Etisalat to bid for Morocco Meditel stake

Google Mots clés : Meditel, Etisalat, TELECOM, Morocco, Emirates

 

Emirates Telecommunications Corp will bid for a stake in Morocco’s Meditel as it looks to expand in the Middle East and Africa, the telecom chairman said on Friday.

Emirates Telecom (Etisalat) will also continue to pursue the telecom licence in Iran it was stripped of last week, Mohammed Hassan Omran told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan.

”We are looking for opportunities in the Middle East and Africa, especially at this time there are some good assets,” Mr Omran told Reuters Television. ”Assets are becoming cheap ... we see them becoming more cheap in coming months.”

”We are expecting (to get) Morocco ... We are participating in the bid for Morocco ... Meditel and we are working hard for Syria and Lebanon,” Mr Omran said, without giving further details.

Portugal Telecom has appointed Morgan Stanley to sell its 32 per cent stake in Meditel, Morocco’s second-largest telecoms company, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month.

The telecom operator is facing stiffer competition in its home market of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where some analysts are predicting there will be more job cuts and a decline in the population, which will weigh on the earnings of Etisalat and rival du.

When asked if Etisalat was likely to be able to match the 4 per cent rise in profit it achieved in the first quarter, Mr Omran said: ”We are working hard to maintain that and even get it better.”

He said the UAE market was becoming more difficult because expatriates were leaving, but Etisalat expected growth in Saudi Arabia, where its affiliate Etihad Etisalat was doing ”better than expected”.

Etisalat Egypt, the third mobile phone operator to enter the Egyptian market, was also performing ”better than competitors”, Mr Omran said.

Saudi Arabia is the most-populous Gulf Arab country and Egypt has the largest population in the Arab world.

The chairman said the company was not giving up on its lost bid for Iran’s third mobile telephone license.

Iran took the license away from Etisalat and its consortium partners in May, saying it ”had not fulfilled its obligations”.

The company said in January when it won the license that it planned to invest up to $5bn over five years in its Iranian operation.

”In Iran, we made the best bid. Our partner could not continue and that ended up disqualifying the consortium,” Mr Omran said. ”We are evaluating the possibilities. It is the big market and it has a lot of potential. But it is complex. The game is not over for us in Iran.”

FT.com / Middle East / Finance - Etisalat to bid for Morocco Meditel stake

Microsoft dément toute intention de rachat de SAP

 

 

Stratégie - Microsoft a pour la première fois réalisé une émission obligataire pour 3,75 milliards de dollars, alimentant des spéculations sur un possible rachat de l’allemand SAP. Spéculations qualifiées de « rumeur » par Steve Ballmer.

« Je n'ai rien à déclarer concernant des rumeurs d'acquisitions...celle-ci est une rumeur comme une autre. »  C'est en ces termes que Steve Ballmer a répondu aux questions concernant un possible rachat de SAP au cours d'une conférence de presse en Inde. Cette « rumeur » a surgi suite à l'annonce d'un emprunt sous forme d'obligations pour 3,75 milliards de dollars. Ce genre de manoeuvre est la plupart du temps le signe d'un projet d'acquisition d'envergure.

Parmi les sociétés susceptibles d'intéresser Microsoft, SAP dont le rachat aiderait Microsoft à contrebalancer la montée en puissance d'Oracle suite à l'acquisition de Sun.

Un emprunt de 3,75 milliards de dollars pour quoi faire ?

Mais si aucune opération de ce type n'est à l'ordre du jour, qu'est-ce que Microsoft compte faire de cet argent ? Alimenter les « besoins généraux » de l'entreprise et profiter de son excellente notation sur le marché du crédit.

Une opération inédite pour Microsoft, la première de son histoire. Cet emprunt se découpe en trois parties : 2 milliards empruntés sur 5 ans à 2,95% ; 1 milliard sur dix ans à 4,20% ; 750 millions de dollars sur trente ans à 5,20%. (Eureka Presse)

Google Mots clés : SAP, MICROSOFT, ORACLE

Google en panne, Facebook attaqué

 

 

 

La rançon de la gloire ? Google a enregistré une panne une heure durant jeudi. Facebook, de son côté, a été l'objet d'une nouvelle attaque ciblant les données de ses utilisateurs.
Interrogé par le New York Times, un porte-parole du réseau social a évoqué « une attaque de phishing (vol d'identité) concertée ». Celle-ci ne se serait pas généralisée et aurait impacté « un petit pourcentage » des membres du réseau. Facebook a affirmé avoir bloqué les liens vers les sites de phishing identifiés, nettoyer les messages frauduleux et réinitialiser les identifiants des utilisateurs victimes de cette attaque.
Pour Google, référence des moteurs de recherche et des liens sponsorisés, une erreur de routage serait à l'origine de la paralysie de ses services (moteur, messagerie, applications, interfaces de programmation...) hier vers 17h, heure française. Dans un billet publié à l'issue de la panne, Urs Hölzle, vice-président en charge des opérations chez Google, a indiqué :

« Une erreur dans l'un de nos systèmes nous a obligé à rediriger une partie de notre trafic internet vers l'Asie, ce qui a créé un embouteillage. En conséquence, environ 14% de nos utilisateurs ont enregistré un ralentissement de nos services, voire des interruptions. » Hölzle a ajouté : « vous pouvez être assurés que nous allons travailler encore plus dur pour que cela ne se reproduise pas. »

Google en panne, Facebook attaqué par Neteco.com

Google Mots clés : Google down, facebook hacked, cyber crime

AIG Agrees to $1.2 Billion Sale of Tokyo Building

Google Mots clés : AIG, Tokyo Building, Nippon Life Insurance Co

 

 

American International Group Inc., the insurer bailed out four times by the U.S. government, agreed to sell its Japanese headquarters to Nippon Life Insurance Co. for about 115.5 billion yen ($1.2 billion).

The transaction, which includes an acre of land in central Tokyo’s Marunouchi district, is expected to close in the second quarter, New York-based AIG said today in a statement. The 15- story building was constructed in 1974 and has 404,294 square feet (37,560 square meters). It overlooks the Imperial Palace.

Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy is dismantling AIG to pay off government debt. Liddy put AIG’s Japanese headquarters building up for sale in February, following a 6.1 percent drop in Tokyo commercial-property values. Closely held Nippon Life is Japan’s largest life insurer.

“A bid of more than 100 billion yen is a pretty expensive purchase as I had expected to be around 70 billion to 80 billion yen,” said Takashi Ishizawa, chief analyst who covers real estate at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. “It’s a great location in the city and hard to find anything with more potential, so that may be behind the pricing.”

Kenji Hirowatari, general manager of public and investor relations at Nippon Life, declined to comment in advance of the announcement.

Vacancies Increase

Tokyo is the world’s third most expensive market for office properties after London and Hong Kong. The city’s office vacancy rate rose for the 15th month in April to 6.8 percent as companies cut spending in the recession, according to a May 7 report by Miki Shoji Co., a property broker.

“This transaction has been successfully negotiated by AIG despite the difficult real estate market environment in Japan and globally,” Liddy said in today’s statement. He called the bidding process “very competitive.”

Nippon Life has 44 trillion yen in assets and held 1.75 trillion yen of real estate as of March 31. The company plans to increase its investments in stocks by as much as 100 billion yen for the financial year through March 31, 2010, Tomiji Akabayashi, general manager of the insurer’s finance and investment planning division, said in an interview last month. It plans to maintain its real estate investments at the current level.

AIG almost collapsed in September after ratings downgrades forced the company to post collateral on credit-default swaps. The insurer got an $85 billion U.S. credit line and the bailout was expanded to $182.5 billion as AIG was unable to sell enough assets to repay the loan.

$4.4 Billion Raised

Before today, the company had struck deals to raise about $4.4 billion by selling assets including a U.S. auto insurer. AIG is also considering selling its worldwide headquarters at 70 Pine St. in lower Manhattan and another property at 72 Wall St., according to a statement on March 18.

The $182.5 billion government rescue of AIG includes a $60 billion Federal Reserve credit line, a U.S. Treasury investment of as much as $70 billion and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage- linked assets owned or backed by the insurer. AIG had borrowed about $45.5 billion from the Fed credit line as of last week.

Merrill Lynch & Co. advised AIG on the building sale, along with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune. Blackstone Group LP is advising AIG on its restructuring program.

 

AIG Agrees to $1.2 Billion Sale of Tokyo Building (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

Microsoft says Windows 7 on track for holidays

 

 

 

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is on track to release its new Windows 7 operating system in time for the holiday shopping season, an executive said on Monday, confirming talk that it is ahead of its own conservative schedule for replacing the unpopular Vista system.

The world's largest software company has so far been vague on specifying the timing of its new operating system, wary of disappointing customers. But it has broadly targeted the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

"Windows 7 is tracking well for holiday availability," Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows business said at an event on Monday, citing good test results on the early version of the system released to developers and the public over the past few weeks.

Last month, Microsoft said Windows 7 was on track for launch in its fiscal year 2010, which could mean as early as July this year.

That inspired some hopes that Microsoft would be able to take advantage of both the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons, which usually bring a spike in computer purchases and accompanying software.

Over the last few weeks, Microsoft has been releasing an early version of Windows 7, known as a "release candidate", to developers and the public.

Once it makes some more adjustments to the software, the next stage is for Microsoft to release the system to PC manufacturers to install on machines that will be sold in shops.

Microsoft's operating systems, installed on the vast majority of the world's PCs, are still the backbone of the company, providing more than half of its $4.4 billion profit last quarter.

The disappointing Vista, launched to the public in 2007, was incompatible with some low-power machines and perceived by many to be too complicated.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Derek Caney)

 

Google Mots clés : Microsoft, Windows 7, holidays