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Posts Tagged ‘Gerbsman Partners’

UBS sees 15% M&A rebound next year

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is some good market analysis from The Reuters Blog – Dealzone.

“Like SocGen before them, UBS strategists are looking forward to a pickup in M&A next year.

“We expect 2009 to mark the trough in global M&A transactions and for activity to pick up in 2010 and beyond. For FY2010, globally we expect M&A activity in the region of $2.5-2.7trl, an increase of 15% on current annualised run rate for 2009 and close to levels last seen in mid 2004-05. The biggest driver of an increase in activity is likely to be the increase in risk appetite in equity markets and in the boardroom, a return to earnings growth and profitability by World Inc and a backlog of pending asset disposals.”

“Credit conditions are also supportive and we expect private equity and bank lending to pick up at some point next year.”

“We do think investors can take advantage of the growing interest in M&A as the likelihood of deals gets priced into stocks. The average take-out premium historically has been 30-40%, much of which is earned around the announcement of a deal. Merger arbitrage post bid announcement has earned a levered IRR around of 9% this year.”

“Despite a 27% decline in global M&A activity in 2009, deal volumes in Asia remained strong. At the current run rate, 2009 activity in the region will be up on 2008, taking APAC’s share of global M&A to 25%, from 6% in 1995. A meaningful pick-up in global activity in 2010 will require a rebound from trough deal volumes this year in the Americas and Europe.”

Read the full story here.

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Mother of all carry trades faces an inevitable bust

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Market research, tagged , , , , , , , on November 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is a market commentary from Financial Times.

“Since March there has been a massive rally in all sorts of risky assets – equities, oil, energy and commodity prices – a narrowing of high-yield and high-grade credit spreads, and an even bigger rally in emerging market asset classes (their stocks, bonds and currencies). At the same time, the dollar has weakened sharply , while government bond yields have gently increased but stayed low and stable.

This recovery in risky assets is in part driven by better economic fundamentals. We avoided a near depression and financial sector meltdown with a massive monetary, fiscal stimulus and bank bail-outs. Whether the recovery is V-shaped, as consensus believes, or U-shaped and anaemic as I have argued, asset prices should be moving gradually higher.

But while the US and global economy have begun a modest recovery, asset prices have gone through the roof since March in a major and synchronised rally. While asset prices were falling sharply in 2008, when the dollar was rallying, they have recovered sharply since March while the dollar is tanking. Risky asset prices have risen too much, too soon and too fast compared with macroeconomic fundamentals.

So what is behind this massive rally? Certainly it has been helped by a wave of liquidity from near-zero interest rates and quantitative easing. But a more important factor fuelling this asset bubble is the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades. The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Investors who are shorting the US dollar to buy on a highly leveraged basis higher-yielding assets and other global assets are not just borrowing at zero interest rates in dollar terms; they are borrowing at very negative interest rates – as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualised – as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on short dollar positions.”

Read the full story here.

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IT Services In Sweet Spot As M&A Gathers Steam

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Market research, Strategy, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , on October 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is some possitive news from VC Circle.

“The ongoing recovery in the economy and credit markets has made tech companies look for ways to come out on top.

The U.S. information technology services sector is likely to be a focus of merger and acquisition activity as its companies are among the most attractive in the technology space.

A rebound in tech spending has increased the appeal of IT services companies and put them in the crosshairs as deal momentum picks up in the industry.

The ongoing recovery in the economy and credit markets has made tech companies look for ways to come out on top, and they have shown a willingness to pay hefty premiums in a sector that has historically commanded high prices.

IT services firms have a recurring revenue stream, high margins, a strong growth outlook and impressive returns on investment, making tempting targets for buyers. They offer consulting, software services, business process outsourcing, systems integration and interactive marketing.

Cash-rich technology giants plan to strengthen their portfolios, and smaller firms want to stay in the game through acquisitions as their larger rivals become even more formidable.

Attractive acquisition candidates include Sapient, Computer Sciences, WNS, Amdocs, Cognizant Technology and ExlService, analysts said.

Consolidation is under way. In September, Xerox Corp said it would buy Affiliated Computer Services Inc in a deal valued at about $5.5 billion, and Dell Inc said it planned to buy Perot Systems Corp for about $3.9 billion.

“The pattern here is that you have commoditizing tech product companies looking for a strategy that’s better than doing nothing,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Rod Bourgeois said.

“They’re looking at the IT services industry to juice up their struggling tech product business.”

Possible acquirers could be tech giants such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard or Cisco, European players like BT or Deutsche Telekom and Asian companies like Hitachi, Fujitsu or NEC, analysts said.

“There’s definitely going to be some strategic acquisitions — there’s no doubt about that,” Goldman Sachs analyst Julio Quinteros said. “It’s just, how much are you willing to pay? And would you rather wait for the market to come back a little bit?”

The recurring revenue stream that IT services firms have gives them more visibility and stability.

“What’s driving a lot of this is the evolution of hardware companies looking for more stability and recurring revenues that are typically associated with services models and by the same token software companies potentially looking for the same thing,” Quinteros said.

Hardware and software companies want to diversify their portfolios by adding services, to help them survive and even prosper through tough times.

“What’s alluring about services for tech product companies is first the precedent of IBM and HP coupling products with services to be able weather the downturn well,” Bourgeois said.

In 2008, Hewlett-Packard acquired EDS for $13 billion in what is considered the biggest acquisition in the space ever. In 2002, IBM bought PwC Consulting from PricewaterhouseCoopers for about $3.5 billion.

“Vendors are trying, to some extent, to emulate the integrated model that IBM really pioneered when they got into the services business years ago,” UBS analyst Jason Kupferberg said. “HP followed suit buying EDS. Now you’re seeing a continuation of that theme.”

Read the full article here.

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Worsening job picture fuels slide in confidence

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Economy, tagged , , , , on October 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is some job news from Yahoo Finance.

CHICAGO (AP) — Consumers’ confidence about the U.S. economy fell unexpectedly in October as job prospects remained bleak, a private research group said Tuesday, fueling speculation that an already gloomy holiday shopping forecast could worsen.

The Consumer Confidence Index, released by The Conference Board, sank unexpectedly to 47.7 in October — its second-lowest reading since May.

Forecasters predicted a higher reading of 53.1.

A reading above 90 means the economy is on solid footing. Above 100 signals strong growth.

The index has seesawed since reaching a historic low of 25.3 in February and climbed to 53.4 in September.

Economists watch consumer confidence because spending on goods and services by Americans accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity by federal measures. While the reading doesn’t always predict short-term spending, it’s a helpful barometer of spending levels over time, especially for expensive, big-ticket items.

Recent economic data, from housing to manufacturing, has offered mixed signals but some evidence that an economic recovery might be slow.

But on Tuesday, the figures showed that shoppers have a grim outlook for the future, The Conference Board said, expecting a worsening business climate, fewer jobs and lower salaries. That’s particularly bad news for retailers who depend on the holiday shopping season for a hefty share of their annual revenue.

“Consumers also remain quite pessimistic about their future earnings, a sentiment that will likely constrain spending during the holidays,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center.

Economists expect holiday sales to be at best flat from a year ago, which saw the biggest declines since at least 1967 when the Commerce Department started collecting the data.”

Read the full article here.

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State’s auto industry plugs in to the future

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Technology, tagged , , , on October 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is a cleantech story by way of Delaware Online.

Working-class Delaware came out in force Tuesday to celebrate Fisker Automotive’s plans to buy the vacant Boxwood Road plant near Newport and return the state to the business of building cars, potentially creating thousands of jobs in the process.

In front of hundreds of auto workers — past and future — and seemingly every elected official in Delaware, state and national leaders and the startup automaker’s CEO touted the company’s plans to build plug-in hybrid electric cars at a factory that refuses to stay closed.

The Boxwood plant looked doomed in 1993 when General Motors said it planned to close it. The company later changed its mind.

Complete coverage: Fisker’s plans for Boxwood

The factory was again left for dead in July, when GM followed through on ending production there in the wake of its historic bankruptcy filing, costing about 550 Boxwood Road workers their jobs.

Tuesday’s event celebrated an eventual resurrection of the 62-year-old plant, this time as a catalyst for what supporters hope is a seismic shift in the auto industry, the transition from gasoline to electricity as the fuel for cars.

“Since we moved from the horse to the gasoline engine, there has never been such a big change as is happening right now,” Henrik Fisker, co-founder and CEO of his namesake company, told the crowd.

United Auto Workers union members mixed with state government officials and corporate leaders on the Boxwood plant floor Tuesday, everyone savoring an economic development victory for tiny Delaware over larger states that would have loved to lure Fisker.”

Read the full article here.

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