Category: Business

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Business Economy

Fannie and Freddie crisis, InBev snaps AB

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Fannnie and Freddie crisis
I read Burham’s beat Fannie Mae’s Golden Goose article last Friday, after seeing the dramatic stock actions of FNM and FRE on that day. Following that, I also reviewed Barrons March 11 article, IS this Fannie Mae Toast?

Yeah, it looks like it. The bad thing is, those executives at Fannie and Freddie have made their money, we (tax payers) are bailing them out. So is the US still a free market capitalism country? Seems more like cronyism capitalism to me 🙂

An emotional day in St. Louis
As you may heard from the news, Anheuser Busch accepted the latest cash offer from InBev, and the AB global headquarter in STL will be the North American HQ of combined company Anheuser Busch InBev. Because it’s a cash offer, the current shareholders (Busch family, and Warren Buffett) will NOT have a stake in the new company. Interestingly, this morning I heard from radio Mayor Slay turned 180 degree about the merger, saying “I will work with AB/InBev starting tomorrow, next day, next week, next month…to ensure the success of AB/InBev in the region”.

Hm, what did he say a while earlier (before AB shareholders and board accepted the sweetened offer from $65 to $70 a share). Something like “this merger will destroy the shareholder value, lay off workers in AB, reduce the commitment to community”. All kind of bad things. What a difference $5 can make. Now everybody is happy.

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Business Saint Louis

InBev come to get Anheuser-Busch?

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These days the talk of Belgium/Brazil beer maker potential takeover of Anheuser-Busch (NYSE:BUD) is getting St. Louisians attention. Note Anheuser-Busch is not just a large beer maker based in STL, it’s also has roots in the city and the community.

InBev Stella Atois
(Bottles of Stella Artois beer pass along a production line at an InBev brewery in Leuven, Belgium. Stella Artois is one of InBev’s best known brands. Paul O’Driscoll/Bloomberg News)

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Business

McCafe takes on Starbucks

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Last week I had the opportunity to try the latte at a new McDonald restaurant near my home, it was good. The middle size iced carmel latte cost $2.79 ($2.99 after tax), slightly cheaper than Starbucks. One caveats (as I understand), not many McDonald stores offer those espresso at this time, the new ones offering those are called McCafe.

The war on espresso is on.

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Business

Swap Mindray for Syngenta

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I sold some Mindray stocks (MR) last Friday and today, and I bought some Syngenta (SYT), the European agriculture company. I think it is a more reasonably valued stock (compared to my across street neighbour Monsanto), in this ag (soft commodity) boom. The thing I want to make sure is it does not bust very soon.

Syngenta field logo

The reasons why I sold Mindray:

1) Before and after it announced the acquisition of DataScope patient monitor business, the stock price dropped quite a bit (note this is quite normal in acquisition);

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Business

Greed: from Enron to Sub-prime fiasco

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(Update) I started this article a few months ago. Just as I complete it today, I heard the Elliot Spitzer’s scandal (possibly criminal prosecution) regarding his involvement in prostitution ring. How ironic. I hope people don’t discount Elliot’s relentless effort to clean up the Street, no matter what comes out of his case.

(Original) When the Enron scandal surfaced in Summer 2002, I just started to learn about US stock market. But I vaguely remember many other companies such as Worldcom, Tyco also exposed their problems later on. The CEOs of those companies are all prosecuted, and corporate governence of US companies are much improved since then. The congress scrambled to come up with the Sabane-Oxly Act, which helped to make the corporate accounting books more accurately reflect the reality of companies well-beings, and strengthen the investors confidence.

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Business

Why Sprint Nextel merger failed

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Last week one of the news in wireless arena is Sprint Nextel wrote down all the book values for the Nextel acquisition (about $29.5 billion, see Bloomberg). Put it in perspective, this is one of the largest fiascos of corporate merger&acquisition in recent history. The magnitude is in the league of AOL and Time Warner merger in dot com days.

sprint nextel merger pic
(Mr. Forsee, left, shakes hands with Nextel founder in 2004. Source: USAtoday)

The following is from a financial advisor’s view about Sprint Nextel stock. The original source can be found here.

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Business Stocks

My take on MSFT bid for YHOO

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Ballmer has been chasing Jerry Yang for a year, and today he ran out of patience. Interestingly enough, I learned it from CNBC first time (around 5:30 AM central time). Note, last time I watched early CNBC, it was Jan 22 global crash…so the lesson for me don’t get up too early 🙂

The desperation of Microsoft
After all these efforts, MSN search, MSN live space, blog, MSFT is still playing catch up with GOOG. Since it can not afford to buy GOOG, it is determined to get the No. 2 guy in web search, by paying more than 50% premium over yesterday’s YHOO closing price.

How Yahoo got here

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Business China

Wang Shi spoke about housing price

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Q&A about housing price in China, by Vanke (000002.SZ) Chairman Wang Shi. He wrote those Q&A in his own blog.

I put it together here because it’s a bit hard to read 7 articles separately. I left out couple tables because it’s hard to paste.

I’m interested in the Chinese housing for two reasons:
1) My wife and I are thinking about work and live in China in the future.
2) Like the Chinese stock market, the China housing market is also very interesting. I think there is a lot to learn from the leader like Vanke (how they got here, which direction are they going), either from business or social point of the view.

Q7 问：高档住宅供应少，调整的可能性不高，不是吗？
答：就本次调整而言，金融环境的变化、市场信心的起伏具有统一性，对各个细分市场都会有影响。但各个城市的各个细分市场发展阶段和供求情况有所差异，不可一概而论。一般而言，普通住宅主要是满足中等收入家庭的自住需要，这部分住房需求比较稳固，基数也比较大，我们并不认为这个市场面临较大的价格下滑风险。高档住宅供应少，早已在大家的普遍预期之内，其绝对价格已经包含了这一因素。在高档住宅供应比例保持稳定的情况下，过快的价格涨幅同样会蕴含风险。

Q6 问：工厂化生产的住宅更贵，性价比并不高，您怎么看？

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Business Stocks

Bush is more influential than Bernanke?

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(Update noon Jan 18) Opps, the Bush rally only last couple hours 🙁 Seriously, I do welcome this $1,600 per family tax rebate. Maybe a trip to Europe this Spring? Oh well, that won’t help the US economy directly.

(Original) I mean, to the stock market. Yesterday, after Ben spoke in Congress and painted a bleak picture of US economy, and asked for some sorts of stimulus package. The DOW tanked 300 points, S&P and Nasdaq did no better. Today as Bush is unveiling his economy package: good old things like tax rebate for individuals and business, the US market seems took the cue and is up in the morning. Another amazing thing is the Overseas market (Japan, Korea, Hongkong and Shanghai) also reversed course (last night). So when Bush speaks, the world listens 🙂

Just kidding. Seriously speaking, I think US president has little to do with the US economy cycle, nor can a Fed chairman. The US is heading to a recession, period. But see, the problem is people (include myself) don’t want to hear the harsh words, facing the reality. A few days ago in Michigan John McCain did his straight talk “some of the jobs lost (in auto industry) is not coming back, we need to re-train our people for new skills”, while his rival Mitt Ronmey says he will do everything to get back auto jobs. It’s so obvious that US auto industry is losing ground in the US market, but people still elected Mitt: the guy who tells white lies.

Healthcare cost for US companies

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Business China

China corporate tax rate reform: winner and loser

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The following screen shot is from Capital Week Jan 5, 2008

2006_7_CHN_Tax_rate

We know from Jan 1 2008 China will have a unified corp tax rate of 25% (some tax rebate for certain industry and foreign enterprises will still apply for a while).

It appears retailer, bank, home builder, and telecom (include mobile phone) will be the big winner here as they are paying a rate of 37%, 34%, 35% and 37% in 2007, respectively. From year 2008 they will enjoy the lower rate of 25%.

On the other hand, it will have little effect for Information technology, automotive, and machinery etc. as they are enjoying lower tax rate and will enjoy it for a while.

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