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U.K., U.S. Top Aaa Ratings Tested by Debt Burdens, Moody’s Says

December 10, 2009 by Robert Tillman

Here is an interesting article from Bloomberg.

“Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — Moody’s Investors Service said the top debt ratings on the U.S. and the U.K. may “test the Aaa boundaries” because public finances are worsening in the wake of the global financial crisis.

“The deterioration has been pretty severe,” said Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s, in a Bloomberg Television interview in London. “We expect a pretty strong policy response in the next couple of years in order to keep the debt in the Aaa range. We expect them to bend but not to break.”

The U.S. and U.K. have “resilient” Aaa ratings, as opposed to the “resistant” top ratings of Canada, Germany and France, Moody’s analysts led by Cailleteau said in a report today. None of the top-rated countries is “vulnerable,” or have public finances that are “stretched beyond the point of ‘no return’ to the Aaa category,” New York-based Moody’s said.

The U.S.’s debt burden will climb to 97.5 percent of gross domestic product next year from 87.4 percent, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast in June. National debt in the U.S. climbed to $7.17 trillion in November. The U.K.’s public debt will swell to 89.3 percent of the economy in 2010 from 75.3 percent this year, according to the OECD.

“There has been a huge increase in debt-to-gross-domestic- product ratios as a result of the crisis,” said David Keeble, head of fixed-income strategy in London at Calyon, the investment-banking unit of Credit Agricole SA. “It’s right that there should be a lot of attention and pressure on these numbers.”

‘Resistant’ Countries

All Aaa rated governments are affected by the global financial crisis, with differences in their impact and ability to respond, Moody’s said. “Resistant” countries, which also include New Zealand and Switzerland, started from a more robust position and won’t see debt exceeding levels consistent with their Aaa status, Moody’s said.

Moody’s defines “resilient” countries as “Aaa countries whose public finances are deteriorating considerably and may therefore test the Aaa boundaries, but which display, in our opinion, an adequate reaction capacity to rise to the challenging and rebound.”

The cost of protecting U.S. debt from default was unchanged at 32 basis points, or $32,000 a year to protect $10 million of the nation’s bonds from default for five years, according to CMA DataVision prices. That compares with a peak of 100 basis points in February and 20 basis points in October.”

Read the full article here.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Economy | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

New wave of IPOs might be headed our way

December 9, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Here is some IPO thoughts from Washington Technology.

“I generally don’t make predictions, but I keep hearing tidbits from people that as the economy continues to improve, the government market should see several companies make the plunge into the public markets.

Global Defense Technology and Systems Inc. has done pretty well since it went public a couple weeks ago. Share prices have not closed below the $13, which was the price at the initial public offering. The shares have stayed between $13 to $14 mark, with the most recent closing at $14.36.

They haven’t caught the world on fire, but they’ve been respectable.

I’m sure executives across the market are watching and wondering, “Are we ready?”

From the people I’ve been talking to, three names are the most obvious – Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Vangent Inc. and TASC.

With all three owned by private equity (Booz Allen with the Carlyle Group, Vangent with Veritas Capital, and TASC with General Atlantic and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. once that deal closes) some sort of exit strategy is always in the mix. While a sale to an existing company is possible, the size of these three, particularly TASC and Booz Allen, make a sale highly improbable.

But I don’t expect any of these three to be in a rush to do an IPO. First, their owners have a reputation for patience, and second, they are good performers and should be throwing off a lot of cash, which again means that they shouldn’t rush to Wall Street.

After these top-tier candidates, speculation gets much wider and perhaps wilder.

In the potential IPO pool, I would put companies such as American Systems, Apptis Inc., Pragmatics, Alion Science and Technology, and STG Inc. I’m sure there are others I’m missing.

The IPO challenge for some of these companies is size. Global Technologies Inc., with about $200 million in annual revenue, was about as low on the size scaled as you’d want to get.”

Read the full article here.

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M&A: Hot Spots in 2010

December 8, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Here is an interresting read from BusinessWeek.

For the mergers-and-acquisitions market, there is no doubt 2009 is ending better than it began. The year is winding up with a “sigh of relief,” says Morton Pierce, chairman of the M&A practice at law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.

In the past month the M&A market has built up some momentum. According to Bloomberg, deals in North America were valued at $115.6 billion in November, the most since September 2008. Compare that with late 2008 and early 2009, when dealmaking either wasn’t happening at all or was centered in areas where deals absolutely needed to happen, such as failing financial institutions that needed buyers at any price. Deal volume in November was five times February’s volume of $22.5 billion.

Investors looking ahead to 2010 are wondering if this uptick in M&A can continue and where it will occur. Acquirers almost always buy at a premium, so traders can profit from correctly betting which industries will attract the most bidding activity.

Small Tech Deals

In 2009, Internet stocks, the investment and financial services industries, software, and oil and gas production were among the most active, according to Bloomberg data. Expect more dealmaking among technology stocks, say M&A experts. Oracle Corp. (ORCL) is battling European regulators to finish its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA).

Such acquisitions, and especially much smaller deals, are a way of life for tech firms, says Daniel Mitz, a partner at law firm Jones Day who specializes in tech deals. “A lot of the innovation comes from smaller companies,” Mitz says. Dealmaking in tech slowed but didn’t stop during the downturn. There could be significant pent-up demand, Mitz says. “This is an industry that is ripe for M&A.”

One driver of a rebound for M&A in tech will be the strong financial positions of many tech firms, says Nadia Damouni, editor of dealReporter Americas, which tracks the M&A market. Another “cash rich” sector is health care, she says, but here the prospects for an M&A rebound are harder to read. The reason: Uncertainty surrounding the federal overhaul of the U.S.health-care system proposed by President Barack Obama and under discussion in Congress. “They’re at the whim of health-care reform,” Damouni says of the many insurers and health-care services companies that could be M&A targets at some point.

In health care, the key ingredient for dealmaking is “stability,” says Bob Filek, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Transaction Services. If health-care reform passes—or even if it doesn’t—acquirers will want some certainty about what federal policy will mean for health care before making bids. Filek envisions “a couple of scenarios where [the result could be] a lot of M&A activity.”

Read the full article here.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, BusinessWeek, Distressed IP, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Market research, Sun Microsystems, Technology, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

U.S. Forecasts Smaller Loss From Bailout of Banks

December 7, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Here is an article from Dealbook at NY Times.

The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42 billion of the $370 billion it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report, Jackie Calmes writes in The New York Times.

The new assessment of the $700 billion bailout program, provided by two Treasury officials on Sunday ahead of a report to Congress on Monday, is vastly improved from the Obama administration’s estimates last summer of $341 billion in potential losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That figure anticipated more financial troubles requiring intervention.

The officials said the government could ultimately lose $100 billion more from the bailout program in new loans to banks, aid to troubled homeowners and credit to small businesses.

Still, the new estimates would lower the administration’s deficit forecast for this fiscal year, which began in October, to about $1.3 trillion, from $1.5 trillion.

The report could tamp down some of the public anger directed against both parties over the bailouts. Congressional leaders are already planning to use some of the program’s money for economic stimulus and job creation.

Of course, the government’s potential losses extend beyond the Treasury program. The Federal Reserve, for example, still holds a trillion-dollar portfolio of mortgage-backed securities whose market value is unknown.

The improved picture of the Treasury program is the result of higher-than-expected returns on the loans and the fact that, as the financial sector has recovered from its free fall last year, the government has not had to use much more of its $700 billion in lending authority this year, according to the Treasury officials, who declined to be identified as discussing the report before it was presented to Congress.

Last week, Bank of America became the latest big bank to say that it was raising private capital and would soon repay its $45 billion bailout loan. Once that payment is made, Citigroup will be the last big bank tethered to the state.

The estimated $42 billion in losses is a net figure that accounts for some profits to offset the losses. The Treasury officials said the government had lost about $60 billion, roughly half to Chrysler and General Motors and the other half to the insurance giant American International Group.”

Read the full article here.

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Comcast Suits Up for a Brand New Game

December 4, 2009 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Here is another merger bit of news from TechNewsWorld.

“If regulators approve Comcast’s acquisition of a majority interest in NBC Universal, the cable company will instantly become a major content producer, going head to head with ABC, Viacom and Fox. “Comcast believes that controlling content will ensure the future successof its distribution system,” said entertainment-corporate attorney Jeff Liebenson.

It’s official: Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSK) has engineered what appears to be the biggest media joint venture of the year — a multibillion-dollar merger that will combine General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal with Comcast’s own cable networks.

Once complete, Comcast will take majority ownership of NBC, ending GE’s 20 year control of the network. It is a complex transaction that, among other things, requires GE to buy Vivendi’s 20 percent stake in NBC for US$5.8 billion — a deal within a deal that was agreed upon last month.

Terms of the transaction call for Comcast to pay GE some $6.5 billion and contribute programming valued at $7.25 billion in exchange for its 51 percent stake.

The merger still must meet regulatory approval, which may require that Comcast make certain concessions. Already some members of Congress are calling for hearings to determine the merger’s impact on consumers.

NBCU chief Jeff Zucker will report to Stephen Burke, Comcast’s operating chief, who will oversee the takeover once the deal is complete.

For all the complexity surrounding the transaction, its end goals are fairly simple: GE wants to focus on other elements of its diverse corporate kingdom. Comcast wants access to content for distribution on its own networks.”

Read the full article here.

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