Strength attributed to resurfacing GE takeover chatter
Slight Delay Seen in FCC Approval of AT&T/DirecTV Merger
RTRS - ABB CEO SAYS WILL NOT SACRIFICE PROFIT MARGINS FOR VOLUME GROWTH
Dax on levels...close will be i nteresting
From: LAURENT CHEKROUN (MAKOR SECURITIES LO) At: Jun 23 2015 10:02:20
To: LAURENT CHEKROUN (MAKOR SECURITIES LO)
Subject: Fwd:>>> Dax - Quick Chart - First target for rebound reach 11,585/11,620
Subject: Fwd:>>> Dax - Quick Chart - First target for rebound reach 11,585/11,620
>>> Dax - Quick Chart - First target for rebound reach 11,585/11,620if we break this level, next resistance is 11,720, to go back in the bullish trending range, maybe too much with Earning season kicking off in 10days in the US...I will watch these levels very carefully and will hedge / sell between 11,760/11,850.LAurent
Foreign money flows into Spain’s property market
Pick-up most prominent in the luxury end of the sector
In Barcelona’s genteel Dreta de l’Eixample neighbourhood across from Casa Calvet, an early Antoni Gaudí mansion, workmen are busy renovating a stately turn-of-the-century building.
The project, managed by local developers Bonavista Developments, is part of a planned €100m investment in Barcelona real estate by London-based Europa Capital. Expected to be finished this year, the 14 luxury apartments with a rooftop pool have already been sold, for prices between €600,000 and €1.85m, all but two to foreign buyers.
Foreign money is driving a recovery in Spain’s property market, a sector that has been the country’s Achilles heel since the real estate bubble burst in 2008 and brought the economy crashing down with it.
According to Spain’s property registrars society, foreign nationals bought 12.2 per cent of residential properties in the first quarter of 2015, up from 9 per cent in 2006.
Their impact is most prominent in the luxury market. Home prices fell more than 35 per cent between 2007 and 2013, according to Spain’s statistics bureau. But posh areas popular with foreigners — such as Pedralbes and the Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, and Salamanca and Chamberí in Madrid — have already recovered 20 per cent of the lost value, says Patricio Palomar, director of research at CBRE Spain.
“At the high end — €500,000 and up — it’s primarily being driven by international demand,” says Alex Vaughan, who in 2005 co-founded Lucas Fox, the Barcelona-based luxury estate agent that sold two-thirds of the units in the Bonavista project. Last year, 91 per cent of Lucas Fox’s 126 sales went to foreign buyers.
The demographic of those buyers has shifted over time, Vaughan says, from Europe to the Middle East, Asia, and the US. While the depreciation of the euro has attracted non-Europeans, the collapse of the rouble and tighter rules on currency transfers have kept out some Russians and other investors.
“We’ve seen Americans back,” says Francisco Nathurmal, founder of Bcn Advisors, another high-end Barcelona estate agent founded in 2005. “And the Swiss. The franc has really gone up. They’re buying like there’s no tomorrow.”
Launched in September 2013, a “Golden Visa” scheme that offers residency to foreigners who invest more than €500,000 has also boosted the recovery. Through the end of 2014, 490 visas had been issued to foreign buyers, largely from Russia, China and the Middle East. Vaughan says 5 per cent of his buyers apply for the visa; for Nathurmal, the figure is 15 per cent.
While foreign buyers have driven the high-end residential market, foreign investment funds have had an even bigger impact in the commercial sector.
They’re buying like there’s no tomorrow
Francisco Nathurmal, of Bcn Advisors, a high-end Barcelona estate agent
According to CBRE Spain, of the €10.2bn invested in commercial real estate in Spain in 2014, half came directly from foreign funds and another €2.5bn came from Socimis — real estate investments that can be traded like shares on financial exchanges — which are heavily funded by foreign investors.
“With their arrival three years ago, opportunistic international funds managers made a market at a time [when] we had hit bottom,” says CBRE Spain’s Palomar.
Until recently, these opportunistic foreign investors concentrated their money on hotels, shopping centres, and snapping up baskets of apartments and bad mortgage loans.
In 2013, Cerberus Capital Management bought a package of bad loans valued at €574m from Spain’s Liberbank, for example, while Blackstone bought 1,860 Madrid apartments for €125.5m.
Last year, GreenOak Real Estate bought eight shopping centres for €160m and Qatari funds bought Barcelona’s Renaissance and Madrid’s InterContinental Hotels for €78.5m and €60m respectively.
But now foreign investors are looking to take advantage of another turn in the Spanish market — a pick-up in domestic sales.
Spain’s GDP is up 2.7 per cent over the past year and banks have begun to lend again. During the first quarter of 2015, Spanish banks signed nearly a third more mortgages for 27 per cent more capital than during the same period last year, signalling a return of local buyers.
“In the bigger cities we’re seeing more transactions involving local clients,” says Vaughan. “In Barcelona about 25 per cent of our business will be with locals this year. In Madrid and Valencia that’s much higher.”
In light of this shift, Spanish lender Kutxabank announced in December that the US investment firm Lone Star Funds was buying its residential real estate development division, Neinor Homes, for €930m.
Juan Velayos, the former Global Head of Real Estate Deals at PwC who took over as chief executive of Neinor Homes in March, says that Neinor plans to build 1,000 units this year, mostly primary homes in the €350,000 to €450,000 price range aimed at the local market.
“Neinor is the first big bet on residential development in Spain since the crisis,” says Velayos. “Two years ago, it was the exact same with retail; foreign funds began to bet on retail at a time when nobody was betting on a rise in consumption.”
Press Release: Ahold responds to media reports on discussions with Delhaize Group
Zaandam, the Netherlands - Ahold and Delhaize Group confirmed on May 12, 2015 that both companies are conducting preliminary discussions on a business combination.
Ahold and Delhaize Group would like to stress that while they are in the final stages of negotiations, no definitive agreement on a transaction has been reached. Ahold expects to issue a press release in due course.
Ahold press release: http://hugin.info/130711/R/1930750/694010.pdf
Monsanto Says Bayer Among Options If Syngenta Takeover Fizzles
2015-06-23 13:51:34.274 GMT
By Jack Kaskey
(Bloomberg) -- More than nine weeks after Monsanto Co.
offered to buy Syngenta AG for $45 billion, the U.S. maker of
seeds and weed killers is exploring other options should the
Swiss company reject the deal.
Monsanto would approach Germany’s Bayer AG about acquiring
its crop chemicals business if they can’t buy Syngenta, Brett
Begemann, chief operating officer of St. Louis-based Monsanto,
said by phone Monday. Basel-based Syngenta has spurned
Monsanto’s offer and refused to negotiate.
“I don’t know what Bayer is going to do with their crop-
protection business, whether they’ll sell it or not,” Begemann
said, “But I’m sure they’d be happy to talk about some other
kind of marketing arrangement.”
Begemann’s comments are the latest salvo in an escalating
war of words between Monsanto and Syngenta as the U.S. seed
maker tries to bring its Swiss rival back to the negotiating
table. Syngenta Chairman Michel Demare said Tuesday that
Monsanto’s bid was simplistic and is unlikely to be approved by
regulators.
Monsanto, which makes Roundup weedkiller as well as crops
genetically modified to tolerate it, wants to own more
proprietary chemicals that can be developed in tandem with new
engineered seeds to maximize their value and get them to market
faster, Begemann said. Syngenta is the world’s largest maker of
herbicides, insecticides and other chemicals used to control
crop pests. Bayer is the second-biggest.
Monsanto has offered 449 Swiss francs a share, with 45
percent in cash. The bid, which includes a $2 billion breakup
fee if blocked by antitrust regulators, represents a 43 percent
premium to Syngenta’s share price at the close on April 30, just
before Bloomberg News reported the proposal.
Unsolicited Offer
“A serious proposal to buy Syngenta has to be made at full
and fair value, has to recognize for shareholders the inherent
combination benefits and it has to provide a high degree of
certainty that the transaction will be closed,” Demare said
Tuesday in a video posted on the company’s website.
Begemann and other Monsanto executives met with Syngenta
investors in Europe earlier this month to discuss the merits of
the unsolicited offer.
Chris Loder, a U.S.-based Bayer spokesman, declined to
comment on a possible Monsanto approach.
While Bayer is in the process of splitting off its plastics
unit, it has no plans to let go of the crop chemicals business,
Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers said on May 28.
Scientists have found that collaboration with counterparts in
Bayer’s human and animal health divisions will help the entire
company.
“This will be an enormous advantage for us in the
future,” Dekkers said in an interview in Leverkusen, Germany.
In the end, Monsanto would rather acquire Syngenta than
talk with a conglomerate like Bayer about hiving off a unit,
Begemann said.
While Monsanto is “committed” to acquiring Syngenta, “we
won’t stay after it forever,” Begemann said. “There are other
options to pursue from a chemical standpoint and we will go
after those.”
For Related News and Information:
Bayer Says Monsanto-Syngenta Deal Would Prompt Industry Review
Bayer Embarks on Almost Yearlong Life-Science Reorganization
Monsanto News: MON US <Equity> CN <GO>
Bloomberg Intelligence Basic and Diversified Chemicals: BI BDCH
<GO>
Bloomberg Intelligence Agricultural Chemicals: BI AGCH <GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jack Kaskey in Houston at +1-713-547-8404 or
jkaskey@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Simon Casey at +1-212-617-3143 or
scasey4@bloomberg.net
Jim Efstathiou Jr., Steven Frank
2015-06-23 13:51:34.274 GMT
By Jack Kaskey
(Bloomberg) -- More than nine weeks after Monsanto Co.
offered to buy Syngenta AG for $45 billion, the U.S. maker of
seeds and weed killers is exploring other options should the
Swiss company reject the deal.
Monsanto would approach Germany’s Bayer AG about acquiring
its crop chemicals business if they can’t buy Syngenta, Brett
Begemann, chief operating officer of St. Louis-based Monsanto,
said by phone Monday. Basel-based Syngenta has spurned
Monsanto’s offer and refused to negotiate.
“I don’t know what Bayer is going to do with their crop-
protection business, whether they’ll sell it or not,” Begemann
said, “But I’m sure they’d be happy to talk about some other
kind of marketing arrangement.”
Begemann’s comments are the latest salvo in an escalating
war of words between Monsanto and Syngenta as the U.S. seed
maker tries to bring its Swiss rival back to the negotiating
table. Syngenta Chairman Michel Demare said Tuesday that
Monsanto’s bid was simplistic and is unlikely to be approved by
regulators.
Monsanto, which makes Roundup weedkiller as well as crops
genetically modified to tolerate it, wants to own more
proprietary chemicals that can be developed in tandem with new
engineered seeds to maximize their value and get them to market
faster, Begemann said. Syngenta is the world’s largest maker of
herbicides, insecticides and other chemicals used to control
crop pests. Bayer is the second-biggest.
Monsanto has offered 449 Swiss francs a share, with 45
percent in cash. The bid, which includes a $2 billion breakup
fee if blocked by antitrust regulators, represents a 43 percent
premium to Syngenta’s share price at the close on April 30, just
before Bloomberg News reported the proposal.
Unsolicited Offer
“A serious proposal to buy Syngenta has to be made at full
and fair value, has to recognize for shareholders the inherent
combination benefits and it has to provide a high degree of
certainty that the transaction will be closed,” Demare said
Tuesday in a video posted on the company’s website.
Begemann and other Monsanto executives met with Syngenta
investors in Europe earlier this month to discuss the merits of
the unsolicited offer.
Chris Loder, a U.S.-based Bayer spokesman, declined to
comment on a possible Monsanto approach.
While Bayer is in the process of splitting off its plastics
unit, it has no plans to let go of the crop chemicals business,
Chief Executive Officer Marijn Dekkers said on May 28.
Scientists have found that collaboration with counterparts in
Bayer’s human and animal health divisions will help the entire
company.
“This will be an enormous advantage for us in the
future,” Dekkers said in an interview in Leverkusen, Germany.
In the end, Monsanto would rather acquire Syngenta than
talk with a conglomerate like Bayer about hiving off a unit,
Begemann said.
While Monsanto is “committed” to acquiring Syngenta, “we
won’t stay after it forever,” Begemann said. “There are other
options to pursue from a chemical standpoint and we will go
after those.”
For Related News and Information:
Bayer Says Monsanto-Syngenta Deal Would Prompt Industry Review
Bayer Embarks on Almost Yearlong Life-Science Reorganization
Monsanto News: MON US <Equity> CN <GO>
Bloomberg Intelligence Basic and Diversified Chemicals: BI BDCH
<GO>
Bloomberg Intelligence Agricultural Chemicals: BI AGCH <GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jack Kaskey in Houston at +1-713-547-8404 or
jkaskey@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Simon Casey at +1-212-617-3143 or
scasey4@bloomberg.net
Jim Efstathiou Jr., Steven Frank
Weaker US, lower likelihood of MillerCoors buyout
Downgrade to Neutral
We downgrade Molson Coors (TAP) to Neutral from Buy. We believe that volume and pricing trends for the company have worsened year-to-date in the US. We also see lower probability of an opportunity for the company to buy out the rest of MillerCoors in the US. We lower our target price to USD 74 from USD 82. Within this, we no longer factor in a 25% probability of TAP purchasing the remainder of MillerCoors, which was worth USD 4 per share in our previous valuation.
Cost cutting continues, but US weaker than we had modelled
As set out at the investor day last week, the company continues to have visibility on cost savings, particularly in Canada, for at least the next three years, which should provide some support to EPS. However, with the benefit of lower gas prices, we had expected the US beer market to go back into growth in 2015; we now model for industry volumes to be flat to -1% and MillerCoors to be -2%, with the change in management putting a damper on performance.
Lower probability of a MillerCoors buyout
We had been somewhat sceptical about reports of a bid by ABI for SABMiller, which could allow the company to buy out the rest of the MillerCoors JV. However, we now see this as even less likely and remove any potential upside related to the possible deal from our TP – our target price previously included USD 4 per share of upside. There are no changes in our assumptions on capital returns – the company has announced a USD 1bn share buyback programme over four years that is back-end loaded.
Valuation
The company is currently trading at a cal 2015 PE of 19.8x vs the beer average of 22.2x.
IBM - Hearing renewed chatter of possible activist interest - Pershing Square's Ackman rumored as involved
PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said it was clear that European telecoms group Altice's ATCE.AS bid for Bouygues Telecom would result in job cuts and that this was one reason why the government opposed such a deal.
"It's rather obvious that this transaction will destroy jobs, that is what some like to call synergies, and thus we are against this choice," Macron told parliament on Tuesday.
Macron, who stopped short of saying the government would block the potential deal, said the state had "a role to play" in the matter.
France's Bouygues BOUY.PA is due to hold a board meeting at 1600 GMT to discuss Altice's offer to buy its Bouygues Telecom unit through Numericable-SFR NUME.PA.