Monday, September 7, 2009

“Hong Kong billionaire pays $500 million for AIG fund unit - Marketwatch” plus 4 more

“Hong Kong billionaire pays $500 million for AIG fund unit - Marketwatch” plus 4 more

Hong Kong billionaire pays $500 million for AIG fund unit - Marketwatch

Posted: 06 Sep 2009 09:16 PM PDT

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By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- American International Group Inc. has agreed to sell its fund-management business for up to $500 million to Pacific Century Group, a Hong Kong-based company wholly owned by 43-year-old tycoon Richard Li.

Li's company will pay an initial $300 million in cash upon closing, plus additional future consideration that includes a continuing share of carried interest and other payments linked to future performance, AIG said in a statement Saturday.

"After conducting an extensive and rigorous auction process, we concluded that this transaction provides fair value for AIG," the U.S. insurer's Senior Vice President of Divestiture Alain Karaoglan said in the statement.

AIG's /quotes/comstock/13*!aig/quotes/nls/aig (AIG 40.05, 0.00, 0.00%) fund management assets, known as AIG Investments, had attracted a joint bid from Australia Macquarie Group Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22x!e:mqg (AU:MQG 48.57, -0.13, -0.27%) and Religare Enterprises Ltd. of India.

U.S. fund manager Franklin Templeton briefly worked alongside Pacific Century Group in bidding for the unit in June, but dropped out of the negotiations in mid-July.

Pacific Century Group had initially bid for the unit on its own in March.

The fund business oversees about $89 billion for retail and institutional clients in 32 countries and includes assets such as private-equity funds, hedge funds, listed equities and fixed income, The Wall Street Journal reported.

AIG said it will retain its in-house investment operation, which oversees $480 billion in assets.

Richard Li is the chairman of PCCW Ltd. /quotes/comstock/22h!e:8 (HK:8 2.04, +0.01, +0.49%) /quotes/comstock/11i!pccwy (PCCW.Y 2.60, 0.00, 0.00%) , Hong Kong's largest phone company, and is the son of 81-year-old Li Ka-shing, one of Asia's richest men.

Chris Oliver is MarketWatch's Asia bureau chief, based in Hong Kong.

Former customer says kidnap suspect Phillip Garrido recorded love ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 05 Sep 2009 10:47 AM PDT

ANTIOCH, Calif. - Kidnapping suspect Phillip Garrido recorded love songs years ago that suggested he was fond of young girls, a former customer of Garrido's home-based printing business said.

Former Antioch glass shop owner Marc Lister said Friday that he dug up the music after Garrido, 58, and his 54-year-old wife, Nancy Garrido, were charged in the alleged kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard. Both Garridos have pleaded not guilty.

Lister said Garrido aspired to be a musician and gave him CDs containing about 20 songs three years ago because he knew people in the music business.

In one song, Garrido sings, "The way she walks, yeah, subtle, sexy. What can I do? I fall victim too. A little child, yeah, look what you do."

In another, he sings, "I will tell you about the only one. She's a dream, dream come true. With a note saying you're my baby blue."

Garrido told Lister the songs were written while serving time in federal prison in 1976 for the kidnapping and rape of another woman.

Lister, 57, allowed reporters hear portions of several songs on Friday at the Walnut Creek, Calif., office of his business attorney, Mark Mittelman.

"The language, the lyrics, they're suggestive and they're provocative in a lot of songs," Lister said.

Lister, who hired Garrido to print his business cards and invoices, said he plans to share the music with law enforcement if they want it but also hopes to raise money from it for abused women and children.

It wasn't clear on Saturday if investigators had contacted Lister, El Dorado County Sheriff's Lt. Bryan Golmitz said. But authorities would be interested in reviewing the CDs, he said.

"You can imagine the investigators have 18 years of material to review," Golmitz said. "They've got the initial portion done but there's going to be a lot of follow-up."

Fox Business Network to simulcast Imus - Atlantic City Press

Posted: 03 Sep 2009 01:27 PM PDT

Don Imus is moving to Fox Business Network.

The young cable network, which has been struggling to find viewers, has agreed to simulcast Imus' radio show on weekdays from 6 to 9 a.m. It will start on Oct. 5.

RFD-TV, a Nashville-based cable and satellite network, recently stopped showing Imus after two years.

Imus will add more business reports to his mix of news, sports, commentary and comedy. FBN reporters will also contribute.

Imus' radio show was seen on MSNBC for several years before he was fired in 2007 for offensive remarks about Rutgers women basketball players.

The FBN deal is considered a way to boost visibility for Imus and the network. But it also reduces the airtime of one of FBN's most prominent personalities, Alexis Glick, from three hours to one in the morning.

Business As Usual - Philippine Star Online

Posted: 07 Sep 2009 07:32 AM PDT

Truly becoming known as a world-class luxe destination, The Boracay Regency Beach Resort and Convention Center, one of the country's fastest-expanding triple-A rated resort in island paradise Boracay, once again marvelled veritable who's who in society as it recently inaugurated the posh and well-appointed 7-storey Boracay Regency Corporate Center at 1212 A. Mabini in Manila.

Fragile economy: Hummel back in figurine business - Forbes

Posted: 07 Sep 2009 07:03 AM PDT


ROEDENTAL, Germany -- Ceramics craftsman Udo Troeger labors on a porcelain figurine at the M.I. Hummel factory, working alone under low-hanging fluorescent lights. A blaring radio fills the silence amid rows of empty desks.

That Troeger, or anyone, remains at work represents progress for Hummel. The 74-year-old line of sentimental porcelain figures popular with collectors is trying to make a go of it under new owners, having been shut down from October 2008 to late February as a consequence of the economic downturn and the bankruptcy of its parent company.

Hummel is rehiring dozens of its artists and new management is cautiously upbeat, mindful of the troubles that put former owner Goebel Porcelain Factory in bankruptcy in 2006.

"We've had a good start," said Dagmar Treuner, product manager for the newly created firm Manufaktur Roedental GmbH. "We've had to hire more workers to keep up with demand."

Now, the plant has 111 staff. But the hundreds of layoffs are hard to forget when vacant, bright-green painting stations fill entire rooms at the plant in Roedental, a small town amid patches of forest and farm fields 120 miles (200 kilometers) east of Frankfurt.

As parent Goebel reorganized, it decided to shutter the Hummel factory and let go all 230 employees - so that it could focus on producing its glass and porcelain accessories.

Employees and collectors took the news with disbelief, given that Goebel had been making the figurines since 1935.

"It was a difficult time for everyone," said Troeger as he worked. "The emotion from collectors was unbelievable."

"The decision was basically from one day to the next - everyone was completely caught off guard," said William Nelson, an American who has spent more than 20 years managing the M.I. Hummel Club in Ebersdorf by Coburg. The fan club counts more than 13,000 members worldwide. "People were shocked, disappointed, disbelieving and many said the interest was too great for Hummel to cease forever."

Joerg Koester, the director of Hoechst Porcelain near Frankfurt, stepped in, founding Manufaktur Roedental, which acquired Hummel's copyrights and production facilities. The purchase price was not disclosed.

Goebel had tried to maximize revenue from M.I. Hummel by increasing production, manufacturing up to hundreds of thousands of figurines a year. It didn't work.

"The old strategy was, in part: how many figurines do we have to produce to employ all these people?" Koester said.

The strategy backfired - figurines collected in warehouses and on retailers' shelves faster than they were purchased, deflating prices as supply outstripped demand.

"Instead, you need to realize it's a specialty market and limit production, growing slowly and carefully... We don't want to reach those levels again," Koester said. "We'll be manufacturing a fifth of that."

The recession has been hard on several other venerable hobby and collectible firms. Goeppingen, Germany-based model railroad specialist Maerklin Holding GmbH is operating under bankruptcy protection from creditors after it failed to secure new credit from banks. Ireland's Waterford Wedgewood PLC, battered by the global economic slowdown, has filed for bankruptcy protection after failed attempts at a restructure or a sale.

At Hummel, Koester, is relying on longtime employees such as Troeger, 55, who has 40 years of experience molding, casting and assembling the delicate pieces that make up each figurine.

The appeal of the porcelain figurines - such as the best-selling "Merry Wanderer," a walking boy carrying an umbrella and bag, or "Goose Girl," a bonneted girl with a pair of pet geese - is a combination of childhood nostalgia and the urge to collect. After all, they don't come cheap - prices begin at around euro100 and can go up steeply from there.

"Forever Friends," which features two sisters staring at a swan and her chicks, and made in 2006, went for $1,650 recently on eBay ( EBAY - news - people ).

The figurines are inspired by drawings of children done by a Franciscan nun, Sister Maria Innocentia, born Berta Hummel, which were published as cards and in books and caught the eye of Franz Goebel in 1934. Goebel was granted rights to produce look-alike figurines, and after her death in 1946, her convent created an artistic board to supervise and advise the manufacturing process.

Everything is done by hand - from the various casting molds to the drawn-on faces - and one figurine takes anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks to produce.

The nun's nephew, Alfred Hummel, who runs the Berta Hummel Museum in the small Bavarian village of Massing where she was born, remains an adviser.

"There's a lot of heart and soul involved," Hummel said. "It's not like selling cars."

Manufaktur Roedental is hoping this year's additional significance - the 100th anniversary of Sister Maria Innocentia's birth, marked by a multi-figure special edition piece depicting a parade of Bavarian children - will help to spark just that.

Employees, though, are as cautious with their hopes as they are with the delicate porcelain.

"It would be nice just to keep working," Troeger said as he assembled a palm-sized ceramic wagon for the anniversary figurine. "And, at the moment, it looks as though we can continue."

Associated Press Writer Caroline Winter in Berlin contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

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