Hitachi plans rail car JV in India

Hitachi Ltd plans to sign a joint venture agreement with an Indian firm early next year to assemble rail cars, Japanese business daily Nikkei reported.

The conglomerate plans to export India-made rail cars to Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand and Vietnam, where it now sells cars made at its Yamaguchi plant, the newspaper said.

To bank on opportunities in India, which is aggressively investing in railway infrastructure, Hitachi wants to wrap up partnership talks early next year and start building a factory as soon as possible, Nikkei said.

The company will also set up a manufacturing base in the UK and plans to build a joint venture factory in Brazil, the business daily reported.

Hitachi expects to boost railway-related sales to 320 billion yen in 2015 from 133.1 billion yen in 2010, with 60 percent of that sales coming from overseas over this period, Nikkei said. (Reporting by Durba Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Asian stock markets advance as Greece looks set to get next financial aid installment

BANGKOK - Asian stock markets mostly advanced Tuesday as Europe prepared to make good on its pledge to provide another installment of emergency aid to keep Greece from tumbling into insolvency.

South Korea's Kospi added 0.2 per cent to 1,922.05 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was 0.7 per cent at higher 19,822.91. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 per cent to 4,294.30 while Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.2 per cent to 8,751.86.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and mainland China rose.

Wall Street finished higher Monday on news that Greece would receive the latest installment of emergency aid as long as the country's two main parties commit to implementing economic reforms agreed to by the country's previous government.

The Dow rose 0.7 per cent to close at 12,068.39. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.6 per cent to 1,261.12. The Nasdaq rose 0.3 per cent to 2,695.25.

Even as Greece's economy remained on life support, worries began to surface about Italy, where the prospect of financial disaster was real because of Rome's huge debts and slow growth. Unlike Greece, Ireland and Portugal — the three countries that Europe has already bailed out — Italy's economy could be too large to rescue.

Soaring borrowing rates in the past week have intensified pressure on Premier Silvio Berlusconi to resign.

The yield on Italy's 10-year bonds jumped Monday to 6.67 per cent, drawing uncomfortably near the 7 per cent threshold that forced both Ireland and Portugal to accept bailouts.

"Traders do not want to see yields advance to 7 per cent and above, after the fate suffered by the likes of Greece, Ireland and Portugal when their yields rose to those levels," Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne wrote in a report.

Investors want the Italian government to quickly pass measures to boost growth and cut debt. But defections from Berlusconi's coalition government mean he no longer commands enough loyalty to pass the reforms.

In Tokyo, embattled Olympus Corp. plummeted 28 per cent amid reports it had admitted wrongdoing in a scandal over huge payments for financial advise, Kyodo News Agency reported.

In energy trading, benchmark crude for December delivery was up 13 cents at $95.65 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.26 to settle at $95.52 in New York on Monday.

The euro was higher at $1.3768 from $1.3761 on Monday in New York.

The dollar was little changed at 78.02 yen.

The Steve Jobs business legacy

World Most Expensive Home 2010

Antilla Mumbai - $1 Billion 
   
Villa Leopolda, Cote d’Azur France – $525 million  
One Hyde Park – The Penthouse, London – $200 million 
 Fairfield Pond, The Hamptons – $170 million  
Hearst Mansion, Beverly Hills – $165 million 
 Franchuk Villa, Kensington – $161million  
The Pinnacle Montana – $155million  
The Manor Los Angeles – $150 million 
 Updown Court, Windlesham, Surrey – $139million  
Dracula’s Castle, Romania – $135million
 

GM Sales in April Beat Analysts’ Estimates as Ford, Nissan Miss

 

General Motors Co.’s U.S. sales rose 26 percent in April, beating analysts’ estimates, while deliveries at Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. increased less than expected.

GM’s sales climbed to 232,538 vehicles from 183,997 a year earlier, the Detroit-based automaker said today in a statement. The gain topped the 14 percent increase estimated on average by seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Ford said its sales rose 13 percent to 189,778, and Nissan’s gained 12 percent to 71,526.

GM’s Cruze set a record for sales since its introduction last year, and the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain small sport-utility vehicles had their best April as rising gas prices lured consumers to more fuel-efficient models, said Don Johnson, vice president of U.S. sales.

“Cruze has been well-received,” Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of Santa Monica, California-based Edmunds.com, said in a telephone interview. “There is definitely demand there and a lot of it is driven by fuel prices.”

The average price of regular unleaded gasoline in the U.S. rose 37 percent in the past year to $3.97 a gallon yesterday, according to AAA. The price peaked at $4.11 in July 2008.

U.S. auto sales may have run at a seasonally adjusted 13 million annual rate, the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The pace was 13.1 million in March and 13.4 million in February, according to Autodata Corp. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

GM climbed 75 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $32.93 at 12:46 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Ford fell 3 cents to $15.42.

Ford Fiesta

Ford’s 13 percent gain trailed the average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg for a 14 percent increase. The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker’s Fiesta subcompact exceeded 9,000 deliveries for the second month in a row, while sales of the Focus compact car rose 22 percent to 17,265. F- Series pickup sales rose 11 percent.

Vehicles getting more than 30 mpg on the highway have climbed to more than 35 percent of GM’s sales to retail customers from 19 percent two years ago, Johnson said. The Cruze Eco model, which had its first full month of deliveries in April, gets as much as 42 mpg on the highway.

“We’re very well-positioned to grow our share in some of these key small-vehicle segments,” Johnson said yesterday in a telephone briefing with reporters.

GM Inventory

GM had inventory of 577,000 vehicles on dealer lots at the end of April, according to today’s statement, in line with previous months this year and up by about 149,000 vehicles from a year earlier. GM’s discounts fell more than 10 percent, or about $400 per vehicle, from March, Johnson said yesterday.

The March 11 earthquake in Japan won’t “materially” affect GM’s results this year, and the company still expects industrywide U.S. sales in 2011 of 13 million to 13.5 million, including medium- and heavy-duty trucks, Johnson said today.

The industry selling rate on that basis may be 13.4 million or 13.5 million for April, he said.

Chrysler Group LLC, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, may say sales rose 18 percent in April, the average of five analysts’ estimates.

Toyota Sales

Deliveries at Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest automaker, may have risen 1.4 percent, the average of four analysts’ estimates. U.S. sales may have gained 14 percent at Honda Motor Co., the average of four analysts’ estimates.

Nissan’s 12 percent sales gain trailed the 33 percent increase estimated on average by four analysts.

Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, led the eighth straight drop in the country’s monthly auto sales in April to 108,824 vehicles, the lowest for any month since the Japan Automobile Dealers Association started tracking sales in 1968.

Inventories for Japan-based manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda may begin to shrink in May and June, executives at the largest auto retailers said last week.

U.S. light-vehicle sales climbed to 11.6 million in 2010 from a 27-year low in 2009. Deliveries still were 31 percent fewer than the 16.8 million annual average from 2000 to 2007, according to Autodata. A 13 million rate this month would be a 16 percent increase from the 11.2 million pace in April 2010.

--With assistance from Keith Naughton, Tim Higgins and David Welch in Southfield, Michigan, and Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles. Editors: Kevin Orland, Jamie Butters

To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Trudell in Southfield, Michigan, at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net.

Natural gas drops; Oil jumps above $110

NEW YORK (AP) -- While oil continues to rise to new highs, the price of natural gas dropped 2 percent Thursday and has remained relatively flat since the recession.

Traders say the reason is simple: oil is traded internationally and is heavily influenced by demand from China and other emerging economies. The U.S. is awash in natural gas but lacks the infrastructure to export it, and a recent boom in production has kept prices in check.

The contrast between the two was clear on Thursday. Natural gas plunged after the government said supplies dropped less than expected. It gave up 8.9 cents to settle at $4.057 per 1,000 cubic feet. Meanwhile, oil surged to $110.30 per barrel, reaching a new 30-month high, even though U.S. oil supplies have been increasing. They grew by 2 million barrels last week, according to the Energy Department.

Oil and natural gas seemed to be in lockstep in 2008, when prices for both spiked. "But there's really no relationship between them anymore," analyst Jim Ritterbusch said. The average price for natural gas dropped 5 percent last month, when compared with March of last year. Oil, on the other hand, surged 27 percent in the same period.

The emergence of shale gas drilling in the U.S. likely will keep natural gas storage facilities filled with a hefty surplus, Ritterbusch said. New technologies have helped drillers tap vast underground reserves that are estimated to be large enough to supply the U.S. for more than a century.

Shale gas production has soared more than 12-fold in the last decade, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Even after an especially chilly winter, when homes and businesses cranked up the heat, natural gas supplies haven't dropped as much as expected.

The EIA reported that natural gas stocks fell by 45 billion cubic feet last week. Analysts expected an even bigger drop of between 49 to 53 billion cubic feet. The report was another sign that "good demand is not even putting a dent in supply," analyst and trader Stephen Schork said.

Meanwhile, gasoline pump prices are still rising and setting records for this time of year. The national average increased nearly 2 cents on Thursday to $3.725 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular increased by 20.8 cents in the last month and is 88.1 cents higher than last year.

Americans are paying $247 million more per day at the pump than they were at the start of the year.

In other Nymex contracts for May delivery, heating oil lost 1.48 cents to settle at $3.2060 per gallon and gasoline futures lost 0.64 cents to settle at $3.1865 per gallon.

In London, Brent crude gained 33 cents to settle at $122.26 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Lakme Fashion Week - Part 1

At Lakme Fashion Week Summer Resort 2011, there were more celeb guests than celeb showstoppers. Front rows were dotted with glitzy fashionistas who either proved that they were truly stylish or had just lost the plot.

Celeberities spotted in this segment were Bipasha Basu, Dia Mirza, Sonali Bendre, Suzanne Roshan, Minnissha Lamba and Sonal Chauhan. Check out 7 more images after the jump.

• Lakme Fashion Week - Part 1

Dimon Makes $20 Billion AT&T Loan in Bid to Be ‘Dominant’

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Three years after Jamie Dimon became the nation’s lender of last resort in the rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and Washington Mutual Inc., he is leading the industry by financing a $20 billion loan to AT&T Inc.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive officer cemented his firm’s spot as the top U.S. mergers-and-acquisitions bank over Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with the March 20 announcement that it’s advising AT&T on a $39 billion bid for Deutsche Telekom AG’s U.S. wireless unit, T-Mobile USA Inc. New York-based JPMorgan committed to providing $20 billion to AT&T.

“He wants to win, and he doesn’t want to win by a small amount,” Richard Bove, an analyst for Rochdale Securities LLC in Lutz, Florida, said yesterday in an interview. “He wants to win big and dominant. He wants to be known as the next J.P. Morgan.” Bove has a “buy” rating on JPMorgan.

Bove called the AT&T deal a “blockbuster transformational transaction” and said Dimon may be the most powerful U.S. banker since his company’s namesake, John Pierpont Morgan, helped resolve the panic of 1907.

Dimon, 55, flew to Tokyo from Hong Kong today to speak with employees and meet clients affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said a person with knowledge of the trip who declined to be identified because the travel plans haven’t been made public.

Wielding Assets

Dimon may be the only banker in the U.S. who could complete an unsecured loan as large as the AT&T deal as he wields JPMorgan’s $2.12 trillion in assets, Bove said.

“This is not the first time that they’ve used their balance sheet to gain market share,” said Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in New York. “They have enough capital that they don’t have to shy away from clients. They can take on a large commitment.” Orenbuch rates JPMorgan “outperform.”

Dimon’s only possible competition on a transaction that large would be Goldman Sachs, led by CEO Lloyd Blankfein, or Morgan Stanley, “and Jamie’s going to feel more comfortable where his capital is,” said Paul Miller, a former examiner for the Federal Reserve bank of Philadelphia and analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia. “This gives Jamie Dimon a huge advantage out there.”

Goldman, Citigroup

Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, has less than half the common equity of JPMorgan with $70 billion while Morgan Stanley has about $48 billion, according to Bove. Rivals including Citigroup Inc. and Charlotte, North Carolina- based Bank of America Corp. have been hobbled by soured mortgage investments and losses from other consumer loans, Bove and Miller said.

Stephen Cohen, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan’s Jennifer Zuccarelli and Pen Pendleton of Morgan Stanley, the sixth-largest U.S. bank, declined to comment.

JPMorgan agreed to buy Bear Stearns amid the credit crisis in March 2008, helping the investment bank avert a bankruptcy that could have further damaged the U.S. economy. Later that year, Dimon bought Washington Mutual for $1.9 billion after the Seattle-based thrift was seized by federal regulators.

Dimon, who’s been CEO since the end of 2005, maintained profits throughout the financial crisis. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1982, he went to work for family friend and mentor Sanford Weill. Together, the two built the firm that became Citigroup, now the third-largest U.S. bank.

Bank One

Dimon was fired by Weill in 1998 and in 2000 was hired to run Bank One, a regional lender in Ohio that was acquired by JPMorgan in 2004.

JPMorgan, which was third behind Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in M&A advisory for 2010, is leading the league tables this year. The bank’s North American M&A operation is run by Jim Woolery and Chris Ventresca.

Its investment bank, run by Jes Staley, ranked No. 1 for the third year in a row among the 20 highest-paid investment advisers in 2010, collecting $4.14 billion in fees for M&A as well as debt and equity underwriting, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Andrew O’Brien, JPMorgan’s co-head of syndicated and leveraged finance, put together the package for Dallas-based AT&T.

“JPMorgan can now go around to the biggest corporations in the world and say, ‘Look at what I did, look at how I protected my customer,’” Bove said. “They have enormous advantages in the market.”

Label Origins New Collection For Spring 2011

This is a very beautiful spring collection by the label Origins, The colors, the patterns and fabric is beautifull designed. This collection is ready to wear so theres no need for you to get them sewed or even try find a tailor. Which is perfect.

Stock Exchange Market

Several big acquisitions and a strong earnings report from Loews Corp. pushed stocks higher Monday.

Pride International Inc. jumped 16 percent after Ensco PLC, a London-based oil rig operator, said it would buy the offshore driller for $7.3 billion.

Beckman Coulter Inc. gained 10 percent after Danaher Corp. said it plans to buy the manufacturer of medical diagnostic tests for $5.8 billion.

Loews Corp. rose 4 percent. The company, which owns Loews hotels and the property insurer CNA Financial Corp., said falling costs helped earnings rise 16 percent even as revenue slipped slightly. The results were higher than analysts were expecting and helped push financial companies higher.

Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading, said that with no major economic reports due out this week, mergers and earnings reports will continue to drive stocks higher. Anything that can be construed as good news is likely to give investors a reason to buy stocks, he said.

“The path of least resistance right now is up,” Saluzzi said. “People are beginning to assume the market is going higher. It’s momentum.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 69.48 points, or 0.6 percent, to 12,161.63. The Dow has now risen for six straight days, its longest winning streak since November.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 8.18, or 0.6 percent, to 1,319.05. The Nasdaq composite gained 14.69, or 0.5 percent, to 2,783.99.

Financial companies rose 1.5 percent, the largest gain of any of the 10 company groups that make up the S&P index.

Lorillard Inc. rose 2 percent after the company, which makes Newport and Maverick cigarettes, said it increased both sales and prices of its products.

AOL Inc. dropped 3.4 percent after saying it would buy the Huffington Post, a news and opinion website, for $315 million. Arianna Huffington, the site’s co-founder and political pundit, will join AOL’s management team.

Toy maker Hasbro Inc. rose 1.8 percent after reporting earnings that were lower but still beat analysts’ expectations.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 3.64 percent from 3.65 percent late Friday.

Monday was the first day of trading since the company that owns the Nasdaq exchange admitted Saturday it had been hacked late last year. The problem did not affect any trades, the company said.

Two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 4 billion shares.

Oracle buys Sun

Oracle announced Wednesday it completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in a deal valued at more than $7 billion, a move that transforms the database and business-software giant into a hardware company as well.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle has acquired several large companies in its drive to out-consolidate rivals in the business computing technology market, sometimes launching hostile takeovers and sometimes prevailing over regulatory objections. This time, the difficulty was persuading European antitrust regulators who were concerned about the fate under Oracle of the open-source MySQL database software business that was part of Sun.

But that barrier fell as the European Commission approved Oracle's Sun acquisition plan on January 21. Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and other executives from Sun and Oracle are set to detail plans for Sun on Wednesday during a Webcast event starting at 9 a.m. PST.

"My hat is off to one of the greatest capitalists I have ever met, Larry Ellison," Sun Chairman Scott McNealy said in a bittersweet memo Tuesday, bidding adieu to the company he helped found 28 years earlier. "To be honest, this is not a note this founder wants to write. Sun, in my mind, should have been the great and surviving consolidator. But I love the market economy and capitalism more than I love my company."

By giving it a place in the server, storage, and processor domains, the Sun acquisition means Oracle is a direct competitor to more companies, a complication given that it sells its database and other software for use on servers sold by those competitors. IBM already was Oracle's biggest foe, but others that have survived the consolidation wave include Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and EMC.

Since announcing the Sun acquisition plan in April, Oracle's sales pitch has been one of integrated products--hardware and software built to work together so customers don't have to do the integration work

Microsoft to issue 'Google attack' browser patch

Microsoft Corp said it will issue a patch to fix the old version of its Internet Explorer browser that allowed recent attacks on Google Inc's network in China.

The patch, due out on Thursday, "addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations," said Jerry Bryant, senior security program manager at Microsoft. "Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized."

Google said last week it had been the target of sophisticated cyber-attacks in China, along with more than 20 other companies. Microsoft acknowledged that the hackers took advantage of a weakness in Internet Explorer 6 to mount the attacks.

Microsoft said it continues to see some attacks, with the only successful attacks against Internet Explorer 6. The most recent version of the software is Internet Explorer 8.

$172,000 The Cost Of An Executive MBA Program At Wharton

$172,000: The Cost Of An Executive MBA Program At Wharton

MBA programs have never been cheap. And as the demand for these courses grows, so too, do the course fees. In fact, if the staggering fees for two-year full-time MBAs astonished you, have a look at the tuition fees being charged by part-time executive MBA programs. The most expensive executive MBA course is currently the one being offered by Wharton in downtown Francisco. The 24-month part-time course costs a whopping $172,000.

Break that figure down and you will find that students are spending about $250 an hour for the course. The per hour figures for full-time MBAs at the same institution is a good $100 less. Some more number crunching and you realise that per hour-long class, Wharton is pocketing some $12,300.

This is not even a stray case. Coming in second on the list of ‘most expensive executive MBA programs’ is Wharton’s Philadelphia campus. Here, students have to shell out $162,300 for the entire course. Compare that with the $108,000 that full-time MBA students pay at the same campus. Thus, some 400 students are contributing $35 million as annual revenue for Wharton’s Executive MBA programs.

The reason for the crushing fees is largely related to Wharton’s brand image. As with other luxury brands, Wharton’s reputation helps justify the high fees. Michael Desiderio, executive director of the Executive MBA Council, calculates that an executive MBA program should cost an average of $65,555. However, Anjani Jain, the vice dean for Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives, claims that what pushes the cost up is that the institute offers a premium learning experience that includes boarding, lodging and some of the world’s best business faculty. Part of the story is also that employed executives are less troubled by the high costs.

Internet Business Tips - Start a Business by Writing Internet Articles

Internet Business Tips - Start a Business by Writing Internet Articles

To start internet business on a limited budget – which many people do – requires some serious thinking about the value of writing articles.

The temptation might be to lace an article with spider-friendly phrases in the hope that this will attract readers and in turn get them to buy what you have to sell.

However, some deep thought needs to go in to the whole process.


First of all, what are "spider-friendly phrases"?

"Spiders" are little digital or electronic robots that race around the web looking for the sort of phrases that people are searching on.

For example, someone in Timbuktu does a Google search on "ebook software" and within a second or so, he or she is presented with page after page of likely web sites where that subject can be researched further.

This happens because millions of people have written the words "ebook software" somewhere on their web site or in an article they have written – and it is the spiders’ job to find where those words can be found, scurry home with the associated URL information, and throw this fuel into the search engine.

Those spiders are busy all day every day, seeking new appearances of words that match the search phrases people are entering into their browsers.

Therefore, the list of available sites where you can research "ebook software" continues to grow like Topsy.

However, the spiders have more than just search phrases and key words to consider. Through the magic and mystery of something called "algorithms" they are also evaluating web sites for Content.

The word deserves Capitalization, because Content is becoming Cing (or should I say Kontent is becoming King?).

Rocket scientists probably understand this better than the average internet business entrepreneur, but the bottom line is that "Content" means that while the spider may have raced home with "ebook software" in its little mandibles, the system is also required to check the web pages any associated links go to – and see if those pages actually do contain relevant Content.

If they follow the URL trail from your article about "ebook software" and only find a page that talks about Star Trek, they’ll put their phasers on full, and you’re fried.

But if your page’s Content is all about the advantages of your software, like the fact that it is rebrandable, can be used with no HTML experience, it’s a much cheaper alternative to Adobe ebook software and PDF files, will let you embed links in images text and pictures, plus it allows you to use a voice over track (which no other software of its kind can do) then you somehow get an advantage in the search ranking process because the content was relevant.

So back to writing articles and why.

Let us say you write an article in January 2006 and put it on your own web site – not in an article directory, but just on your own web site.

The spiders will find it, log it, and if the article contains something about "ebook software" with a link to your site (where of course you would be selling such software) then at some time someone is going to see your site mentioned in a search result, and go there.

You Need Maximum Exposure
The caveat however is that you also know you need perhaps 100 visitors specifically looking for your product to get one buyer. Therefore, you need far more exposure for your article than simply your own web site.

Which is why writing articles and submitting them to directories or web sites that will promote your work becomes a very attractive no-cost proposition.

It costs nothing to write something about anything, and provided you follow a few basic rules of style and content (usually spelled out clearly by the site where your work will be published) your exposure to the spiders – which translates to exposure to people searching for your product – goes up exponentially.

This is especially true if your article is picked up for use in someone else’s ezine or newsletter – an avenue which has great merit and benefits for both writer and publisher, provided the author’s resource box remains intact as a post script.

In that regard it is very important to include a primary link to a specific landing page on your web site. (like the one that follows this article for example).

But this link should not automatically be your home page. It should be your product’s sales page with more relevant Content (sales copy) where the product you have written about can be read about in detail. Be sure to include that all-important call-to-action and a buy button, as well as some way to capture your visitors’ name and email address so you can follow up for possible further sales.

And remember, that article you wrote in January 2006 is going to stay around for years to come, living a life of its own and at some time it is going to translate into money in the bank.

About the author: Michael Knight is a professional writer and CEO of www.CuddlySoftware.com, an exclusive outlet for talking ebook software.

China Overseas Land’s Kong Plans $500 Million Real-Estate Fund

March 7 (Bloomberg) -- China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd., the Hong Kong-listed developer controlled by the nation’s construction ministry, plans to set up a real-estate fund of $300 million to $500 million as it bets that government measures won’t curb property demand.

 

The fund, which will invest in commercial and residential properties in China, may be ready in the first half, Chairman Kong Qingping said in an interview in Beijing.

Kong is betting long-term property demand in China, where January home prices rose in all but two of the 70 cities monitored by the state, will outweigh the impact of curbs imposed by a government concerned about an asset bubble. Expansion by Chinese developers into smaller cities may hurt their profit margins as land costs climb faster than home prices, Credit Suisse Group AG said March 2.

“Any company that has a nationwide coverage is certainly stronger than those in single cities,” Kong said when asked about the Credit Suisse report. “They’re emerging markets with low and healthy home prices.”

Cities including Jinan in the north, Nanjing in the east and Kunming in the south have followed the capital Beijing in introducing local curbs on home purchases. The government this year raised down-payment requirements for second-home purchases and imposed taxes on residential properties in Shanghai and Chongqing.

Control Home Prices

China Overseas hasn’t been affected by property curbs imposed by the government yet, Kong said. The government measures will help control home prices in the short term, though long-term demand will continue to be strong, he said.

Vincent Lo, chairman of rival Shui On Land Ltd., said yesterday he expects home sales in China will fall “sharply” this year because of government curbs. China Overseas has fallen 6.4 percent in Hong Kong trading this year, compared with the 1.6 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The Hang Seng Property Index is down 2 percent.

Credit Suisse said developers including China Overseas, which expanded heavily into the smaller cities, will be the most affected by the government measures.

The company wants its commercial property to account for 20 percent of its net income in five years, Kong said. The developer has more than 2 million square meters of commercial property land bank, he said.

Its parent had HK$32 billion ($4.1 billion) in cash at the end of last year, Kong said. Financing plans for the listed company will depend on its business expansion plans, he said.

China State Construction International Holdings Ltd., a sister company, will take part in the government’s call to build more affordable, public housing, including two projects in Chongqing, said Kong, who is also chairman of China State Construction.

The government plans to build 36 million low-income housing units in its 12th Five-Year Plan. The plans won’t have a “big impact” on the private residential market, Kong said.

“The return rates of building social housing is low, but it also has low risks,” Kong said.

--Editors: Tan Hwee Ann, Paul Panckhurst.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Bonnie Cao in Shanghai at bcao4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andreea Papuc at apapuc1@bloomberg.net

Clinton Condemns Libya Violence and Says Qaddafi ‘Must Go’

(Updates with markets in third paragraph. See EXTRA for more news on the regional turmoil.)

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi must go “as soon as possible,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to freeze his assets.

“We want him to leave, we want him to end his regime,” and to call off the mercenaries who are targeting Libyan citizens, Clinton told reporters traveling with her to Geneva to discuss the turmoil with her counterparts.

The Security Council late yesterday voted 15-0 to freeze the foreign assets of Qaddafi and four aides and to bar them from traveling, in the broadest international effort to halt the violence in Libya that has left more than 1,000 people dead. Middle East shares fell, sending Saudi Arabia’s index to a nine- month low, on concern the deadly clashes of the past week that caused oil prices to surge to a more than two-year high will stall a global recovery.

The unrest that has swept the Middle East in the past month, ousting President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak as Egyptian president, today spread to Oman, where protesters clashed with security forces in the province of Sohar. In Tunisia, the country’s interim Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigned today after three people were killed in street protests.

Unrest in Libya and Persian Gulf countries including Bahrain has prompted concern that supplies of oil from the world’s main region of crude production may be disrupted.

Oil Markets

Crude oil for April delivery climbed 60 cents, or 0.6 percent, to settle at $97.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Feb. 25, the most recent day of trading. U.S. oil rose to $103.41 on Feb. 24, the highest intraday price since Sept. 29, 2008.

Clinton also praised the actions of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, and Bahrain’s King Hamad Bin Isa al Khalifa, saying they are engaged in “meaningful outreach” to their citizens.

The Bahraini king has reduced government housing loans by 25 percent. The Saudi king has taken measures designed to improve employment in the kingdom and, along with other OPEC nations, pledged to replace any lost Libyan oil.

Libya and Saudi Arabia are among the 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil.

Arms Embargo

The UN resolution also imposes an arms embargo on Libya and calls for an immediate end to violence that it says “may amount to crimes against humanity.” The measure refers the allegations to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for investigation and possible prosecution. The vote followed a plea by Libyan Ambassador Mohammed Shalgham on Feb. 25 for the UN to “save” his nation.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says more than 1,000 people have died in the unrest, which has left protesters in control of much of the east of the country.

Hundreds of armed anti-government forces backed by rebel troops who control Zawiya, the city closest to the capital, prepared late today to repel an expected offensive by forces loyal to Qaddafi, the Associated Press reported.

On the roads between the Egyptian border and the eastern town of Benghazi, anti-Qaddafi protesters carrying assault rifles and former soldiers in uniform set up tents and searched passing cars for weapons, some of them welcoming passersby with juice and sweets. In Benghazi and other eastern towns, public buildings including police stations flew the red, black and green flag of Libyan independence that pre-dates Qaddafi’s rule.

Benghazi Opposition

Opposition groups nominated former Justice Minister Moustafa Abdel Jalil as head of an interim government, Fathi Baja, a member of the city council in Benghazi, said today. It wasn’t immediately clear what form the provisional government might take or what support it has.

Egyptian volunteer doctors said most of the violence in Benghazi took place around the main army headquarters, and began when mercenaries opened fire on protesters.

Several witnesses in Tripoli, the capital, said forces loyal to the Libyan leader had shot people from ambulances, used antiaircraft guns against crowds, and removed dead bodies from hospitals to try to obscure the death toll, the New York Times reported.

One of Qaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, said “nobody is leaving this country” on ABC’s “This Week” program. “We live here. We die here.”

‘Reality Gap’

Saif Qaddafi said the regime’s military hasn’t attacked civilians and that most of Libya is calm. There is “a big gap between reality and the media reports,” he said on ABC. “The whole south is calm. The west is calm. The middle is calm. Even part of the east.”

Three Tunisian youths were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces yesterday, the official Tunis Afrique Presse news agency said, citing the Interior Ministry.

In Oman, several people were wounded today when Oman’s security forces fought rioters in Sohar, where protesters damaged public and private property, the official Oman News Agency reported today.

--With assistance from Mariam Fam in Cairo, Zahra Hankir and Alaa Shahine in Dubai, David Lerman, Ann Hughey and Jeff Bliss in Washington, and Thomas Penny in London. Editors: Digby Lidstone, Louis Meixler.

To contact the reporters on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net; Mariam Fam in Cairo at mfam1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.