Fed's Lockhart (moderate, non-voter): sees scope for three rate hikes this year - Japan press
Fed's Evans (dove, non-voter): inflation over 2% would be clear Fed would act to contain its rise
- expects March jobs data on Friday will show strength
- dot plot suggets a cohesive view for officals on rates
The principal driver of Moody's decision to change the outlook to negative from stable is the rising fiscal and economic challenges that the authorities face in achieving further fiscal consolidation. At the time that the structural reforms were adopted, Moody's expected that fiscal consolidation, coupled with much stronger real GDP growth (above 3%), would lead to a stabilization in the debt burden. However, a combination of the oil price shock and the slower than expected growth have undermined the economic outlook. Moody's forecasts only moderate growth of around 2.5% for 2016 and 2017, which will challenge the government's fiscal consolidation efforts.
Lower growth and a low oil price environment will reduce fiscal revenues. While fiscal reform has improved the structure of fiscal revenues, heightening resilience to oil price shocks by strengthening tax collection, Moody's forecasts that overall federal government revenues will decrease to 18.5% of GDP in 2016 from 19.3% in 2015. In response, the authorities have begun implementing expenditure measures to reduce the federal government deficit from 2.8% of GDP in 2015. Moody's forecasts a federal government deficit of 2.5% of GDP for 2016 and a gradual decline through 2018 when the deficit is likely to narrow to 2% of GDP.
Les dossiers Icade/Silic et Club Med/Fosun lui ont sûrement donné des idées : Michel Guillemot a formé un recours contre le visa de l'AMF à l'OPA de Vivendi. S'il obtient un sursis à exécution, l'opération pourrait être gelée
entre 6 mois et un an.
Les dossiers Icade/Silic et Club Med/Fosun lui ont sans doute donné des idées : dans le premier cas, l’OPA/OPE de la foncière de la CDC sur Silic a été retardée de près de deux ans en raison du recours formé devant la cour d’appel. Dans le second, c’est un retard d’environ un an qui a été constaté en raison, là encore, du recours formé contre les modalités de l’offre du chinois.
C’est donc manifestement avec la volonté de retarder l’opération, le temps sans doute, de trouver une parade à l’OPA inamicale lancée par Vivendi sur le capital de Gameloft, que Michel Guillemot, le patron et fondateur du groupe de jeux vidéo, a placé le dossier sur le terrain judiciaire en contestant le feu vert de l’AMF à l’offre publique. En formant ce recours, il a de bonnes chances, en effet, d’obtenir le sursis à exécution de l’opération jusqu’au prononcé de l’arrêt de la cour d’appel. Ce qui a presque toujours été le cas dans ce type de contexte, sauf dans
le dossier Société de la Tour Eiffel où l’actionnaire de référence, Chuc Hoang, avait formé un recours contre le projet d’OPA de SMA BTP mais n’avait pu obtenir de sursis à exécution.
L’éditeur de jeux vidéo pour mobiles invoque notamment "les manquements de Vivendi aux principes directeurs des offres publiques, ainsi qu'aux obligations légales et réglementaires visant à assurer la transparence et la bonne information du marché". A voir maintenant si ces motifs seront jugés sérieux ou abusifs et donneront lieu à un sursis à exécution
Buttonwood Investment Platform Ltd, 100 percent owned by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), and Buttonwood's two fully-owned subsidiaries, have bought shares in a total of 13 listed companies, the newspaper reported, citing top 10 shareholder lists in the companies latest earnings reports.
Shanghai Securities News said the investments are part of SAFE's strategy to diversify investment channels for the country's massive foreign exchange reserves.
Recent earnings filings show Buttonwood is among the top 10 shareholders of Bank of China, Bank of Communications , Shanghai Pudong Development Bank , Everbright Securities and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Calls to SAFE were not answered.
Buttonwood was the vehicle SAFE used to invest in China's Silk Road Fund, which was launched in December 2014, according to the fund's official website.
Buttonwood is a new platform China's government uses to buy domestic shares, according to Shanghai Securities News. The government also uses Central Huijin Investment Ltd, and China Securities Finance Corp, the state margin lender, to buy A shares.
Publisher Meredith expects digital sales milestone
Meredith Corporation expects digital ad sales to grow faster than print revenue declines for the first time next year, as it predicts that its online audience will reach 100m a month.
Steve Lacy, chief executive of the publisher of magazines including Better Homes and Gardens and Martha Stewart Living, told the Financial Times that the company will reach an “inflection point” in its 2017 fiscal year, which begins in July.
Digital revenues account for about a third of the $137m the company's publishing arm made in advertising sales in its most recent quarter, up from 25 per cent last year. Print sales have been shrinking at about 4-6 per cent a year, a pace that Mr Lacy expects to continue.
Meredith predicts its online audience will expand from 75m monthly unique visitors to 100m through acquisitions of titles that will bring substantial web traffic and technology to improve its online ad offerings.
The company’s plan follows the collapse of its planned merger with television station owner Media General. The deal was scrapped in January after a months-long battle with rival bidder Nexstar Broadcasting Group. Meredith’s shares have fallen more than 15 per cent in the last year.
The deal would have made the combined Meredith Media General — led by Mr Lacy — the country’s third-largest local TV operator, with 88 stations in 54 markets, reaching nearly a third of US households. Media General is instead being acquired by Nexstar, creating the number two US operator.
For Meredith, it is “back to plan A”, Mr Lacy says. The company will pursue three initiatives: increasing the audience for its female-focused titles, particularly online and among millennial consumers; adding to its local television holdings, which number 17 stations; and return nearly half of its free cash flow to shareholders through buybacks and dividend increases.
Acquisitions will probably come on the publishing side. Mr Lacy points to its deal for editorial and operational control of Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Weddings, its purchase of Shape, the women’s fitness magazine, and its acquisition of Selectable Media, a native ad technology company, as models.
Meredith would be a potential buyer for the right print titles, Mr Lacy says. Even though once-lucrative print ads are in decline, the company has increased readership of physical copies of its magazines.
Print still accounts for 60 per cent of Meredith’s total audience, and circulation made up about a third of $1.1bn in total magazine revenue in 2015. The company is now focused on generating more money from its subscribers by converting them to auto-renewal plans where their credit cards are automatically charged for another year of delivery.
Three years ago, Meredith discussed buying some Time Inc titles when they were still owned by Time Warner. Those conversations fell apart and Time Warner ultimately spun the magazines into a separate company. Mr Lacy says Time Inc is not looking to sell any titles today, although he sees value in some of its properties such as People and Southern Living.
A doubt still remains over its television business at a time when station owners are seeking greater scale in their negotiations with cable and satellite providers, whose retransmission fees have become an important source of revenue. Unlike other media companies including Time Warner, News Corp, Gannett and Tribune, Meredith has not separated its TV business from its publishing arm.
“We would love to split our business, but we need to scale up in such a way so we wouldn’t be two teeny tiny public companies that nobody pays attention to,” Mr Lacy says. That would mean doubling television revenues to $1bn, he says, putting it on par with the magazine business.
The Media General transaction would have accomplished that quickly and likely resulted in a splitting off of Meredith’s magazines. Now the timeline for any separation will be much longer, as Meredith looks to add smaller groups of stations that fit with its goal of owning the top news channels in big markets.
“I felt really good about that [Media General] deal,” Mr Lacy says, and would not rule out another such large-scale transaction. But, he cautions, “I’d have to feel shareholders would be better with it than without it . . . I don’t want to be levered up to my eyeballs.”
That is why he says he tells board members and investors he is taking it slowly. “This is not like shopping at Target. Somebody has to want to buy, somebody has to want to sell.”
Chinese seal nearly one-sixth of M&A deals
China has claimed its largest quarterly share of global mergers and acquisitions on record, with mainland companies’ takeovers of their foreign rivals accounting for almost one-sixth of all deal activity.
Led by a host of aggressive and politically-connected acquirers — such as ChemChina, Dalian Wanda and Anbang Insurance — Chinese companies have emerged as a dynamic force in dealmaking in a number of sectors. Their choice of target companies also highlights China’s attempt to serve its growing consumer class, as it copes with sharp declines in its stock market and economic growth prospects.
Of the $682bn in global deal activity in the first three months of 2016, $101bn, or 15 per cent, of that figure involved Chinese buyers, according to Thomson Reuters data. At this level, the value of outbound Chinese deals has already nearly eclipsed the previous annual record of $109bn, recorded over the whole of 2015.
Colin Banfield, head of mergers and acquisitions at Citigroup in Asia-Pacific, said: “The global M&A landscape has been transformed by the wave of Chinese outbound M&A deals in first-quarter 2016.”
This rapid rise has astounded western dealmakers, many of whom were caught off-guard by the surge — and wince privately that Chinese buyers are among the most frugal when it comes to paying banking fees.
Advisers and analysts have attributed part of this boom to broader concerns over the stability of the renminbi, China’s currency, and suggested that the rapid pick-up in deals in some ways resembles capital flight.
But, at the same time, dealmakers say Chinese acquirers have improved their credibility in negotiations. They have been aided by an abundance of easy borrowing from China’s state banks, which remain eager to approve loans for assets often deemed safer than those based in China, given a slowing domestic economy.
Deals in the quarter included the biggest ever Chinese takeover of a foreign company, when ChemChina, the sprawling chemicals group, agreed a $43.8bn all-cash deal to buy Swiss agribusiness Syngenta.
Strong Chinese dealmaking has eased a severe slowdown in overall M&A activity, which suffered a sharp 57 per cent drop, quarter on quarter, after an unprecedented $1.6tn worth of transactions in the last three months of 2015. In annual terms, the decline in first-quarter deal value was 14 per cent.
US M&A activity dropped off most sharply: $256.6bn worth of deals represented a 29 per cent fall from a year earlier and ranked as the lowest level of any quarter in nearly two years. In Europe, activity was modestly higher at $181.6bn.
“The sheer volume of Chinese deals highlights the sharp decline in M&A otherwise,” said Alain Klein, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. “Chinese companies have a bigger share of the overall volume simply because there were fewer deals globally. It is striking to see the fall in activity in the US. It may be perfectly natural after last year’s frenzy but still it’s remarkable.”
Roy Kabla, European head of telecoms, media and technology for Nomura, said: “The dealmaking may seem aggressive by western standards. But many Chinese buyers continue to enjoy relatively attractive cost of capital versus western players, and can leverage these assets against the growing consumer class . . . Dalian Wanda is an interesting example of that dynamic in the cinema and sport areas.”
Wanda, a real estate and leisure conglomerate, bought Legendary Entertainment, the California-based media company behind blockbuster films “The Dark Knight” and "Jurassic World", for $3.5bn, as well as US movie group Carmike Cinemas for $1.1bn, during in the quarter.
“China is buying what it wants instead of just what it needs,” said Stephen Williams, head of capital financing for Asia-Pacific at HSBC. “This has led to a much broader trend in outbound acquisitions, where private companies have joined the state-run ones in targeting assets abroad.”
Chinese companies are also becoming bolder in challenging already agreed transactions. Most notably, an investor consortium led by Anbang Insurance, a Chinese wealth management group, launched a $14bn bidding war against Marriott International for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Hearing weakness attributed to circulation of Canada regulatory filing - Filing suggests Quebec regulators may issue order to suspend trading of Valeant securities
Swiss watchdog's concerns remain over $1.4 bln Kuoni bid terms - Reuters News
31-MAR-2016 15:45:20
Takeover board says foundation can't get premium for its stock
Foundation still considering appeal, expects deal to proceed
Shares fall 1.2 pct, lag offer price
Adds comment from foundation, updates share price
ZURICH, March 31 (Reuters) - Switzerland's takeover regulator still has concerns about some terms of Swedish private equity firm EQT's takeover of travel group Kuoni KUNN.S and rejected an appeal by a major shareholder over a planned share swap associated with the deal.
EQT declined to comment on the takeover board's decision and how that might affect its offer for the ailing travel group, which has been hit by competition from online travel companies and unrest in popular tourist destinations.
The shareholder, the Kuoni und Hugentobler Foundation, said in a statement that it was still deciding whether to challenge the board's ruling, announced on Thursday, but said it expected the 1.35 billion Swiss franc ($1.41 billion) deal unveiled last month to go ahead as planned. (Full Story)
Under Swiss takeover regulations, the foundation has five trading days to decide whether to accept the board's decision or pursue the matter further.
The watchdog first set out conditions for EQT's purchase of Kuoni on Feb. 25, which included the stipulation that the "best price" rule, guaranteeing equal treatment of all shareholders, must apply. The foundation initially appealed against the ruling in early March.
Stockholm-based EQT has offered 370 Swiss francs per share to holders of Kuoni's publicly traded "B" shares.
Separately, the foundation agreed to tender to EQT's Luxembourg-based Kiwi Holding vehicle its unlisted "A" shares, which accounted for 6.25 percent of the capital and 25 percent of the voting rights of Kuoni, in return for a stake in Kiwi.
The value of that deal has not been publicly disclosed. EQT's offer prospectus, dated Feb. 29, said "the value at which the Kuoni A Shares will be contributed has not yet been agreed".
The foundation had said the A shares were a distinct asset class and should be treated differently from the B shares. But the Swiss watchdog has insisted that the "best price" rule must apply to the transaction.
The publicly traded B shares, which fell by just over 3 percent in early trading, were 1.1 percent lower at 361.75 Swiss francs by 1236 GMT, below EQT's offer price.
The foundation, based in Stans, Switzerland, said the offer to B-share holders was not affected by its considerations on whether to challenge the ruling, and it was "still convinced that the transaction will be carried out as planned".
Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux in Zurich, said in a note to clients that the takeover board's ruling was unlikely to scupper the deal but could force the foundation and EQT to renegotiate their part of the transaction.
Cox said that as the takeover board had ruled against EQT offering the foundation a premium to B-share holders, and given that EQT has said it won't raise its bid, the foundation will likely have to take a smaller holding in Kiwi.
EQT's offer is set to run until April 13 unless it is extended.