(Recode.net) If Nokia Map Unit Is for Sale, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo All Might

--> Interesting to see that the sector is really on play with many potential suitor for a map business...Tom Tom won't come back lower, I will continue to be long on this one and add on weakness.



If Nokia Map Unit Is for Sale, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo All Might Want a Look

A report that Nokia could be putting its Here mapping unit up for sale should raise eyebrows at companies through the tech industry.

Bloomberg reports that Uber and private equity firms are among those who have been approached by Nokia. A Nokia representative was not immediately available for comment.

However, if the mapping unit is indeed for sale, it could draw interest from wide array of big-name tech firms. That’s because Nokia is the remaining big independent company in the global mapping business. Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon all rely on its location technology, as do most of the major automakers.

Any of those players might be interested in trying to keep the technology from falling into the hands of a rival.

While Nokia’s maps are important to many companies, they aren’t necessarily something those companies would want to own. Nor is it a particularly great business, with Nokia getting most of its money from the car companies that license its mapping. Those payments are under pressure from readily available Web-based technologies like Google Maps. Nokia has been trying to rapidly evolve the maps from navigational aids to something that can be used by autonomous and semi-autonomous cars.

One company that could easily afford to buy the business — and might see a strategic benefit — is Apple. The company clearly has a need when it comes to better mapping data, and also is said to have more than a passing interest in the auto market. Another possibility is that some sort of coalition of parties with a vested interest in the map data could emerge, similar to the Rockstar patent consortium. But it’s easier to have a consortium own patents than it is to operate a business.

Microsoft, of course, already bought Nokia’s mobile phone business. That has left the company with three rather distinct and unrelated businesses — the mapping unit, a network equipment business, and a technology unit made up mainly of the company’s significant patent holdings.

(BFW) BP Cut to Neutral at BofAML on More Balanced Risk/Reward

BP Cut to Neutral at BofAML on More Balanced Risk/Reward
2015-04-13 07:57:07.521 GMT


By Benjamin Dow
(Bloomberg) -- BP’s recent shr price movement means
valuation no longer offers sufficient upside to warrant buy
rating, BofAML says, also lowers PT 5.2% to 455p.
* Says worst-case penalties in phase 3 trial over Clean Water
Act (CWA) violations from Macondo blowout may exceed BP’s
provisions by ~$10B, while not threatening co.’s ability to
pay its div.
* Says CWA clarity “welcome”; investors may then start
to focus on more uncertain litigation risks like state,
local claims
* Says PT and shr price not currently reflecting discount
for continuing litigation risks
* Says 5.69% div. yield now close to European peers,
currently doesn’t give significant premium
* 2016 P/E est. 13x is more than historical averages,
roughly in line with peers
* 2016 P/E est. 13x is more than historical averages,
roughly in line with peers</li></ul>
* NOTE: Total P/E on 2016 ests. is 11.8x, Shell 10.7x, Statoil
15x: Bloomberg data


For Related News and Information:
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To contact the reporter on this story:
Benjamin Dow in Moscow at +7-495-771-7735 or
bdow2@bloomberg.net
James Ludden

(Makor): Conwert at EUR 10.... ?

CONWERT comment

The deadline to accept the Eur11.50 cash offer for CONWERT is this Wednesday.

We have confirmed with the bidder and the activists that the offer will not be extended if the minimum acceptance is not reached (50%+1)

Over the weekend, the press in Austria report that “According Haselsteiner.... Umek submitted to Haselsteiner in mid-December an offer for the acquisition of all its conwert shares.

"Contents of the offer was that he was interested in acquiring all shares of conwert Foundation for the price of ten euros per share".

IF true then, if the offer fails, one may expect Conwert could be a trading buy at c.Eur 10 per share or less.

NY Post : Paul Singer’s hedge fund takes a dip

Hedge fund mogul Paul Singer started off 2015 with a rare miss — the first quarter in almost three years that one of his hedge funds has been down and one of only 12 in his stellar 38-year run.
Singer’s Elliott International hedge fund fell half a percentage point in the first three months. While Singer has made headlines for his decadelong battle with Argentina over defaulted debt, investors in his $25 billion firm, Elliott Management, know him best for stable returns. And the loss, however small, undercuts one of his chief selling points.
During the past five years, Elliott gained between 8 percent and 9 percent annualized, depending on the fund. That’s below the S&P 500, but within the target return for most institutional investors.
The recent five-year performance is lower than the annualized return since the inception in 1977 of about 13.8 percent in his oldest fund, Elliott Associates. It had an even higher annualized return of 17 percent in its first 10 years.
But if Singer’s best years are behind him, no one seems bothered.
“He has been declining since 1986,” said Brian Shapiro of Simplify, a hedge fund research firm that provided the returns to The Post. “But his down slope is like everybody else’s dream.”
Elliott Associates, which was flat this past quarter, has had only 11 down quarters out of 153. Elliott International, launched in 1995 and catering to institutional investors, has had seven down quarters. The funds have lost money only in two years, 1998 and 2008.
Elliott’s losses typically occur in periods of financial crisis. Not so this year, when he failed to deliver with two popular hedge fund strategies: activism and energy.

>>> Abertis has close to EUR 4bn for deals; Itinere, Serenissima of interest

Abertis has close to EUR 4bn for deals; Itinere, Serenissima of interest 

Spanish infrastructure group Abertis [BME: ABE] could spend up to EUR 4bn on acquisitions, Expansion reported, citing people close to the company.

The listing of up to 60.5% of its telecom subsidiary Cellnex will raise EUR 2bn for Abertis, the report said. Added to that are future cash flows and its capacity to raise financing, combined with its current EUR 2.5bn in cash, the report said.

Abertis continues to be very interested in Spanish motorway group Itinere and Italian tollway operator Serenissima, the report continued, adding that attractive to Abertis are assets in the US, Australia and in Europe.

Source Expansion

(Bernstein) Glencore & Rio Tinto: Running the Numbers on Glentinto

* Highlights 
On Tuesday 7th April, Glencore reached the end of the "put-up or shut-up" period that had restricted it from coming back to make a renewed approach to take over Rio Tinto (following the announcement that the company had initiated informal merger discussions with Rio in July 2014). Unsurprisingly, there has been much discussion about the expiry of this restriction and whether Glencore would be straight back in for Rio once the restriction was lifted. We published a detailed piece in October last year (Rio Tinto & Glencore: Running The Numbers on Glentinto.) analysing what the combined company would look like as a whole, as well as examining each business unit in turn. With the put-up or shut-up now expired, and Glencore free to come back for Rio, we return to the subject of "Glentinto" and take a look at what has changed over the last six months, what the deal would look like now, whether the deal now makes sense for Glencore and whether we still like the deal.

* What has changed in the market since the start of the put-up or shut-up? 
- Spot commodity prices: the iron ore price has fallen 40%, the copper price has fallen 11%, and the price ratio between the two (iron ore over copper) has fallen 33% to c.9.9x. 
- Commodity price forecasts: 2017 consensus price forecasts have fallen 24% for iron ore, 6% for copper, 24% for thermal coal and 1% for zinc. 
- Share prices: the Rio Tinto share price has fallen 5%, the Glencore share price has fallen 12%, and the price ratio between the two (Rio over Glencore) has increased 8%.

* What does the deal look like now? 
- Under the same structural assumptions we made previously (a 20% premium paid using 75% paper), we still see the deal as accretive for Glencore shareholders at consensus commodity price expectations (i.e. US$80/t iron ore and US$6,389/t copper in 2018) 
– though the deal is not as attractive as it was six months ago. As we said previously, whether the deal is accretive or dilutive is predominantly a function of the future commodity price assumptions made. 
- At consensus commodity price expectations out to 2018, the deal is EPS accretive to Glencore shareholders in all years (35% in 2015, 14% in 2016, 2% in 2017 and 8% in 2018).
- However, holding spot copper prices flat out to 2018, the deal is dilutive to Glencore's 2018 EPS at anything less than a US$71/tonne iron ore price, and dilutive to Glencore's 2015 EPS at anything less than US$55/tonne iron ore

FT : Indonesian beer sales could go flat for Diageo and Heineken

Heineken and Diageo are braced for sales of beer in Indonesia to go flat when a government clampdown comes into force on Thursday that could affect half the country’s beer sales.
Diageo, the world’s biggest spirits company, has called on the government of the world’s fourth-most populous country to postpone the controversial ban on sales of drinks with less than 5 per cent alcohol volume — mainly beer — in convenience and other small stores.

The decision, announced in January, is another setback in the markets on which global drinks companies are increasingly pinning their growth hopes.
Several emerging markets have shifted from promising to problematic lately, notably China, where sales of expensive cognac and whisky have fallen sharply following president Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive.
This has hit profits at drinks groups, including France’s Pernod Ricard and Rémy Cointreau. China’s clampdown on extravagant spending has also led to a drop in beer sales because fewer people are eating out.
The Indonesian government says its measure is aimed at reducing under-age drinking and loutish behaviour outside minimarkets. But the decree is also seen as another sign of the rising influence of Islamic groups in a country that is home to the world’s largest Muslim population.
Amsterdam-based Heineken has a roughly 70 per cent market share of beer sales in the former Dutch colony through its majority-stake in Multi Bintang, producer of Bintang local beer. It also brews Diageo’s Guinness under licence.
Heineken called the ban — which will affect an estimated 55,000 small retail outlets that sell about half the country’s beer — “an extreme measure” that was unlikely to solve the problem of underage drinking.
The hit to sales for Heineken and Diageo in Indonesia is likely to be “significant, but small in the context of group sales”, said Sanjeet Aujla, analyst at Credit Suisse. Indonesia is estimated to account for less than 2 per cent of each company’s total sales, but the domestic beer market has been growing at 5-6 per cent a year, according to the International Wine and Spirits Record, the London-based drinks research group.
Indonesia’s Brewers Association decried the lack of dialogue with the industry, saying the regulation “threatens to undermine Indonesia’s attractiveness for investors” and would be bad for tourism, especially in Bali, Jakarta and other visitor hotspots.
Diageo, which has highlighted Indonesia as a growth market, urged the government to delay the measure “for at least another 12 months, so that workable solutions can be reached with multiple parties to achieve the government’s objectives, such as tackling underage drinking”.
The London-based producer of Johnnie Walker whisky and Smirnoff vodka said the ban could increase the risk of illicit alcohol consumption, responsible for hundreds of deaths a year, because large tracts of Indonesia are not served by the larger supermarkets that are allowed to sell beer.
The Southeast Asian drinks market has proved rough going at times for multinationals confronted with varied and changing regulations, anti-alcohol religious sentiment and entrenched local rivals.
Advertising restrictions in Southeast Asian countries have hampered the international drinks groups that want to challenge popular local products.
In Thailand, where protests by Buddhist monks and anti-alcohol campaigners forced ThaiBev to suspend an attempt to list on the stock exchange in 2008, drinks-makers are not allowed to depict their products in their publicity.