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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (24310)	10/18/2007 1:28:35 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 218005

EBX Plans $2.3 Billion in IPOs to Fund Energy, Port Expansions By Jeb Blount and Laura Cassano Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- EBX group, the Brazilian holding company controlled by billionaire Eike Batista, plans to raise as much as $2.3 billion by selling shares in two units to finance the expansion of transport and electricity networks. MPX Mineracao e Energia SA, the group's energy unit, will seek to raise about $1.5 billion in an initial public offering and plans to build 10 thermal-electric power stations in Brazil and one in Chile, Batista said in an interview. LLX Logistica SA, a port operator, will sell as much as $800 million in shares to build two port complexes in Brazil and one in Chile, he said. Batista is seeking to profit from Brazil's rising electricity demand, which has increased by about 4 percent a year since 1990. A lack of rail, road and port facilities is hampering expansion of exports of iron ore, soybean, sugar and other commodities. ``Brazil needs to think big and resolve its energy and transport problems if it wants to grow,'' Batista said yesterday from his office in Rio de Janeiro. ``Brazil is modern, but its infrastructure is practically Jurassic.'' MPX's planned power plants would have the capacity to generate about 10,000 megawatts of electricity, he said. Batista, who aims to sell shares in the units this year, sold shares last year in MMX Mineracao e Metalicos, a Brazilian iron-ore mining company and pig-iron producer. Anglo American Plc, the world's second-largest mining company, bought a 49 percent stake in MMX's Minas-Rio iron-ore project for $1.5 billion in April. Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., a U.S. iron-ore pellet producer, bought 30 percent of MMX's Amapa mine, rail and port system for $283 million in September. New Ports LLX, which is building the Acu port and industrial complex in Sao Joao da Barra, Brazil, also plans complexes for Peruibe, in Sao Paulo state, and near Copiapo, Chile, Batista said. The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board agreed in July to buy a 15 percent stake in LLX for $185 million. The ports will be used to export bulk commodities such as iron ore and soybeans, handle shipping containers and transfer goods to ships that will travel to smaller ports along Brazil's coast, he said. Factories, steel mills and energy plants powered by coal or natural gas may also be located at the ports, Batista said. He's in talks with steelmakers such as Nucor Corp. about building mills near the ports, Batista said. ``We need to have ports like Singapore and China,'' he said. ``With 80 percent of Brazilians living near the coast, the best way to improve transport of products is with coastal shipping.''

To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (24310)	10/26/2007 1:15:42 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 218005

Alibaba Magic-carpet ride Oct 25th 2007 \| HONG KONG From The Economist print edition The China bubble bumps into the dotcom bubble BOTH China and the internet have a habit of going to the heads of investors. So perhaps it was inevitable that these two intoxicants would be combined in a single company. Alibaba is the world's most popular business-to-business (B2B) online marketplace. Its two best-known sites allow foreign buyers to find Chinese suppliers, and Chinese companies to trade with each other. Now the company is eager to trade a bit of itself. This week it priced its public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Up to 19% of its shares will be quoted on November 6th. Huge demand pushed up the pricing of the deal by a third. The company now hopes to raise $1.7 billion, which would value it at $9 billion, or more than 100 times this year's earnings. The firm's biggest asset is perhaps its founder, Jack Ma. Mr Ma is everything that most Chinese entrepreneurs are not. Charismatic, plain-spoken and accessible to the press, he has parlayed a bold idea, a huge marketing budget and laudatory clippings into a business that has a large following and an eye-popping valuation. Does Alibaba merit its price? If it could smooth all the pitfalls of Chinese procurement, it would deserve even more. But no website can do that. Fears about quality, safety and counterfeiting still worry wholesale buyers, who have to do a lot of offline work to satisfy themselves that a supplier is capable and trustworthy. As a result, once buyers have found a supplier they like, they tend to stick with it, rather than searching again when they have a new order to place. Firms involved in Chinese supply-chain management were once terrified by the idea of Alibaba. But their concern has faded as the demand for hands-on procurement has grown. Alibaba hopes its position as the leading marketplace will allow it to sell more lucrative services on the side. Its members can subscribe to software, known as Alisoft, which handles their finances, inventories and customer information. But Alisoft is not included in the Hong Kong offering. Investors do not seem to care. The one product Alibaba can unquestionably shift at the moment is its own shares.