By Rob Cox

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Italy is a global leader in fashion, food and art but comes up short on multinational corporations. That’s likely to change as Fiat plots a full takeover of Chrysler. Going global, though, comes at a price: Fiat’s Agnelli family may need to put pragmatism over sentimentality and move its headquarters from Italy.

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

It has been a rough year for Goldman Sachs. With the environment still difficult, big changes can’t be ruled out. Breakingviews envisions some of the possibilities in an imagined memo to shareholders during 2012.
 

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Rob Cox

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Brazil’s Itaú Unibanco bills itself as the “The Global Latin American Bank.” Thing is, it’s not. Or at least, it’s not yet. That may change in the coming year. Itaú’s solid finances, robust market valuation, searing ambitions and a wealth of opportunities from the misfortunes of global rivals make it the bank to watch in 2012.

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Somebody slipped the executives of Tokio Marine Holdings a Mickey Finn on their last trip to Delaware. That’s one explanation for the Japanese insurer’s Godzilla-sized payment for Delphi Financial. Tokio’s $2.7 billion purchase comes at a near 80 percent premium to what normal investors were willing to pay for the U.S. insurer. It looks like another example of Japan Inc throwing shareholders under the bus in the name of international expansion.

It is easy to understand the mentality of Japanese companies, given the challenges of their home market. As the country’s population shrinks by a net one million people a year for the next two decades, expanding abroad must feel like a do-or-die proposition. That’s got to be doubly true for anyone, like Tokio Marine, active in the life insurance business. And with a strong yen to boot, it might even feel like a smart case of market timing.

By Rob Cox and Peter Thal Larsen

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

The G20’s decision to designate 29 banks as global systemically important financial institutions will introduce a new competitive dynamic to international finance in 2012: “G-Sifi envy.” Banks that made the list last month will be required to hold more capital. But they will also benefit from being codified as banks that are effectively too big to fail. That puts smaller rivals at a disadvantage. It’s a race to the top, but not in the way regulators envisaged.

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Imagine if Wal-Mart were to buy Target and PepsiCo tried to block the deal. That’s sort of what’s happening, albeit on a far smaller scale, in a corner of the U.S. electricity market. NRG Energy, one of the nation’s largest independent power producers, has filed a petition with regulators that could derail plans by $6.1 billion Northeast Utilities to buy $4.7 billion NSTAR and create the dominant utility in New England.

On Thursday, NRG requested that Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority re-examine its right to intervene in the merger process. Earlier in the year, PURA decided it did not have jurisdiction to do so, leaving final approval to Massachusetts regulators.

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Almost two centuries ago, Simon Bolivar briefly united parts of what became more than a half-dozen Latin American nations. With the euro zone in turmoil, the notion of a single Latin American currency that partly reunites pieces of Bolivar’s Gran Colombia seems far-fetched. Yet with private companies from the Texas border to the tip of Patagonia cuddling up in mergers like never before, it can’t be ruled out for ever.

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist and Northeast Utilities customer. The opinions expresssed are his own.

It is now official: Northeast Utilities, New England’s biggest electric utility, failed in the duties that accompany its monopoly. With the release of a new report, regulators have all the evidence they need to power down Northeast Utilities’ $4.7 billion takeover of Massachusetts rival NSTAR.

By Rob Cox
The author is  a Reuters Breakingviews columnist and a Northeast Utilities customer. The opinions expressed are his own.

Northeast Utilities made an offering at the altar of the regulatory gods. The New England utility parted ways with the executive who headed its biggest division, Connecticut Light & Power, over its poor handling of two storms that left millions of customers without power for weeks. Investors seemed to think that will help it gain approval for a $4.7 billion takeover of rival NSTAR. Their optimism looks misplaced.