The Financial Times reported on Monday the French company
had hired bankers to look at a listing of its commodities
trading arm, or a partial sale to a sovereign wealth fund.”Taking into account the state of the (stock) market, there
is only little chance that we see a transaction in the short
term,” the source close to the company said.”A private investor is less unlikely that an IPO,” he added.
American has cancelled flights due to pilot shortages and this week told the union it would close its San Francisco crew base that is home to 300 pilots and other workers, the union said.”I remain convinced that the best course of action in our present situation is to conclude negotiations expeditiously,” said David Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, the union at American.”A contractual agreement that is good for our pilots and good for the operation will help move American Airlines in a more positive direction,” Bates said.Pilots and management had reported good progress in talks over the summer and were optimistic an agreement was possible. Most recently, negotiations moved to the final and most difficult issues — wages and job protection.The pilot union’s board was expected to convene on Saturday, the APA said.A spokesman for the airline could not immediately be reached for comment.Ray Neidl, an analyst with Maxim Group, said pilots are the “bellwether group” in bargaining but rated the chances for a deal at one-in-three over the next several days.”Just because there are intense talks does not necessarily mean that they will reach an agreement … much less a contract that has large cost savings,” Neidl said in a note to clients on Friday.Substantial cost savings, Neidl said, would help the carrier return to profitability along with an increase in revenues.American is scheduled to report quarterly results on October 19. The company reported a second-quarter net loss of $286 million.Shares of AMR Corp closed off less than 1 percent on Friday at $2.94 on the New York Stock Exchange.Other unions at American and pilots and other workers in negotiations at other big carriers are watching the AMR developments closely.American was the only big U.S. carrier to not restructure in bankruptcy last decade, leaving it with mostly higher labour costs even though its pilots and other workers agreed to sweeping concessions to keep the company solvent.
The 43-year old head of a personnel agency in Rastatt fondly
recalls picking up the 335i from the dealer in 2008 and driving
off on a road trip through Switzerland to the Italian Riviera
and the Cote d’Azur in France to park up in front of Monte
Carlo’s famous casino on a warm sunny day.”That feeling of driving with the top down in May all the
way along the Mediterranean coast, it was simply a dream,” said
Nikles, who bought his first BMW 20 years ago and has been a
customer ever since.”I’m already interested now about when the new 3 Series will
go on sale, definitely. I’ll likely trade mine in for another
cabrio with a 3.5 litre engine … or maybe even an M3,” he
said, referring to the high performance street racing version
that retails in Germany for over 75,000 euros ($103,000).Devoted fans like himself won’t have to wait much longer.
Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer will pull the wraps off the
sixth-generation 3 Series at BMW’s headquarters in Munich on
Friday in an event that will be broadcast live over the
internet, with the new cars set to go on sale early next year.The new cars, which according to media reports are expected
to be slightly bigger than their predecessors, will prove
crucual in fending off BMW’s arch-rivals, Daimler’s
Mercedes-Benz (DAIGn.DE) and Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) Audi,
since every third BMW sold worldwide is a 3 Series.Nick Margetts, managing director in Germany for automotive
market researcher JATO Dynamics, reckons there is a 3 Series for
every kind of driver and it’s this sheer versatility that makes
it appealing to people from all walks of life, while at the same
time not being seen as ordinary.”The 3 Series does it all. It’s available in the most body
styles and it’s got a really huge range of engines, so you can
do economy with it, you can do luxury with it, you can do crazy
sport with it — people still line up to get an M3,” he said.The saloon version alone is the single most widely bought
vehicle for the group, nearly matching the annual sales of the
entire Mini brand line last year.This dependence on steady, reliable demand for the 3 Series
also poses a significant risk to a company that puts a lot of
weight on a diversity and balance in its revenue base, at least
when it comes to the carmaker’s geographical sales footprint.As a result, the 3 Series never got a radical makeover in
design as did some other cars that emerged from the studio of
ex-design chief Chris Bangle, such as the infamous “Bangle Butt”
Series 7 or the interplay of concave and convex panels that
formed his “flame surfacing”.”You can’t say about any of the 3 Series generations ‘my
god, that really was ugly’ or ‘they got that wrong’. There never
was a cataclysmic mistake with it,” said Margett.”It’s iconic in a way that its direct competitors in the
segment never have been. BMW will play around the edges a bit
but it is far too important a car to experiment with.”DESIGNING FOR PROFITInstead, BMW is focussing on cutting material and production
costs by sharing a lot of the innards common to the smaller
rear-wheel drive 1 Series.Barclays Capital estimates the engineering cost savings
built into the new 3 Series will lead to an additional operating
profit of 1.4 billion euros annually.First of all, however, the model changeover will cost BMW a
chunk of money. Management said in August that quarterly margins
will shrink compared with those of the second quarter as cash
incentives for the run-out of the current 3 Series as well as
launch costs for the new one total half a billion euros.Always comparing BMW with the competition, Nikles said an
Audi A4 may end up in the corporate car park in Rastatt but
privately he will stick to the higher-end 3 Series cabrios.”For someone who drives over 80 percent of the time on his
own, it’s perfect for me. I had a larger 5 Series when the kids
were still at home since it had airbags for the back seats, but
I went back to the 3 Series now since its sportier, more agile
and just incredibly fun,” he said.”The 3.5 litre petrol version can accelerate unbelievably
fast, and yet you can stop on a dime even at 220-240 km/h. So
the whole time you feel absolutely safe in it because you’re
always in control of the car.”
($1=0.730 euros)
When it first sounded the market in July, the borrower,
owned by blue chips Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd ,
Henderson Land Development Co Ltd and Hong Kong &
China Gas Co Ltd , was considering a HK$17 billion
facility to refinance a maturing deal of roughly the same size.
But in early August the company opted to cut the size to HK$10
billion in a bid to ensure successful syndication.IFC Development is now inviting relationship banks to join
as underwriters at an all-in of between 140 basis points and 150
basis points via a margin of 135 basis points over Hibor with
commitments of HK$500 million to HK$1 billion. Tenor of the
unsecured deal is set at 3.5 years.The deal’s loan pricing is at the low end of the previous
price talk of between 150 basis points and 180 basis points
all-in.”It’s a reflection of the cautious sentiment in Hong Kong’s
loan market where many banks are suffering with soaring funding
costs,” said a corporate loans banker with one of IFC’s existing
lenders.After a bull run in the first half this year, Hong Kong’s
loan market has turned because tighter liquidity and spiking
funding costs have made lenders more selective and prompted them
to demand higher prices on new deals. Loan pricing for large
corporate borrowers in Hong Kong has almost doubled to 170 basis
points all-in, compared to the sub-90 basis points margins seen
at the end of 2010.As a result, the city’s total syndicated loan volume plunged
to $11.55 billion in the third quarter, down 42% from the second
quarter, marking the sharpest quarter-on-quarter fall in five
years, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data.Nevertheless, some loan bankers looking at the situation do
not expect IFC Development to experience any hiccups in the
syndication as the deal is largely relationship-driven.Meanwhile, banking sources said shareholders of IFC
Development — which holds International Finance Centre, the
premier office and retail complex in Hong Kong’s Central
district — are planning to inject cash into the company to
repay part of the maturing facility that is being refinanced.The new IFC loan will refinance a HK$17.35 billion five-year
facility completed in March 2007. A total of 19 banks joined
IFC’s 2007 loan as mandated lead arrangers and 14 others joined
in general syndication. The 2007 loan paid a top-level all-in of
43 basis points via a margin of 37 basis points over Hibor.The MLAs on the 2007 loan were ABN AMRO Bank, Bank of China
Hong Kong, Bank of Communications, Bank of East Asia, Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BayernLB, BNP Paribas, the then Calyon,
CCB International Finance, Citigroup, DBS Bank, Fortis Bank Hong
Kong, Hang Seng Bank, HSBC, ICBC Asia, Mizuho Corporate Bank,
Rabobank International, Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo
Mitsui Banking Corp.The rest of the participants were Shanghai Commercial Bank,
Agricultural Bank of China, Wing Lung Bank, Bangkok Bank, BBVA,
KBC Bank, Scotia Bank, Bank of China Tokyo, Nanyang Commercial
Bank, Public Bank, Tai Fung Bank, Mega International Commercial
Bank, Bank of China Macau and Chong Hing Bank.
