NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Here’s the news and headlines that could drive action in the big financial stocks today.
Bank of America(BAC) said in its annual 10K filing with the SEC that it will stop selling new home loans to Fannie Mae(FNMA), citing an ongoing dispute with the housing giant over mortgage repurchase claims. According to press reports, the bank has said its move will not affect customers seeking home loans as it will continue to sell new mortgages to Freddie Mac(FMCC) or retain them in their own books. It will continue to offer loans refinanced and modified through government programs to Fannie Mae. Bank of America has been scaling back its presence in the mortgage origination business. Last year it exited the correspondent mortgages business. The bank also disclosed that it still faces “reasonably possible losses” of $3.6 billion in addition to what it has accrued. http://tourism9.com/ http://vkins.com/
Citigroup(C) is in the process of winding down its nearly 10% stake in India’s HDFC (Housing Development and Finance Corporation). The bank will sell 145.26 million shares in the leading housing finance company as part of a block trade, with an offer range of 630 and 730 rupees, according to Financial Times. At the upper range, the bank will raise $2.1 billion from the sale. The final price will be announced Friday morning. Citigroup had already pared its stake in HDFC from 11.4% to under 10% last June. At that time, the bank had said it was a mere response to the anticipated changes to its capital structure under Basel III and was not a reflection of its outlook on HDFC or the Indian market. Analysts believe the sale may be linked to an anticipated writedown the bank may have to take if Morgan Stanley(MS) exercises its option to buy an additional 14% stake in Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture.
Friday also brings economic data in the form of new homes sales data at 10:00 a.m. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard will be speaking in New York about housing and monetary policy. His comments may get attention in light of the Fed’s recent calls for policy action to boost housing.
2012年2月24日星期五
2012年1月16日星期一
Acta S.p.A. – Business Update and Past Transaction Update
Acta S.p.A.
(“Acta (Berlin: A6E.BE – news) “ or “the Company“)
Business Update and
Past Transaction Update
Acta S.p.A. (AIM: ACTA), the clean energy products company, is pleased to provide an update on the recent development of the business. The Company is also providing an update in relation to developments regarding a previous transaction undertaken by the Company in December 2010.
Business update
As is evidenced by recent announcements, the Company has seen continued success and commercial validation in the applications of its highly innovative hydrogen generator products and electrolyser stacks via commercial engagement with customers and partners. In addition to the previously disclosed agreements the Company has seen an increasing number of commercial enquiries and orders across its product range. The recent acceleration in product commercialisation clearly demonstrates the commercial viability of the Company‘s products and its growth prospects.
As announced on 22 September 2011, the Company has been seeking to finance the growth of its production activities through its current banking relationships as well as through the disposal of its remaining portfolio of photovoltaic consents and the collection of grant receipts and working capital receipts due on the completion of EPC photovoltaic installation contracts. Having made a careful review of the financial resources available to it from these sources, the Board has determined that the level of capital currently available will not be sufficient to finance the Company through to full profitability and cash breakeven, and has therefore decided to seek additional funds through alternative sources to finance the working capital requirements of the Company’s current commercial expansion. The level and form of this financing has not yet been fully decided but there is a likelihood that there will be a requirement to raise additional equity.
Past transaction update
The Board also wishes to provide an update in relation to a previous transaction undertaken by the Company in December 2010.
In December 2010, Acta completed the sale of ten photovoltaic authorisations at a value of €2.45 million to a group of Italian investors through Auditors Italiana S.r.l. and Ingefin S.r.l., two Italian investment companies (the “Investment Companies”). This sale was completed and paid in full in cash in December 2010. After an initial provision in the audited results for the year ended 31 December 2010, the revenue and cash proceeds of this sale were recognised in Acta’s Interim accounts to June 2011.
At the time of the sale Acta was itself planning to build, own and operate a portfolio of photovoltaic projects if it could raise the additional capital needed. In order that Acta would have access to a sufficiently large portfolio of photovoltaic consents for own development, Acta obtained a call option (the “Call Option”) under a separate agreement to repurchase the authorisations from the Investment Companies during the period up to April 2011, at Acta’s sole discretion, if it should choose to do so. Due to the subsequent upheavals in the Italian photovoltaic sector Acta was unable to finance and implement this strategy and the option was therefore allowed to lapse.
In granting the Call Option to Acta, the Investment Companies relied upon a separate agreement with Bertam S.r.l. (“Bertam”), a company controlled by Paolo Bert, Acta’s CEO and 35.3% shareholder in Acta, under which Bertam agreed to purchase any projects that were not built by the Investment Companies or repurchased by Acta under its Call Option. This agreement that Bertam entered into was in order that Bertam could itself build out the projects if Acta did not proceed to do so. This was not disclosed at the time.
Upon further review the Board has determined that the Bertam agreement, given the involvement of Bertam as a related party of the Company, and to the degree that it allowed Acta to obtain the Call Option, should have been disclosed at the time.
The Board has satisfied itself that the sale of the photovoltaic authorisations by Acta to the Investment Companies was made at the same price as that achieved by Acta on the majority of its authorisation sales during 2010, which involved projects of a much smaller size, and that the price therefore represented a fair market price. The Board is also satisfied that Acta has received substantial benefits from the sale and has not been adversely affected.
As a result of the legislative changes to the Italian photovoltaic sector introduced by the Romani decree in March 2011 and subsequent downturn in the Italian photovoltaic sector, the Investment Companies no longer intend to build the photovoltaic consents acquired and have taken legal action against Bertam to obtain payment of €2.9 million for the photovoltaic authorisations. Accordingly the financial situation of Bertam has been adversely affected by the agreement with the Investment Companies and the fall in value of Bertam’s investment portfolio which includes the Acta shares which Bertam holds. If the legal action against Bertam ultimately should prove to be successful and an alternative settlement cannot be reached, Bertam may be required to sell shares of Acta in order to settle the Investment Companies’ claim.
- ENDS-
For further information please contact:
Media (Frankfurt: 725292 – news) enquiries:
About Acta S.p.A.
Acta S.p.A. is a developer and manufacturer of a range of clean energy products. Its (Euronext: ALITS.NX – news) product line includes market-leading compact hydrogen generators (electrolysers) which produce pure, dry and compressed hydrogen in a way that is easy-to-use and completely safe, and the Company is committed to integrating its award-winning electrolysers with renewable energy sources.
Acta’s cost-competitive electrolysers are based on its proprietary, inexpensive environmental catalyst and hydrogen conversion technologies. These products help overcome the barriers to the adoption of fuel cells, most notably the lack of a local hydrogen infrastructure.
Acta’s low-cost hydrogen generators represent a unique breakthrough in electrolyser technology. They can operate using mains power or intermittent renewable energy, and produce clean, dry hydrogen already at pressure for use in fuel cell and other applications. This unique combination of features avoids the system complexity and energy cost of further cleaning, drying and compression of the hydrogen, resulting in a simple, compact, low-cost and highly efficient system that is ideally suited for energy conversion and storage applications. In such applications, which include battery replacement and renewable energy storage, low cost and high efficiency are critical to commercial viability, while hydrogen compression is essential for the energy density of the system. No other water electrolyser currently on the market offers this combination of benefits.
Acta is focusing on delivering its products to markets with high volume demand for high-value environmental solutions (transport, back-up power, energy and leisure). It is accelerating the commercialisation of its products via partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), distributors, and agents in these sectors, and intends to drive down production costs at high volume via contract manufacturing.
Acta S.p.A. is based near Pisa, Italy, and was admitted to trading on AIM in October 2005.
www.actagroup.it http://www.actaenergy.it/
http://tourism9.com/ http://vkins.com/
(“Acta (Berlin: A6E.BE – news) “ or “the Company“)
Business Update and
Past Transaction Update
Acta S.p.A. (AIM: ACTA), the clean energy products company, is pleased to provide an update on the recent development of the business. The Company is also providing an update in relation to developments regarding a previous transaction undertaken by the Company in December 2010.
Business update
As is evidenced by recent announcements, the Company has seen continued success and commercial validation in the applications of its highly innovative hydrogen generator products and electrolyser stacks via commercial engagement with customers and partners. In addition to the previously disclosed agreements the Company has seen an increasing number of commercial enquiries and orders across its product range. The recent acceleration in product commercialisation clearly demonstrates the commercial viability of the Company‘s products and its growth prospects.
As announced on 22 September 2011, the Company has been seeking to finance the growth of its production activities through its current banking relationships as well as through the disposal of its remaining portfolio of photovoltaic consents and the collection of grant receipts and working capital receipts due on the completion of EPC photovoltaic installation contracts. Having made a careful review of the financial resources available to it from these sources, the Board has determined that the level of capital currently available will not be sufficient to finance the Company through to full profitability and cash breakeven, and has therefore decided to seek additional funds through alternative sources to finance the working capital requirements of the Company’s current commercial expansion. The level and form of this financing has not yet been fully decided but there is a likelihood that there will be a requirement to raise additional equity.
Past transaction update
The Board also wishes to provide an update in relation to a previous transaction undertaken by the Company in December 2010.
In December 2010, Acta completed the sale of ten photovoltaic authorisations at a value of €2.45 million to a group of Italian investors through Auditors Italiana S.r.l. and Ingefin S.r.l., two Italian investment companies (the “Investment Companies”). This sale was completed and paid in full in cash in December 2010. After an initial provision in the audited results for the year ended 31 December 2010, the revenue and cash proceeds of this sale were recognised in Acta’s Interim accounts to June 2011.
At the time of the sale Acta was itself planning to build, own and operate a portfolio of photovoltaic projects if it could raise the additional capital needed. In order that Acta would have access to a sufficiently large portfolio of photovoltaic consents for own development, Acta obtained a call option (the “Call Option”) under a separate agreement to repurchase the authorisations from the Investment Companies during the period up to April 2011, at Acta’s sole discretion, if it should choose to do so. Due to the subsequent upheavals in the Italian photovoltaic sector Acta was unable to finance and implement this strategy and the option was therefore allowed to lapse.
In granting the Call Option to Acta, the Investment Companies relied upon a separate agreement with Bertam S.r.l. (“Bertam”), a company controlled by Paolo Bert, Acta’s CEO and 35.3% shareholder in Acta, under which Bertam agreed to purchase any projects that were not built by the Investment Companies or repurchased by Acta under its Call Option. This agreement that Bertam entered into was in order that Bertam could itself build out the projects if Acta did not proceed to do so. This was not disclosed at the time.
Upon further review the Board has determined that the Bertam agreement, given the involvement of Bertam as a related party of the Company, and to the degree that it allowed Acta to obtain the Call Option, should have been disclosed at the time.
The Board has satisfied itself that the sale of the photovoltaic authorisations by Acta to the Investment Companies was made at the same price as that achieved by Acta on the majority of its authorisation sales during 2010, which involved projects of a much smaller size, and that the price therefore represented a fair market price. The Board is also satisfied that Acta has received substantial benefits from the sale and has not been adversely affected.
As a result of the legislative changes to the Italian photovoltaic sector introduced by the Romani decree in March 2011 and subsequent downturn in the Italian photovoltaic sector, the Investment Companies no longer intend to build the photovoltaic consents acquired and have taken legal action against Bertam to obtain payment of €2.9 million for the photovoltaic authorisations. Accordingly the financial situation of Bertam has been adversely affected by the agreement with the Investment Companies and the fall in value of Bertam’s investment portfolio which includes the Acta shares which Bertam holds. If the legal action against Bertam ultimately should prove to be successful and an alternative settlement cannot be reached, Bertam may be required to sell shares of Acta in order to settle the Investment Companies’ claim.
- ENDS-
For further information please contact:
| Acta S.p.A Paul Barritt, Chief Financial Officer | Tel: +39 050 644281 www.actagroup.it |
| Altium Capital (Nominated Advisor) Adrian Reed / Phil Frame | Tel: +44 845 505 4343 |
| Seymour Pierce Limited (Broker) Freddy Crossley / David Banks | Tel: +44 (0)20 7107 8000 |
Media (Frankfurt: 725292 – news) enquiries:
About Acta S.p.A.
Acta S.p.A. is a developer and manufacturer of a range of clean energy products. Its (Euronext: ALITS.NX – news) product line includes market-leading compact hydrogen generators (electrolysers) which produce pure, dry and compressed hydrogen in a way that is easy-to-use and completely safe, and the Company is committed to integrating its award-winning electrolysers with renewable energy sources.
Acta’s cost-competitive electrolysers are based on its proprietary, inexpensive environmental catalyst and hydrogen conversion technologies. These products help overcome the barriers to the adoption of fuel cells, most notably the lack of a local hydrogen infrastructure.
Acta’s low-cost hydrogen generators represent a unique breakthrough in electrolyser technology. They can operate using mains power or intermittent renewable energy, and produce clean, dry hydrogen already at pressure for use in fuel cell and other applications. This unique combination of features avoids the system complexity and energy cost of further cleaning, drying and compression of the hydrogen, resulting in a simple, compact, low-cost and highly efficient system that is ideally suited for energy conversion and storage applications. In such applications, which include battery replacement and renewable energy storage, low cost and high efficiency are critical to commercial viability, while hydrogen compression is essential for the energy density of the system. No other water electrolyser currently on the market offers this combination of benefits.
Acta is focusing on delivering its products to markets with high volume demand for high-value environmental solutions (transport, back-up power, energy and leisure). It is accelerating the commercialisation of its products via partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), distributors, and agents in these sectors, and intends to drive down production costs at high volume via contract manufacturing.
Acta S.p.A. is based near Pisa, Italy, and was admitted to trading on AIM in October 2005.
www.actagroup.it http://www.actaenergy.it/
http://tourism9.com/ http://vkins.com/
2012年1月9日星期一
William P. Carey, Leader in Commercial Real Estate, Dies at 81
William P. Carey, who played a leading role in the early use of the commercial real estate transaction known as the sale-leaseback as he built a fortune in investment management, died on Jan. 2 in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 81 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was cardiac arrest, his brother and only immediate survivor, Francis, said.
Mr. Carey was the founder in 1973 of W. P. Carey & Company, an investment management firm in New York with about $12 billion in assets around the world, among them nearly 1,000 retail and industrial sites totaling about 120 million square feet.
In the early 1980s the company closed transactions that were considered innovative in their use of the sale-leaseback model. The sale-leaseback is a form of financing in which a company sells its property for cash while remaining as a tenant under a long-term lease it signs with the buyer. It is often used by companies that are having trouble obtaining traditional financing.
In 1982, to finance its leveraged buyout of Gibson Greeting Cards, the Wesray Corporation, the investment company headed by William E. Simon, a former Treasury secretary, sold three Gibson manufacturing and warehouse buildings to Carey & Company.
Of the many sale-leaseback deals the company has arranged in the last 38 years, a prominent one came in 2009 when it bought 21 floors of the 52-story headquarters of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan for $225 million. The Times, which entered into the transaction to pay down debt, has the option to buy back the space in the 10th year of a 15-year lease.
Mr. Carey, a leading philanthropist as well, donated more than $100 million of his wealth through the W. P. Carey Foundation, which he established in 1988. The gifts primarily went to promote business education.
The foundation gave $50 million to the Arizona State University School of Business in 2002. Five years later, it donated $50 million to Johns Hopkins University to create the James Carey Business School, named for Mr. Carey’s great-great-great-grandfather, a shipper in Baltimore in the early 1800s.
Last year, the foundation established a $30 million endowment for the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland, named for Mr. Carey’s grandfather, a graduate of the school.
William Polk Carey was born in Baltimore on May 11, 1930, to Francis and Marjorie Armstrong Carey. Business acumen came early to him. As a boy, he sold soda on the streets near his home and ink he made in his basement.
Mr. Carey graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 with a degree in economics. After serving in the Air Force for two years, he worked at a car dealership owned by a relative in New Jersey. At 28, he owned a company in Plainfield, N.J., that leased foreign cars. It was there he learned the basics of the sale-leaseback.
Mr. Carey’s middle name, Polk, is an acknowledgment that he was a descendant of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk.
“He was very proud of that,” Mr. Carey’s great-nephew, William Polk Carey II, said last week. “He liked to hand out those $1 gold coins with engravings of his Uncle Jim. That’s what he called him
http://tourism9.com/
Mr. Carey was the founder in 1973 of W. P. Carey & Company, an investment management firm in New York with about $12 billion in assets around the world, among them nearly 1,000 retail and industrial sites totaling about 120 million square feet.
In the early 1980s the company closed transactions that were considered innovative in their use of the sale-leaseback model. The sale-leaseback is a form of financing in which a company sells its property for cash while remaining as a tenant under a long-term lease it signs with the buyer. It is often used by companies that are having trouble obtaining traditional financing.
In 1982, to finance its leveraged buyout of Gibson Greeting Cards, the Wesray Corporation, the investment company headed by William E. Simon, a former Treasury secretary, sold three Gibson manufacturing and warehouse buildings to Carey & Company.
Of the many sale-leaseback deals the company has arranged in the last 38 years, a prominent one came in 2009 when it bought 21 floors of the 52-story headquarters of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan for $225 million. The Times, which entered into the transaction to pay down debt, has the option to buy back the space in the 10th year of a 15-year lease.
Mr. Carey, a leading philanthropist as well, donated more than $100 million of his wealth through the W. P. Carey Foundation, which he established in 1988. The gifts primarily went to promote business education.
The foundation gave $50 million to the Arizona State University School of Business in 2002. Five years later, it donated $50 million to Johns Hopkins University to create the James Carey Business School, named for Mr. Carey’s great-great-great-grandfather, a shipper in Baltimore in the early 1800s.
Last year, the foundation established a $30 million endowment for the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland, named for Mr. Carey’s grandfather, a graduate of the school.
William Polk Carey was born in Baltimore on May 11, 1930, to Francis and Marjorie Armstrong Carey. Business acumen came early to him. As a boy, he sold soda on the streets near his home and ink he made in his basement.
Mr. Carey graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953 with a degree in economics. After serving in the Air Force for two years, he worked at a car dealership owned by a relative in New Jersey. At 28, he owned a company in Plainfield, N.J., that leased foreign cars. It was there he learned the basics of the sale-leaseback.
Mr. Carey’s middle name, Polk, is an acknowledgment that he was a descendant of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk.
“He was very proud of that,” Mr. Carey’s great-nephew, William Polk Carey II, said last week. “He liked to hand out those $1 gold coins with engravings of his Uncle Jim. That’s what he called him
http://tourism9.com/
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