Deals wrap: Merger mania
Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext’s plan to create the world’s largest exchange has sent competitors around the world scurrying to find partners, accelerating an industry shake-up. The Wall Street Journal looks at the how stock exchanges make money and what it means for investors.
Google and Facebook, plus others, have held low level takeover talks with Twitter that give the Internet sensation a value as high as $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.
KKR’s latest listing missive
Private equity giant KKR’s latest document on its lengthy route to becoming a publicly-traded company makes the intriguing suggestion that it could list on either the Nasdaq or the NYSE.
The idea all along has been for KKR, after listing on Euronext through buying its Amsterdam-listed fund KPE, to potentially list on the NYSE, so switching to Nasdaq would be quite a suprise.
Press releases up to now have pinpointed the NYSE as KKR’s possible future home. However, today’s document is a filing to unitholders rather than a statement to the press, so it is more formal and looks at all possible eventualities (such as a long section on risk factors).
[extract] Following the consummation of the Combination Transaction, KPE and KKR will have the right to require that the other use its reasonable best efforts to cause interests in the Combined Business to be listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange or The NASDAQ Stock Market at a future date. If such listing occurs, KPE would make an in-kind distribution of such interests to KPE unitholders, subject to applicable laws, rules and regulations, KPE units would cease to trade on Euronext Amsterdam and KPE would subsequently be dissolved and delisted from Euronext Amsterdam.
The NYSE and Nasdaq have been arch rivals for years and compete tooth and nail for listings. We’re betting this one won’t really be up for grabs though, and that KKR will settle next to rival Blackstone on the Big Board.
from Photographers Blog:
Tim Geithner : What’s In Your Wallet?
What's in U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's wallet? Not much.
While testifying in front of a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill Thursday Geithner was shown a $50 Billion Zimbabwean bank note (rendered worthless by Zimbabwe's hyperinflation) by U.S. Representative John Culberson (R- TX) and asked if he had ever seen one himself. Geithner immediately pulled a piece of Zimbabwean currency out of his own pocket and showed it off to the committee. At the next break in the hearing I approached Geithner and asked how he happened to have a piece of foreign currency in his pocket. His response was "I often have some foreign currency in my wallet. Want to see?" He pulled a very thin and mostly empty wallet from his pocket.
Amongst many empty slots in the thin weathered leather wallet there could be seen three credit or debit cards with Visa and Mastercard logos (all inserted into the wallet upside down so that the card issuers could not be seen) and an old and yellowed looking identification card of indeterminate origin.
From inside the wallet Geithner extracted a small pile of receipts and paper including a New York City MTA farecard, pointing out that there were European Euros tucked amongst the paper.
Notably not seen in the U.S. Treasury Secretary's wallet? Any U.S. dollars.
