Upstream operations specialise in high-pressure well service pumps and related flow control equipment along with repairs, parts and service of pressure control and rotating equipment.

Downstream focuses on design and manufacture of centrifugal pumps, mainly for the refining industry. Principal operations are in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Indeed, with 50% of Ocado’s sales coming from within the M25 (a market in which WaitroseDeliver is likely to launch next year), and both M&S and Morrisons yet to launch online grocery services at all, we believe that Ocado will struggle to grow as fast as the UK online grocery market over the next few years.

David Lis, head of UK equities at Aviva Investors, added: “Until investment bankers realise that instead of lining their pockets and those of their corporate clients, they need to consider what is a fair valuation for the eventual buyer of their overpriced IPOs, then it is unlikely that the new issue market can function.”

The Ocado IPO failed its original purpose of creating a widely owned stock, in the face of massive media headwind. Instead most of the available shares were picked up by a handful funds and some very rich individuals, most of whom were already shareholders.

Could it be that almost no shares have been sold by anybody owning them in the morning of July 21? That short sellers have provided pretty much all liquidity to the market for the last five weeks? At latest count, 27m shares have been lent to short sellers. This amounts to roughly the total turnover in the last four weeks.

Could it be that this handful of fund managers, traders and investors know of each other? Well, they should, since all of the above is public knowledge. Could they know each other? Might they even talk? Would they, really?

If you think not, as a short investor you may sleep well at night. If you think they might, we could be in for a short squeeze.

Ocado’s unique nature, high growth rate, and changing profitability and cash flow profiles create significant valuation challenges. We value the company using EV/sales and EV/EBITDA comparatives, plus a DCF. The average of these measures, which drives our price target, indicates fair value at 167p per share. While recognising the wide variety of potential outcomes, we believe the current share price fails to capture fully the risk-weighted growth opportunity for Ocado.

I am not talking about bankers. Welcome instead to the coalition government’s view of Britain’s top public servants. Gordon Brown lacerated (latterly anyway) the plutocrats of the financial services industry. David Cameron’s administration prefers to stage show trials of well-heeled bureaucrats

Hardly a day goes by without another tale of taxpayer-financed profligacy – each accompanied by squeals of indignation from a rightwing pressure group styling itself the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

^c.2010 Bloomberg News

(Adds analyst’s comment in fourth paragraph.)

By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Candover Investments Plc, the British private equity firm that halted investments in January, plans to sell its remaining assets and return cash to investors after talks to find a buyer for the fund manager broke down.

“The best way to optimize value is likely to be a move towards implementing a plan to return cash to shareholders,” Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Fallen said in a statement today. “There is significant value in the underlying investments in the portfolio.”

Candover Partners was forced to shut its 3 billion-euro ($3.8 billion) leveraged buyout fund in January after Candover Investments, its publicly traded parent, ran out of cash and canceled a 1 billion-euro commitment to the pool. Candover Investments ended talks last month to be acquired by Alberta Investment Management Corp., a Canadian pension fund.

“Whilst this is a sorry demise for what was one of the U.K.’s leading private equity funds until a couple of years ago, we think it is the most sensible course of action,” Iain Scouller, an analyst at Oriel Securities Ltd., wrote in a note to clients. He upgraded his rating on the stock today to “add” and expects the stock price to rise to 680 pence in six months.

Candover rose 1.7 percent to 605 pence as of 9:11 a.m. in London trading.

Macro risks are overstated: European and global PMIs are consistent with 2.5% and 3.5% GDP growth, respectively. Credit spreads lead both charge-offs and defaults by six months and are consistent with a further fall in both. Credit spreads have not widened in the past month, in spite of the macro worries priced into the bond market. We believe that the yield curve will steepen. Tight fiscal and loose monetary policy is beneficial for banks versus cyclicals (as it allows lower rates for longer and underpins sovereign credit quality). We do not expect a big negative surprise from US housing

Lending conditions suggest positive loan growth in Europe.

Regulation and tax have been watered down: Our banks team estimates that the likely hit from BIS 3 has fallen from 37% of net earnings to 9%.

Positioning: Banks continue to be the largest underweight among sectors.

Our preferred banks are BNP, Commerzbank, Lloyds, SAN, HSBC, Unicredit and Sberbank, BBNI, Kasikornbank and KB Financial Group in GEM.

To maximise shareholder value before they
become a bid target, Gulf Keystone should
prove up the resources of its other blocks
through drilling and seismic

Getting more rigs ameliorates earlier delays
and their return potential far outweighs the
costs and balance sheet impact

Not included in these figures are the two shallow zones that are the target of Shaikan-3 which could add 500mmbbl or more. These days a discovery of 500mmbbl is worthy of headlines, yet at Shaikan this is a ‘mere addition’ and goes to show the sheer scale of the find.

They allege that Numis made “fraudulent misrepresentations” regarding a $150m fundraising for Rock Well Petroleum, a Canadian oil company.

Numis, led by its ambitious chief executive, Oliver Hemsley, said: “We think it’s a spurious claim and we will defend it robustly.”

In July and August 2007, Rock Well raised $150m in a private placing of shares with London-based investors, according to documents filed at the High Court last week. Numis acted for Rock Well. Fidelity, CQS and two smaller claimants, Oceanic and St Peter Port Capital, invested a total of $95m in the company.

•On Sunday, sanofi-aventis confirmed long-running rumours that it had made an offer of $69 per share or $18.5bn for Genzyme, a premium of 31% to the share price average in the month before press speculation about the approach. The price represents 35x Genzyme’s EPS guidance for 2010, a year depressed by the saga of manufacturing problems at its ERT facility. Sanofi believes that its offer is about 20x Wall Street estimates for 2011 EPS. The offer has been rejected by Genzyme management as opportunistic and inadequate. We would not be surprised at a modest increase in the sanofi offer and another bidder remains very possible.
•The most obvious points of comparison between the two companies are the ERT businesses, where Genzyme and Shire are the two market leaders and have directly competing products. Genzyme’s manufacturing difficulties have allowed Shire to narrow the gap between it and Genzyme. For 2010, Shire’s ERT business (Human Genetic Therapies) should post sales of $0.8bn (+45%), compared with Genzyme’s $1.7bn (-2%). ERT sales are 29% and 39% of the total sales of Shire and Genzyme, respectively. The ERT sector (and other orphan drugs) have become particular attractions to drug companies, as mainstream drug markets become more difficult, because they address small numbers of easily identified patients and can sustain very high prices. (Both GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have recently announced the establishment of in-house units to pursue such opportunities.)

^c.2010 Bloomberg News

By Claudia Carpenter

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Armajaro Asset Management appointed Harry Morley as chief executive officer.

He replaces Ricahrd Gower, co-founder of Armajaro, who becomes chairman of Armajaro Asset Management, Armajaro said in a statement e-mailed today.

Mr. Ward’s Armajaro Holdings Ltd. shook up the commodities market in July by buying a $1 billion cache of cocoa, enough to make 15 billion Hershey’s milk-chocolate bars. But since Mr. Ward made his audacious bet, cocoa prices have dropped 26%.

Two hedge funds run by Armajaro, including its CC+ Fund, which focuses on cocoa and coffee, lost about 6% of their value during the first two weeks of August, according to investors who have viewed the returns. And since then, prices have continued to decline, suggesting Mr. Ward could be ..

See this link:

http://sunday.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=18642

According to MergerMarket, Cross in the article indicates there is a
white knight. Google Translate does a terrible job of making any sense
to the report so have not attached to this message. 9th para down looks
like it discusses white knight and possible interest in Dana from
Chinese groups.

- On a real basis, US gross domestic product has regained 70% of what was lost during the recession and on a nominal basis, GDP has regained all of it, meaning that the United States is in a nominal expansion.

The return to profitability will represent a significant improvement on the estimated losses of £850bn, made at the height of the crisis, as the government propped up struggling institutions. The turnaround is down to a combination of recovering banking profits, rises in share prices and profits on fees charged for loans and guarantees.

UK taxpayers are currently breaking even on their 83.2% shareholding in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and 41.3% shareholding in Lloyds TSB when dividends and other earnings are taken into account.

The world’s biggest chipmaker gets its German rival’s baseband radio chips as part of the deal, which feature in Apple’s iPhone.