Best financial sourse

LM Ericsson AB has signed a deal to buy U.S.-based software development firm Telcordia for $1.15 billion, the Swedish wireless equipment company said Tuesday.

Ericsson said it will buy 100 percent of the shares in Telcordia from private equity firms Providence Equity Partners LLC and Warburg Pincus and expects to complete the acquisition in the fourth quarter 2011.

Telcordia, based in Piscataway, New Jersey, develops mobile, broadband and enterprise communications software and services. It reported revenues of $739 million during the fiscal year, ending January 31 and employs 2,600 people who will now be transferred to Ericsson.

The Swedish company said Telcordia has a leading market position within the operations and business support system field _ producing computer systems that are used by telecommunications operators to handle the growth in mobile and fixed broadband traffic easy payday loans.

“The importance of operations and business support systems will continue to grow as more and more devices are connected, services become mobile and new business models for mobile broadband are introduced,” Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals.

Shares in Ericsson rose by 1.8 percent to 88.80 Swedish kronor ($13.99) in Stockholm.

Source

A rush by European officials to maintain a 65-year lock on the International Monetary Fund’s top job leaves little hope for a candidate from an emerging economy, India’s representative to the institution said.

“I’m not totally pessimistic but I’m not at all optimistic,” Arvind Virmani, who represents India and three other countries on the IMF board, said in an interview yesterday in Washington. “There is no indication which suggests that the result will be any different this time.”

Officials including U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have said French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde should replace countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week following his arrest on sexual assault charges in New York, as the IMF’s chief.

Virmani said the European stance contradicts calls by the Group of 20, which includes the advanced economies plus major emerging ones, for a selection process based on merit rather than geography.

Virmani and IMF representatives for Russia, China, South Africa and Brazil yesterday released a statement urging “abandoning the obsolete unwritten convention” by which the IMF leader is always a European and the head of the World Bank an American. Countries from the European Union hold about 31 percent of the votes at the agency and the U.S. 17 percent.

“If the Fund is to have credibility and legitimacy, its managing director should be selected after broad consultation with the membership,” the directors from the so-called BRICS nations wrote.

Virmani said he is consulting with his counterparts from Brazil, Russia and China about putting a candidate forward.

Advising Friends

“At this point in time if I was advising my own friends, I would have to frankly tell them that ‘the probability of your winning is minuscule and you’re really competing for second place,’” he said. At the same time “there is still perhaps merit in saying that ‘we tried’ even though we knew that it would fail.”

Mexico is nominating its central bank governor, Agustin Carstens, who in an interview yesterday said it was too early to say which countries will back him.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters last week that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis “speaks for a European candidate.”

Virmani objected to that logic.

“There was no discussion about who’s the best, there were statements, saying that ‘we have to have a European because there’s a European crisis,’” said Virmani, who also represents Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

Source

Shareholders trying to get into JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s annual meeting held Tuesday in this midwestern city were greeted by heavy security and over 400 protesters shouting slogans outside every entrance.

At least one person was handcuffed after a group of about 400 protestors marched up Chase’s property and placed a sign on a raft floating in a pond in the bank’s premises. The sign read: “Foreclosed: Chase sinks our economy.”

Police had each entrance blocked ahead of the meeting, as protesters gathered in the rain and cold chanting slogans such as “Make Banks Pay” and carried signs that said: “Chase gets rich, we lose homes, jobs, services.” At least 20 police cruisers circled the building.

Inside, several shareholders spoke out against the bank’s handling of mortgage foreclosures.

“As a person of faith, my God believes you shouldn’t take advantage of people when they are down,” said Dawn Dannenbring of the community group Illinois People’s Action, addressing CEO Jamie Dimon. “Do you believe in the same God I believe in?”

Dimon answered: “That’s a hard one to answer.”

After another question on foreclosures, Dimon said: “We are doing everything we can to keep people in their homes that should stay in their homes payday loans.”

Chase, headquartered in New York, is holding its annual meeting in Columbus for the first time. Along with all the major banks in the country, Chase has been criticized for its handling of mortgage foreclosures.

The protests were organized by The New Bottom Line, a coalition of clergy and unions, which is pushing for action and legislation around banking practices that hurt troubled homeowners.

Annual shareholder meetings of large banks routinely draw protesters. However, security this year has been especially tight after Wells Fargo & Co.’s annual meeting on May 4 in San Francisco became a rowdy scene after hundreds protested outside. Inside the meeting, a group of shareholders demanded that the bank immediately stop foreclosures and waive principal for troubled home owners. The shareholders were escorted out of the meeting by police. Eight people were arrested for blocking entrances to the building.

Source

A shareholder proposal that would have required Ameren Corp. to provide detailed information about coal waste management got broad support at the company’s annual meeting Thursday but ultimately fell short.

The proposal by the Midwest Coalition for Responsible Investment got 46 percent of the votes cast

Israel’s vital tourism industry has been surprisingly resilient in the face of regional turmoil that has dried up visits to neighboring Arab countries, tourism officials say.

In contrast to Egypt and Jordan, the number of tourists visiting the Jewish state appears to be holding steady, according to tourism experts.

“Tour operator bookings indicate a good picture for 2011,” Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov told The Associated Press in an interview.

With its holy sites and Mediterranean beaches, Israel has long been a tourist magnet. Foreign tourists pumped some $4.4 billion into the Israeli economy last year, up from $3.3 billion the previous year, according to government figures.

After a record year with more than 3.4 million visitors in 2010, Israel was hoping to attract as many as 4 million this year. Ami Etgar, chief executive of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, said the figures probably won’t be that high, but he expects them remain steady or fall slightly to no less than 3.2 million in 2011.

Egypt and Jordan are both reporting significant drops in tourism, attributed directly to the political unrest in the Arab world.

According to Israel’s Tourism Ministry, overall traffic to Israel was down 2 percent in February from a year earlier, to 218,000 tourist entries. But the number of travelers visiting Israel alone was up 10 percent. March figures are not in yet.

Misezhnikov noted that in recent weeks, Israel has experienced a deadly bombing in Jerusalem, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and the killing of five West Bank settlers in their sleep.

“All these things create a mini-crisis. We hope this mini-crisis will pass cash advance no faxing.”

Ami Federmann, president of the Israel Hotel Association, said the Arab unrest “creates an atmosphere that isn’t good.” But overall, he added, “it’s not something substantial at this point.”

Tourism officials said it was too early to predict summer traffic. Misezhnikov said Israel expects to see 250,000 tourists in the Passover-Easter season this month, on par with last year.

Day trips to Israel from Egypt have been hardest hit. Last year, some 400,000 day trippers flew to Israel from the Sinai beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. This segment has suddenly dried up, because Sharm el-Sheikh hotels are mostly empty now, Misezhnikov said.

Their absence is offset somewhat by cruise ships making more frequent and longer stops off Israel’s coast instead of anchoring in Egypt, officials say.

Campaigns aimed at bringing in tourists from Ukraine and Russia, launched before the pro-democracy revolts began sweeping the Mideast three months ago, are also paying off, tourism officials say.

More than 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union live in Israel, and many have relatives or former neighbors there, making Israel an attractive vacation draw. Israel canceled visa requirements for both Ukrainians and Russians, and that, too, has been an impetus for them to visit, the officials say.

Israel is also looking to develop tourism markets in India, South Korea, Poland, China and Brazil, said Misezhnikov. His ministry hosted an international tourism conference in Jerusalem last week.

Source

OTTAWA

The news last week that Apple’s Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence was a big story. But something else about the company got far less attention and could be even more important to investors this year.

Corporations “are adding iPads to their approved device list at an amazing rate,” Peter Oppenheimer, Apple Inc.’s chief financial officer, told analysts Tuesday. Apple’s products, more known for their consumer appeal, are now used in by employees of Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, DuPont and others.

Splurging on $500 iPads is a sign that the business cycle is starting to turn and that companies are starting to spend a record amount of cash they’ve accumulated. If the trend is real, companies will do what consumers haven’t — spark a strong economic recovery. That could push the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to its third straight year of double-digit percentage gains. The last time that happened: the tech-boom days of the late 1990s.

“”You’re going to see a bigger commitment to growth this year because companies have underspent for quite some time,” says Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management.

Financial, technology and energy companies are the most likely to benefit from business spending, says David Bianco, a market strategist at Bank of America. Each group is up about 3 percent this year, nearly one percentage point ahead of the overall S&P 500. Those three groups account for nearly half of index’s value.

The continued success of financial, energy and technology stocks would point to a new stage of this bull market, which has returned nearly 100 percent since it began in March 2009. Consumer discretionary stocks, the group of hotels, retail stores and automakers that depend on consumer spending, outperformed the last two years after being left for dead during the 2008 financial crisis. Those companies are now lagging the market, suggesting that the bounce back from the lows of the recession is over.

“Consumers don’t have the income growth to sustain a more rapid pace of spending,” says Jeffrey Kleintop, a market strategist at LPL Financial. Instead, he says, businesses spending will eventually lead to a pickup in the jobs market.

Corporate spending on technology helped IBM Corp. beat analyst expectations last week. On Tuesday, IBM said that its 7 percent jump in revenue came in part from companies in the U.S. upgrading their computer systems. Its stock jumped almost 4 percent last week.

Energy companies, meanwhile, are leading the market this year with a 3.4 percent jump because of higher demand, a sign of an improving economy. Oil company Schlumberger said Friday profit in the most recent quarter rose 31 percent. And financial companies are benefiting from loans to businesses, a signal that those companies plan to expand. JPMorgan said on its earnings call last week that it added 400 middle-market companies as new commercial loan customers. Bank of America said Friday that demand for business loans stabilized last quarter, while US Bancorp said Wednesday that all of its commercial loans divisions were improving, with the exception of real estate.

Financial companies have the added benefit of being cheap. The price-to-earnings ratio of the financial companies in the S&P 500 index averages 11.6, about half of its historical average. Financial companies are cheaper than any other group except for health care, which costs 11.2 times earnings. Even utilities companies, whose slow growth rates typically make them the lowest priced group in the market, are trading at 13.6 times earnings.

Is it too early to make a prediction that the biggest sectors of the market will continue to do well? After all, investor sentiment is at a level not seen since the market hit its all-time in 2007. That makes some contrarian investors nervous.

The market should continue to rise if history repeats itself. Since 1970, the top performing industry groups in January have gone on to outperform the rest of the S&P index over the rest of the year nearly 75 percent of the time.

Source

Postmedia Network Canada Corp., owner of the National Post newspaper and other media properties, reported Thursday a weakened first-quarter profit of $5.6 million as the company worked to cut costs.

Postmedia chief executive Paul Godfrey warned that the company could face difficulty ahead as advertising revenue weakened at the end of the quarter.

Dear Steve,

Is a Canadian citizen al lowed to buy a house in the U.S.? My husband still works in Canada, but he wants to buy a house in the continental U.S. as a place to stay when we come there for a visit. We will probably pay cash for the home. But would there be a problem obtaining a mortgage there?

Zenaida S.

Dear Zenaida,

There are no laws restricting you from buying a house in the U.S. We here in the “lower 48″ wish that you would. In fact, why not buy two? There’s plenty of inventory to be had right now — and for a song! (But not “O Canada,” unless you can really nail those high notes.) Kidding aside, the value of the Canadian dollar has been rising steadily against the value of the American dollar, so your U.S. homebuying power is at its highest level since the mid-1970s.

Certainly, cash on the barrel might buy you additional clout when you get to the negotiating table. But paying cash for the home may not be necessary or even wise, because it may tie up all your cash reserves in the event of an emergency. As for a mortgage, a few U.S. lenders might balk about giving you one without a green card or other official residency document, but there are many others who won’t hesitate to deal with people of your status, even in a tightening lending environment.

A U.S payday loans online. Social Security number is not required for a loan. But if you will be renting out the place for part of the year, and will have to file a U.S. tax return, you’ll need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number should you ever hope to claim a refund. If you wind up paying U.S. income tax, you can claim a foreign tax credit on your Canadian return to skirt double taxation, as you already might know.

As it stands, you are poised to get plenty of seasonal use from a U.S. residence. Presently, if you’re a Canadian and are entering the U.S. without applying for an official visa, you can legally remain for 180 days of each calendar year.

There are other perks to owning U.S. property other than the current discount pricing: ample housing stock and favorable exchange rates. Unlike Canada, homeowners in the U.S. can deduct mortgage interest payments from their taxable income. For a closer look at U.S. tax and financial planning nuances and seasonal-residency and red-tape issues, you might want to pick up the book “The Canadian Snowbird in America,” published by ECW Press. The Web site www.snowbirds.org also has helpful hints and links.

Steve McLinden

Sourse