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By James B. Treece

General Motors Co. today named two former AT&T executives to head its government relations activities.

John Montford will be a senior adviser to GM Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr., who formerly headed AT&T. Robert Ferguson will be GM’s vice president of government relations. Both appointments are effective Friday, Jan. 1.

Montford, 66, will have overall responsibility for government relations and global public policy and will be supported by Ferguson and Michael Robinson, the current vice president of environment, energy and safety policy.

Ken Cole, 62, currently GM’s vice president of government relations and public policy, will be an adviser until his retirement next year.

“John and Bob are proven professionals who have worked in an environment of intense regulatory and political complexity,” Whitacre said in a statement. “I’ve worked with both through a number of issues over the past several years, and they have my deep trust and respect.”

Montford most recently was senior vice president for state legislative affairs for AT&T. Before that he was president of external affairs for Southwestern Bell until its merger with AT&T. He also served 14 years in the Texas Senate and was Texas Tech University’s first chancellor.

Ferguson, 50, was most recently a senior strategist for Public Strategies Inc., a business advisory firm in Austin, Texas. He joined Public Strategies from AT&T, where he had been president of state legislative and regulatory affairs. He has residences in Washington and San Antonio.

From Automotive News

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20091230/FREE/912309995

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Jeffrey Jones/CALGARY, Alberta
Posted by WoodlawnPost.com December 30th, 2009

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canadian mining stocks jumped on Tuesday after Corriente Resources Inc (CTQ.TO), which has a copper-gold project in Ecuador, agreed to be taken over by Chinese suitors in their country’s latest bid for an international resource developer.
Deals

The C$679 million ($653 million) bid from Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co Ltd and China Railway Construction Corp Ltd (601186.SS), announced on Monday, comes more than a year after Corriente started talks to sell the company.

Shares in Corriente were up 94 Canadian cents, or 12 percent, at C$8.49 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday afternoon. With volume of more than nine million shares, the stock was the market’s most active issue.

The suitors, under the name CRCC-Tongguan Investment, are bidding C$8.60 cash for each Corriente share.

“It’s in line with a number of different valuations in the copper space over the last three to four years,” Canaccord Adams analyst Wendell Zerb said.

Shares in Corriente have more than doubled in the past year, as political uncertainty in Ecuador has eased and the pieces of its Mirador project in Ecuador have slowly fallen into place.

Last month, the company said it received formal authorization from the Andean country’s Ministry of Non-Renewable Natural Resources to restart all advance development work on the project.

“I think this company would have been taken out long before this if the political situation in Ecuador had been more favorable over the last 18 months,” Zerb said. “That being said, this particular acquisition group has been doing extensive due diligence, so a lot of people had believed something like this was coming.”

Early this month, Raymond James analyst Tom Meyer raised his target price for Corriente to C$7 a share from C$6.50, saying the removal of political barriers to mine development in Ecuador made the company a “plausible takeover target.”

Other active miners on Tuesday included Guyana Goldfields Inc (GUY.TO), up 11 Canadian cents at C$7.85, and Stornaway Diamond Corp (SWY.TO), up 8 Canadian cents at 64 Canadian cents.

The bid for Corriente follows a slew of takeovers of Canadian-based firms by Chinese state companies that are flush with cash and hungry for resources.

Recent deals have included the C$200 million bid for mining developer Canadian Royalties Inc (CZZ.TO) by China’s No. 2 nickel miner, Jilin Jien Nickel Industry (600432.SS), and Canada’s Goldbrook Ventures (GBK.V).

In August, state-owned PetroChina paid C$1.9 billion for a 60 percent stake in two planned projects owned by Athabasca Oil Corp in the oil sands of northern Alberta. That was China’s largest acquisition of oil properties in Canada to date.

For assets outside Canada, Sinopec (0386.HK), China’s largest oil refiner, bought Toronto-listed oil explorer Addax Petroleum Corp for $7.24 billion, gaining access to blocks in West Africa and Iraq.

($1=$1.04 Canadian)
(Editing by Peter Galloway)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BS33Y20091229

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Posted by WoodlawnPost.com Dec 30, 2009

MIAMI (Reuters) – The sex scandal that engulfed Tiger Woods may have cost shareholders of companies endorsed by the world’s No. 1 golfer up to $12 billion in losses, according to a study by two economics professors from the University of California, Davis.
Sports | People

The study, released on Monday by researchers Victor Stango and Christopher Knittel, gave an estimate for damage to the market value of Woods’ main sponsors caused by revelations of alleged extramarital affairs that surfaced after he was involved in a minor car accident outside his Florida home on November 27.

“We estimate that shareholders of Tiger Woods’ sponsors lost $5-12 billion after his car accident, relative to shareholders of firms that Mr. Woods does not endorse,” the researchers wrote, adding that millions of shareholders were affected.

“Our analysis makes clear that while having a celebrity of Tiger Woods’ stature as an endorser has undeniable upside, the downside risk is substantial, too,” Stango, a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, said in a statement released along with the study.

Woods, believed to be the world’s wealthiest athlete who was estimated to earn about $100 million a year in endorsement deals before his troubles, confessed on December 11 to “infidelity” to his Swedish wife Elin Nordegren. He announced he would take an indefinite break from golf to save his marriage.

Some of the star golfer’s main commercial sponsors have backed away from him as a result of the scandal. Others, while standing by him, have said they are evaluating their future relationship.

STOCK MARKET RETURNS
In their study, the two professors said they looked at stock market returns for the 13 trading days after November 27, the date of the car incident that ignited the Woods scandal.

They compared returns for Woods’ sponsors during this period to those of both the total stock market and of each sponsor’s closest competitor. They also reviewed returns for four years before the car accident to build up a comparative picture of the sponsors’ market performance.

The study looked at sponsors of Tiger Woods for which stock prices were available, in several cases through quoted prices for the parent companies. Sponsors included: Accenture; AT&T; Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf (Electronic Arts); Gillette (Proctor and Gamble); Nike; Gatorade (PepsiCo); TLC Laser Eye Centers.

The report carried a caution that this kind of statistical study might have a “particularly large” margin of error because many sponsors were subsidiaries of larger quoted companies.

Overall, Knittel and Stango concluded that the scandal reduced shareholder value in the sponsor companies by 2.3 percent, or about $12 billion.

They called the results statistically significant and said the overall pattern of losses at the parent companies was unlikely to stem from ordinary day-to-day variation in their stock prices.”

“Our findings speak to a larger question of general interest in the business and academic communities: Does celebrity sponsorship have any impact on a firm’s bottom line?” Stango and Knittel said in presenting the report.

The scandal saw a parade of more than a dozen women — from cocktail waitresses to porn stars — come forward to say they had affairs with the married father of two. Since the start of the scandal, Woods has kept out of sight of the media.

The full study can be found on the Internet at faculty.gsm.ucdavis.edu/~vstango/tiger003.pdf.
(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Gene Cherry; Editing by Will Dunham)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BS38I20091229

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Posted by WoodlawnPost.com December 30th 2009
Author: Georgina Lee/Source: Asia Risk

Hong Kong moves to position itself as clearing hub for renminbi-based transactions.

The Chinese renminbi is taking on an increased role in the Asia-Pacific region, and is expected over time to replace traditionally dominant currencies such as the US dollar and the euro for certain transactions.

Chinese government policy changes have enabled Asian corporates to settle trades with their Chinese counterparts in renminbi. And increased intra-Asian trading volume may lead Beijing to also consider allowing other trade-related insurance and derivatives denominated in renminbi to be done offshore, according to bankers and regulators in Hong Kong.

Norman Chan Tak-lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), said Beijing is studying the idea of introducing more renminbi-denominated investment products in Hong Kong, expanding on the authorities’ approval for renminbi-denominated bonds issued by mainland financial institutions being made available for Hong Kong investors.

Currently, the renminbi is not fully convertible, but the Chinese government has made a number of arrangements with various countries so that trades between China and these countries could be settled directly in renminbi, instead of US dollars.

John Coverdale, HSBC’s global co-head of commercial banking based in Hong Kong, said Asia has come to an important juncture where the renminbi trade settlement pilot scheme launched in July has effectively made the currency a new force governing intra-Asian cross-border trades. “We are right at the dawning of the age of a wider convertibility of the renminbi currency and therefore a wider use of it for trade and other purposes,” said Coverdale. “We have not seen the evolution of a new currency for a long time. We can effectively call it a new currency in a newly emerged market. It is a new force.”

Since the inception of the trade settlement pilot scheme, 173 transactions amounting to 230 million renminbi ($33.6 million) have been conducted between mainland China and Hong Kong. The pilot scheme allows for 400 approved Chinese enterprises in five approved cities –

Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai – to settle trades with their counterparts in Hong Kong, Macau and Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) member countries.

Banks in these countries outside China are now allowed to open renminbi accounts with mainland banks for trade-related clearing, and enterprises in these countries can now also start to accumulate renminbi liquidity for trade purposes.

HSBC, for example, helped a Hong Kong manufacturer of printed circuit boards located in Guangdong province receive 15 million renminbi through its trade settlement services, which then used the funds to invest in renminbi-denominated bonds. “The next evolutionary step is that you’d see increased volume of trade settled in renminbi. The authorities in China will start to give us more exporters to settle with,” said Coverdale.

Stanley Chan, head of HKMA’s financial infrastructure development, says based on the $434.78 billion value of total trade volume in Hong Kong and Asean countries, if 5% of such import and export volume were to be settled in renminbi, it would translate into settlement volumes of $21.74 billion.

With $129.9 billion total export value to China from Hong Kong and Asean countries in 2008, a 5% trade settlement will translate to $6.5 billion of offshore renminbi liquidity.

“The renminbi has been stable since May 2008. It [qualifies as] an alternative currency to the US dollar in this region when viewed against other Asian currencies’ exchange rates versus that of the US dollar,” Chan told delegated attending the Asia Risk Congress 2009 in

November. “Such stability incentivises companies in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong to use renminbi for trade settlement.”
Chan said the payment and security settlement system of Hong Kong also gives the city an advantage to develop as an important offshore renminbi clearing centre because of its seamless interface with the real-time gross settlement system of China. He says if a Southeast Asian bank wants to conduct foreign exchange transactions with a mainland bank – including derivatives transactions, if so allowed in the future by

Beijing – they could do so by becoming a direct participant of Hong Kong’s real-time gross settlement system, which is also linked with the US dollar and euro systems.

“More importantly, there will be interbank money market between participants of this system… as direct participants of the [Hong Kong] settlement system can now freely lend and borrow to each other,” he said.

As the sources of fund and scope of assets in renminbi expand, banks might one day also be allowed to offer other financial services, such as renminbi-denominated insurance policies.

Meanwhile, Coverdale said he believes holders of renminbi-denominated bonds are now considering using these securities to obtain secured lending, not only in renminbi but also for any other currencies.

However, he considers the development of a renminbi interbank market in Hong Kong as being contingent more on the timing of when the currency becomes convertible. “An offshore renminbi interbank market will not be developed until the currency is properly and freely traded,” said Coverdale.

“There is probably a limited appetite for holding a currency that is not freely convertible, so from a risk perspective, an interbank market and convertibility of a currency tends to go hand-in-hand.”

http://www.risk.net/asia-risk/news/1566563/renminbi-set-replace-us-dollar-trade-asia-pacific

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Behind the scenes of DJ Khaled “Fed Up” ft. Usher, Young Jeezy, Drake and Rick Ross (Director’s Cut) / New Album 2010

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REUTERS – Metals explorer Corriente Resources Inc (CTQ.TO: Quote) said China’s CRCC-Tongguan Investment Co Ltd agreed to buy all of its outstanding shares in a deal worth about C$679 million.

China’s CRCC-Tongaan is to buy Corriente Resources which is exploring for copper and gold in Ecuador, with an offer valued at 14% premium to Corriente’s Monday close

CRCC-Tongguan Investment agreed to pay C$8.60 in cash for every Corriente share, or a 14 percent premium based on Monday’s closing.
CRCC-Tongguan Investment is jointly owned by Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co Ltd (000630.SZ: Quote) and China Railway Construction Corp (601186.SS: Quote) (1186.HK: Quote).

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Corriente has agreed to pay a termination fee of C$20 million, if the deal, under certain circumstances, is not completed.

Shares of Corriente closed at C$7.55 on Toronto Stock Exchange.
($1=1.042 Canadian Dollar)

(Reporting by Anuradha Ramanathan in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

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