If the terminal has been compromised, card data can be stolen or ‘skimmed’. With an EMV card, the chip embedded in the card employs cryptography and other security features to protect cardholder information. The ability to combine the chip with a secure PIN (which can be verified offline), as well as the back end infrastructure, mean that EMV has reduced fraud substantially in markets where it has been introduced. Discover Financial Services stated in 2013 that the EU has seen an 80% reduction in credit card fraud since EMV was introduced, while the US has witnessed a 47% increase over the same period. The US is one of the last markets globally (other than China) to introduce chip card technology.

Humphrey predicts some speed-up in the use of EMV in the U.S. given that both Visa and MasterCard have noted that retailers who don’t use the technology come October 15th could be liable for charges of fraud in the event of a breach.

He thinks Ingenico of Paris is one of the big potential beneficiaries, with replacement of point-of-sale terminals, while Gemalto may benefit from issuance of new cards with chips in them:

Among our coverage, we believe Ingenico is best positioned for growth in the US EMV market. POS terminal shipments are 65% of revenue for Ingenico, where Gemalto’s banking business is ~25% of the Group total. In addition, we believe Ingenico could benefit from growth in market share in the US following recent deals. Gemalto market share is likely to be lower in the US than in the rest of the world, at least initially [...] In a bull case for Ingenico the company could win a market share of 40%, on an addressable market of 2 million POS terminals per year. In this scenario Ingenico could ship 800,000 terminals into the US, compared to current US shipments of ~200,000, and global shipments of around 6 million terminals. In practice, the addressable market could be larger, as growth of wireless terminals in the hospitality sector grow the addressable market and installed base. In any scenario the opportunity for additional terminal shipments is material [...] Gemalto is a leading supplier of chip cards globally, we estimate with around 50% market share globally in smartcards used in the banking sector (chip-and-PIN cards). We estimate a total installed base of credit and debit cards in the US of 1.5 billion. The typical replacement cycle for bank cards is 3-4 years, which is consistent with annual card issuance of 400-500m (likely higher once store cards are taken into account). Gemalto’s market share is likely to be lower overall in the US market, and management has stated is will likely partner with local card issuers. We believe a market share of 30% would not be out of the question. Applying our estimate for Gemalto ASPs of €0.85 in 2013, this could be a €100-130m revenue opportunity on total FY13e revenue of of €2.4 billion (so 4-5% revenue opportunity).

Of course, Humphrey and his team also speculate about an imminent arrival of Apple in the payments market:

Recent comments by the company indicate increased likelihood that Apple will launch a mobile payments platform. CEO Tim Cook commented on the December quarter earnings call and since then in the Wall Street Journal that the company plans to launch new product and services categories in CY14. When asked directly about mobile payments on the earnings call, Cook said that customers want to purchase content using Touch ID (the fingerprint sensor) because it is simple, easy and elegant. Currently, Apple allows users to purchase content from the iTunes and App Stores using their fingerprint but the technology is not available to third-party applications. Cook also said he saw more opportunity in this area, especially when given the demographics of Apple’s customers and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices versus competing platforms. Apple and others are creating an ecosystem of beacons. In recent months, we have seen trials and adoption of beacons and Bluetooth Low Energy (the 4.0 standard). This network of beacons will be essential to a simple and easy-to-use mobile payment network, in our view. In fact, there could be many applications, such as to deliver advertisements or public information, and to locate something or someone indoors. We believe Apple will unlikely launch a mobile payment system unless the supporting infrastructure is ready, based on its historical behavior, since it does not want users to have a frustrating experience with an incomplete network [...] Management has been clear that it plans to monetize future services, and we believe that likely includes mobile payments. Recode.net recently reported that ebay (covered by Scott Devitt) approached Apple to discuss using PayPal as the foundation for Apple’s payment service. According to sources cited in that article, Apple is unlikely to partner with ebay. If this is true, we believe it further suggests Apple is looking to build its own infrastructure where it can control the whole system, collect more user data, and importantly retain all the economics from the service.

Investors are cheering the $25 billion deal, which should boost Actavis' earnings dramatically.

Generic drug giant Actavis is once again making a purchase that could make the generic drug maker bigger and better.

Early Friday, Actavis (ticker: ACT) announced that it would pay $25 billion in cash and stock to buy specialty drug maker Forest Laboratories (FRX) in a deal that is expected to create a company with $15 billion in annual sales and generate double-digit accretion to Actavis's bottom line.

Investors were not shy about showing their approval. Forest's share price rose 29% to $92.33, well above the $89.48 per share Actavis is offering. And Actavis jumped 6.9% to $205, after earlier climbing as much as 14% to a new 52-week high of $219.

That's an unusual move. Historically, companies making big purchases can suffer a drop in their share price as investors worry about debt, dilution and how the newly acquired assets will fit into the bigger picture. But in the past year or so, acquirers have often seen their share price rise, perhaps because in an era of cheap money and slow organic growth, investors think acquisitions make sense.

This is not the first deal for Actavis. The stock has soared in the past year amid an industry-wide flood of deal making as generic and specialty drug makers look to fuel future growth by making acquisitions that add new drugs, expand their footprint into new markets and allow them to take advantage of lower-corporate tax rates offered by some foreign countries.

And at less than 13 times estimated 2015 earnings, the stock can still climb as Actavis's bottom line expands drastically over the next few years.

"It is a strategic deal," says Randall Stanicky, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. "Yes, it is being made more attractive by the tax rate angle. But it is still a very strategic deal."

One of the big winners is Carl Icahn. Since November 2009, when the activist investor took a stake in Forest, the stock has almost tripled in value.

Forest has been seen as a takeout target for the past few years amid a wave of consolidation in the specialty drug industry. Last year, nine drug makers spent more than $38 billion on mergers and acquisitions. Among them was Actavis, which paid $8.5 billion in stock to buy branded drug maker Warner Chilcott.

Until that point, Actavis, which was known as Watson Pharmaceuticals until it took the name of the Swiss drug maker it purchased in 2012, had largely relied on sales of generic drugs. Buying Warner Chilcot not only added higher-margin branded drugs to Actavis's portfolio, it also allowed Actavis to relocate its headquarters to Dublin and cut its U.S. corporate tax rate by almost one-third.

That more attractive tax rate, when applied to Forest, means Actavis can "realize $100 million in synergies right out of the box," says RBC's Stanicky. But the company expects tax and operating synergies to total $1 billion in addition to the $500 million in cost cuts Forest previously targeted for 2016.

As a result of the takeover, Actavis will get its hands on Forest's portfolio of branded drugs, including medications for cystic fibrosis, depression and hypertension. What's more, the scale of the combined company will put it in a better position to deal with the changing health-care landscape in the U.S.

So what's the bottom line? If the deal produces the double-digit accretion targeted by Actavis, the company could earn $16 a share or better next year, compared with earlier estimates of $14.52 for 2014. RBC's Stanicky says that could jump to $20 a share by 2017, if not sooner. Apply that earnings forecast to a 15 multiple – where Actavis was trading last week – and that implies a price of $300 a share.

To be sure, there are risks ahead for investors. A bidding war could emerge for Forest if another drug maker decides it wants the company. Also, the larger Actiavis gets, the harder it becomes to generate the robust revenue and earnings growth craved by investors.

But analysts see more deal making ahead for Actavis, and the broader specialty drug industry, citing the cheap cost of borrowing and the industry's fragmented nature.

So even after the stock's big gains, this drug maker may be just what the doctored ordered.

Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano has neither confirmed nor denied his company's interest in talking with Vivendi on a possible merger between TIM Participacoes and GVT, the Brazilian units of the Italian and French groups, respectively, Valor Economico reported. He said the two would be a "great combination" but added that the companies are not currently negotiating on the matter.

The executive told the business daily that the two companies “clearly” have complementary operations, since TIM has the majority of its operations in the mobile segment, while GVT operates with fixed telephony, pay-TV and Internet.

Source Valor Economico