Mereja
[Placeholder post for my review of this game.]
This DotA clone is from Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, one of the creators of DotA All-Stars.
Download links after the jump.
The installer installs the latest DirectX components and Adobe AIR. After installation, the game automatically searches for updates. Cool.
>>>Get the downloadable PC full version freeware real-time strategy (RTS) game here (UK version)
>>>Get the downloadable PC full version freeware real-time strategy (RTS) game here (US version)>>>Get the gameplay walkthrough movie from here
Ingenix has agreed to acquire CareMedic, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based provider of healthcare revenue management software. No financial terms were disclosed. CareMedic has raised over $25 million in VC funding, from firms like Wellmark, CB Health Ventures, Oak Investment Partners, Pappajohn Capital and Iowa Seed Capital Corp.
PRESS RELEASE
TripleTree is pleased to announce that its client, CareMedic, an industry leader in revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions, will be acquired by Ingenix, a leading health information, technology and consulting company, in a cash transaction.
TripleTree acted as the exclusive financial advisor to CareMedic.
With the acquisition of CareMedic, Ingenix will offer solutions that address each major component of the hospital revenue cycle: patient registration, eligibility verification, financial clearance, coding and compliance, bill submission, denials management, and remittance processing. Ingenix and CareMedic’s combined products and services will create a comprehensive suite of solutions for hospitals to manage the revenue cycle and improve financial performance – from the time a patient begins the registration process with a health care provider to the time payment for that care is received. This will be the industry’s only enterprise-wide solution that identifies inefficiencies as they occur, so clients can take practical actions to receive appropriate reimbursements and reduce costs throughout the process.
CareMedic provides hospitals with an enterprise platform of enabling technologies and services that optimize revenue cycle efficiency and improve cash flow, margins and productivity. The Company’s products and services include the Electronic Financial Record (eFR®) platform, which makes nearly real-time patient financial information accessible across departments within a hospital, helping clients take the right actions at every step of the revenue cycle to receive payments faster and more efficiently. With the eFR platform, CareMedic provides the industry’s most complete, historical view of a patient’s consolidated financial record with a provider organization. CareMedic’s capabilities will complement Ingenix’s coding and compliance expertise and automated credit balance resolution provided by its INTELLIJET® platform.
Sheila Schweitzer, CEO of CareMedic, said, “With Ingenix’s expertise in reimbursement, health information management and consulting, and our expertise in enterprise-wide RCM, we will create a unified solution that makes hospitals more efficient at managing cash flow and enhances our commitment to helping clients get paid. As part of Ingenix, we will be able to provide clients with additional services and continued innovations that help them use capital more effectively and improve operational efficiency.”
Andy Slavitt, CEO of Ingenix, said, “Innovation and talent are key to solving health care’s biggest challenges. We’re combining the great teams at CareMedic and Ingenix to deliver innovation with the common vision of simplifying the system, reducing waste and centering health care around the patient.”
“Caremedic is the only company in the industry with a true-end-to-end RCM data and process integration capability that leverages a patient-centric data model. In combination with the coding, content, and transformational services of Ingenix, the combined company will be a significant competitor in the provider RCM sector,” said Scott Tudor, TripleTree Managing Partner.
The CareMedic transaction has been announced on the heels of TripleTree’s representation of Anodyne Health Partners in its sale to athenahealth. TripleTree has now closed over $1.5 billion in RCM, HIT, and HC BPO transactions over the last four years.
About TripleTree, LLC
TripleTree, LLC is an independent investment banking firm focused on mergers and acquisitions, financial restructuring, principal investing, and strategic advisory services for healthcare and technology companies. The firm specializes in growth businesses, vertical industry specialization, and disruptive technology delivery models. For more information, go to www.triple-tree.com
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Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY) has signed an agreement with Bothell, Wash.-based Alder Biopharmaceuticals Inc., for the development and commercialization of a novel biologic that has completed Phase IIa development for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The deal includes an $85 million up-front cash payment, and up to $764 million in additional milestone payments.
Alder Biopharmaceuticals has raised around $67 million in VC funding from firms like Delphi Ventures and TPG Biotech co-led the round, and were joined by return backers Sevin Rosen Funds, Ventures West, H.I.G. Ventures and WRF Capital.
PRESS RELEASE Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) and Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.,today announced a global agreement for the development and commercialization of ALD518, a novel biologic that has completed Phase IIa development for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Alder will grant to Bristol-Myers Squibb worldwide exclusive rights to develop and commercialize ALD518 for all potential indications except cancer, for which Alder will retain rights and grant Bristol-Myers Squibb an option to co-develop and commercialize outside the United States. An upfront cash payment of $85 million, potential development-based and regulatory-based milestone payments of up to $764 million across a range of indications, potential sales-based milestones which, under certain circumstances, may exceed $200 million, and royalties on net sales are payable to Alder by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Alder has an option to require Bristol-Myers Squibb to make an equity investment of up to $20 million in Alder during an initial public offering. “With its novel mechanism of action, ALD518 has the potential to offer an exciting new option for patients with rheumatoid arthritis,” said Brian Daniels, M.D., senior vice president, Global Development & Medical Affairs, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to develop this novel monoclonal antibody. As part of our String of Pearls strategy, this transaction provides Bristol-Myers Squibb with the opportunity to strengthen our immunoscience pipeline, and leverage our company’s experience in developing and delivering novel biologics to help patients prevail over rheumatoid arthritis and, potentially, other autoimmune diseases.”
“Bristol-Myers Squibb and Alder share the vision that ALD518 could become an important part of treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis,” said Randall C. Schatzman, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Alder Biopharmaceuticals. “Bristol-Myers Squibb’s extensive development and commercial experience in immunology translate into an exceptionally good fit for Alder, especially at this stage of our corporate development.”
The effectiveness of the collaboration agreement is subject to antitrust clearance by the United States Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, under the provisions of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, and other customary regulatory approvals.
About ALD518
ALD518 is a humanized, monoclonal antibody, designed to block a pro-inflammatory molecule called interleukin-6 (IL-6), which plays a key role in the inflammatory cascade leading to the inflammation, swelling, pain, and destruction of large and small joints associated with rheumatoid arthritis. Based on the strong association of IL-6 with inflammatory disease, inhibition of IL-6 with ALD518 represents a promising new anti-inflammatory mechanism that could result in bone and joint preservation. ALD518 has completed Phase IIa development for rheumatoid arthritis. ALD518 is also being studied by Alder for the treatment of cancer and in cancer supportive care.
About Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic,(1) chronic, autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation in the lining of joints (or synovium), causing joint damage with chronic pain, stiffness, swelling and fatigue.(2) RA causes limited range of motion and decreased function as a result of affected joints losing their shape and alignment.(3)
RA affects about one percent of the world’s population,(4) including more than one million people in the United States.(1 )The condition is more common in women than in men, who account for 75 percent of patients diagnosed with RA.(2)
About Bristol-Myers Squibb
Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and delivering innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information, please visit www.bms.com.
About Alder
Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. uniquely identifies, develops, and manufactures novel antibody therapeutics to alleviate human suffering in the autoimmune and inflammatory disease areas. Alder’s management team combines decades of industry experience with a proven track record for identifying and developing novel antibody therapeutics and enabling partners through the out-licensing of its technologies. In addition to Bristol-Myers Squibb, partners include Schering-Plough, Seattle Genetics, Genmab, and two non-disclosed large pharmaceutical companies. For more information, visit www.alderbio.com.
Perhaps it would be better to rename it the iPhone 3G$? Do you see what we did just there? Today, Reuters is reporting Apple overtook Nokia as the handset company with the highest total operating profit in the September quarter; the last time Nokia did not hold this title was Q3 of 2007. What does this mean? The iPhone generates a lot of revenue for the Cupertino computer maker. Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in the July to September quarter to generate sales of $4.5 billion, Nokia on the other hand sold 108.5 million handsets and generated sales of $10.36 billion. Apple nudged out Nokia in revenue mainly due to other financial obligations and the economic downturn. You don’t need an abacus to figure out the iPhone is a huge part of Apple’s earnings. No panic out of the Nokia camp however, with the release of the N900 they’re confident in their ability to take back the top spot on the podium. One thing is for certain, we’ll be purchasing several of these Linux powered, A8 processor havin’, numbers. How about you?
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Razorfish has released a wealth of interesting data about consumer online behavior, and a good deal has to do with social media and brand interaction. For those struggling to find the right use of social networks for their business, the data is worth paying attention to.
The data is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the US, about half male and half female. They cover four major age groups and 10 major cities.
"To avoid duplicating the more broad-based work of Pew, Forrester, and other research firms, our goal was to survey what we call "connected consumers,’" Razorfish explains. These connected consumers have broadband access, have spent at least $150 online in the past six months, have visited a "community site" (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Yelp, etc.), and have consumed or created some form of digital media like photos, videos, music, or news.
"Based on previous Razorfish consumer research, we have found that these ‘connected consumers’ roughly mirror the U.S. population with broadband access. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet connection, up from only 55% in 2008. This translates to roughly 200 million people, based on a July 2009 population estimate from the CIA World Factbook (total population 307,212,123, July 2009 estimate)."
In other words, pay attention to the results. You can find them all here. I wanted to highlight a few of the particularly interesting ones here, which pertain to social media use. They paint a pretty good picture of what consumers are looking for from brands on social networks (although these are certainly not the limits of what companies can do with them).
Beyond the data in the above graphs, another point worth mentioning derived from the research is that for Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, those who follow brands are mostly looking for exclusive deals or offers. This mentality will likely increase moving forward as deals get more personalized as well.
Like Jeremiah Owyang recently discussed with WebProNews, sites can connect with existing networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. (think Facebook Connect and similar services), and in the future, people may be able to log-in to corporate sites with their Facebook (or whatever) account, which will bring up their profile information for companies to serve personalized content (or perhaps personalized deals).
The point is, consumers are clearly more than willing to interact with brands through social media, and this will likely become increasingly true as social networks themselves gain more users. It’s not only about pushing your offers out there and hoping people bite. People are becoming friends/fans of brands hoping you do give them special offers.
Interesting new marketing opportunities are going to continue to present themselves moving forward as networks get more advanced and more brands figure out new ways to use them.
Related Articles:
> How Big Brands Use Social Media
> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?
> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing
> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty
I’ve been covering IBM‘s search technology (for our Search and Information Access Research) for two years now, and I confess that I’ve never quite totally understood the strategy (if there is one) behind IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition (OYE).
OYE is the free, Apache Lucene-based search application that IBM has offered since 2006. IBM does have customers who pay for commercial support for OYE, and according to Big Blue there have been over 50,000 downloads of OYE to date. But OYE isn’t something IBM pushes heavily, and Google’s search appliance business hasn’t suffered appreciably in the face of competition by OYE.
One wonders, then: Why bother offering something like OYE at all? What’s the point in putting the "IBM OmniFind" moniker on a technology that is really mostly Lucene on the back end and Yahoo on the front end? It seems (on the surface) like rather a quick-and-easy way to try to get some of the "cool factor" from Lucene to rub off on OYE — a kind of coolness by association.
It now seems likely that OYE was (among other things) an IBM testbed project for Lucene development, ahead of the eventual, inevitable Lucenization of the entire OmniFind family of products. And in fact an IBM rep told me that Big Blue will indeed be moving OmniFind Enterprise Edition to a Lucene-based core architecture eventually. This is big news from a number of standpoints. It’s a huge endorsement (if Lucene needed any, at this point) of the open-source search engine’s maturity and soundness; and it can only solidify Lucene’s position of dominance in the open-source search firmament. It also brings Lucene and UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) closer together, hinting at the emergence (though not right away) of an industry-standard text analytics architecture.
A lot is at stake for IBM, too: The key pieces of IBM’s information-access strategy — including InfoSphere Content Assessment (ICA), InfoSphere Content Collector (ICC), and InfoSphere Classification Module (ICM) — all employ the OmniFind Enterprise Edition search infrastructure in various ways. With Lucene and UIMA occupying center stage, IBM is betting a lot on this technology.
What does it mean to you, the technology buyer? First, expect to see further significant investment in Lucene by the IT world — and further blossoming of the technology ecosphere around Lucene — as Lucene becomes the key enabling technology underneath a variety of content-analytics applications. A year from now, Lucene won’t simply mean "search" — it could become the enabling technology for content-analytics apps of various kinds (including some kinds that haven’t even been envisioned yet).
Secondly, it may prompt the much-prophesied (but never realized) advent of a broad secondary ecosystem around UIMA: an ecosystem of parsers, annotators, and pluggable business rules.
Thirdly, we may see the emergence of a new wave of prospective standards around things like index formats, relevance, and tokenization.
And finally? Expect to see interesting arguments from the likes of Microsoft and Autonomy as to why their proprietary search solutions are better for you in the long run than more open architectures. It should make for an interesting discussion. Subscribers, stay tuned.
With all of the spam out there and the increasing amount of malice that comes with it, it’s easy to look at the situation and think that email must be dying. Combine the overwhelming amounts of inbox spam and the ever-increasing popularity of communication tools like Twitter and Facebook, and you may ask yourself why you even need email. Well, I’ve got ten answers for you here.
Don’t get me wrong. Email will evolve. In fact, it’s already begun to. But email as a utility is currently in no danger of going away. This is a view that Pro Blogger Darren Rowse appears to have in common with me, as he implied in a recent interview with WebProNews.
For all of the unwanted marketing messages and spam out there flooding inboxes, email is still the preferred channel of communication by consumers for receiving marketing messages, according to a different survey.
Spam is going to flood every channel that achieves the usage of the masses. It’s been going on longer than we’ve had a name for it. As long as I’ve been alive, I’ve been forced to sit through commercials I had no interest in seeing, while trying to watch television. Granted, they couldn’t give my television a virus, but they have always been intrusive to some extent.
Now that social networks are rising to popularity, the spam is sure following there. It’s unavoidable. People will spam you no matter what you’re using. But you’ll still use it.
> Spam is Getting More Malicious
> 10 Reasons Social Media isn’t Replacing Email
> People 18-24 Would Rather Give Up Social Networks Than Email
Last night on "30 Rock," Alec Baldwin’s character got lost within New York’s subway system, and due to being covered in bedbugs, received no help from his fellow passengers. But if the same thing happened to him (or a non-fictional person) today, Google Maps could have come to the rescue.
A post on the LatLong Blog announced this afternoon, "[Y]ou can now see New York’s subway lines drawn out directly on Google Maps as part of the transit layer. To turn it on, just point Google Maps to somewhere in New York, click on the ‘More…’ button at top-right, and select ‘Transit.’"
Then, "When you click on any station name, a bubble pops up with the names of the line that service the station, and all the other lines on the screen fade out."
And the transit layer is accessible through Google Maps for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian S60, by the way, so people should be able to take advantage of it while they’re on the go.
Lots of New York tourists – and/or GE execs who have been barred from using company cars – are likely to wind up being quite grateful for this offering.
> Google Maps Takes Another Crack At Real Estate
> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps
> Google Search By Voice Learns Chinese (In Limited Fashion)
There have been many articles written about why to use Twitter, and we’ve certainly published our fair share of them. However, the landscape is constantly changing. New trends, ideas, applications, and features come out, and they further emphasize Twitter’s place in said landscape. Following are some reasons why it is becoming increasingly important to marketers.
1. Twitter Lists
Twitter Lists are changing the game. We recently looked at several reasons why, but also consider that with the Lists gadget, your tweets may appear all over the web if you can get onto lists. They will appear on sites and blogs, which are more than likely going to be related to the niche you are in anyway if you have the right audience on Twitter. 2. The Openness of Twitter
The openness of Twitter, social media and the web in general, pretty much means that your messages on Twitter won’t be limited to your Twitter audience. Facebook and other social networks will bring tweets in. People will share them, screenshot them, link to them on blogs, etc. Twitter is a means of getting your message out to more people, but it’s not necessarily only the people on Twitter that will see those messages.
3. Building Valuable Relationships Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, chalks up success on Twitter to four basic concepts: listen, learn, care, and serve. Basically, if you listen to the community, you will learn, and if you show that you care, you are more likely to get more out of your efforts. Serving means providing something of use to the community. If you what you’re not doing that, you may be setting yourself up to fail, as Fitton talked about in this interview with WebProNews.
4. Traffic That Cares
Twitter can bring you not only random traffic, but traffic from people who are actually passionate about the niche that you are a part of. Retweets are huge in this regard. Guy Kawasaki calls retweeting the sincerest form of flattery. He has a point. He notes that people are willing to risk their reputations by retweeting your content.
6. Connecting with Local Customers
There are a variety of ways you can connect with local consumers and customers using Twitter and Twitter-related tools. There are tools like our own TwellowHood, which let you find Twitterers in your area, for example. Another thing to keep an eye on is Google’s new Social Search. It’s currently just a lab experiment, but could become more. It certainly has potential.
A recent Search Engine Land article made some good points about the potential of local marketing with this tool, which delivers Google search results based on the communities you are a part of. It draws from Google profiles, which include the networks that people are connected to (based on what any person includes in that profile). If you’re not familiar with this feature, watch the following clip, and you’ll understand.
7. Going International and Multi-lingual
Twitter is expanding into more languages. If you thought Twitter was important to marketing already, consider that for most of its existence, it has only been available in a couple of languages. Now it’s in Spanish, and many more languages will follow. That’s not only going to be huge for international and multi-lingual marketing efforts, it’s going to be huge for Twitter’s growth, and the more Twitter grows, the more potential customers are out there.
8. It’s Still Young
Consider that Twitter is just getting started in the grand scheme of things. It’s still young. There are no doubt going to be a lot more features added in the future. And don’t forget about the thousands of Twitter apps that are already out there that can make Twitter useful in different ways to different people and businesses. Take some time and explore them. Fitton’s site OneForty.com, which is like Yelp for Twitter apps, is pretty good for that. It has reviews, and people tell why certain helps have helped their businesses. Did we leave some reasons out? Please share with the rest of us.
> 6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing the Game
> By Tweeting, You Could Appear All Over the Web
> Twitter Expands the "Lists" Feature
> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter
Dan alerts us to the news that the free muni-WiFi system used around the Coshocton’s County Courthouse in Northern Ohio was shut down over a complaint by the MPAA over a single unauthorized movie download. Amazingly, rather than admit that perhaps that was going a bit too far in punishing everyone in that town over a single individual’s usage, the MPAA couldn’t resist the opportunity to complain about the evils of movie piracy again. The MPAA doesn’t seem concerned at all about the collateral damage, and just thinks that it’s a good opportunity to push ahead with its misguided complaint against file sharing.
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Toyota produced two special edition Tundras for the 2009 SEMA show last week. The first was the “Tailgater” – a fancy tribute to country music duo Brooks and Dunn that doubles as a tricked-out mobile BBQ platform. The second was a call-back to the hot rod days of the 50’s, a regular cab short box Tundra with a flame job, moon hub caps, and a 50’s era Toyota logo.
Toyota's custom Tundras shown during the 2009 SEMA show.
While they’re both cool, neither truck demonstrated a new concept or an attempt to establish the Tundra as a great canvas to work from. Still, there were a couple of neat ideas, and you have to give Toyota for trying in a down market:
The Tailgater
The Brooks & Dunn Tailgater edition of the Tundra
This was the show-piece – the truck that Toyota really sunk some time, effort, and energy into. The stand-out features are the engraved silver door handles, the pull-out grill assembly attached to the tailgate, and the various hand-tooled leather elements in the interior.
The pull-out BBQ grill on the tailgater.
That's real silver engraving – very sharp.
What’s missing? Well how about the fact this truck has a 3″ lift with tires and wheels that are too big for such a small lift. What about the fact that this “show” truck doesn’t even have a TRD exhaust (that’s a stock pipe sticking out).
The Hot Rod
The retro call-back Hot Rod Tundra
Wood paneling in a truck bed? It's been done…many, many, many times before.
This truck almost seems like an after-thought. A flame job, some retro hub caps, and a wood-paneled bed are cool, but all these features can be found on a classic show truck at any good-sized car show. Frankly, what’s the point of tapping into a history that Toyota had absolutely no presence in?
No disrespect to the creators and artisans who built this truck , but the bottom line is ‘meh.’ This truck doesn’t even sport a TRD lowering kit, despite the fact hot-rodders were cutting springs and removing leafs to get lower back in the day.
The retro Toyota logo is cool, and the interior has some cool aspects…but if the words “slapped together” don’t apply to this interior, when do they apply?
Retro 50's Toyota logo.
The problem with SEMA trucks is that auto manufacturers have nearly unlimited resources…taking a stock truck and doing it up is always cool, but we expect a lot more from an auto manufacturer. Either demonstrate a new accessory concept or package that could make it into production, show a potential styling cue, or use all your resources to make something awesome. Last year, Toyota recycled the diesel dually concept they showed in 2007. This year, they made a couple of rather tame trucks. Next year, how about one of the following:
Whatever you do, do it right. No more “show trucks” with fewer accessories than your customers are installing on their own vehicles with their own limited resources.
Read user reviews of Tundra Accessories.
Today’s headlines indicate that all eyes yesterday were on the Senate, where former President Bill Clinton urged Democrats to take action on health overhaul legislation and Majority Leader Harry Reid says work on the measure could be done by Christmas.
On Hill, Bipartisan Support Emerging For Commission To Control Health Costs Kaiser Health News staff writer Eric Pianin reports on growing interest for a bipartisan entitlement commission. “The drive on Capitol Hill to create a bipartisan entitlement and tax reform commission to help ‘bend the cost curve’ of health spending and address mounting deficits picked up momentum yesterday, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a handful of moderate Democrats and Republicans voiced support for the effort (11/11).
How The House Abortion Restrictions Would Work Kaiser Health News staff writer Julie Appleby reports on the particulars of the abortion language in the House-passed health bill. The measure “bars insurers from selling policies that cover abortion to anyone who gets a federal subsidy. But it does allow insurers to offer optional abortion coverage that consumers could purchase with their own money. Based on some states’ experiences, it’s unlikely insurers would sell such coverage” (11/10).
Health Vote Shatters Abortion Ceasefire The sudden spasm of intense debate over abortion on Capitol Hill this week threatens not only to stall the passage of health care legislation, but also to shatter the delicate ceasefire that has governed the abortion issue during the Obama era (Politico).
President Clinton Urges Senate Action On Healthcare With Senate leaders navigating a tricky path to move healthcare legislation forward, Democrats on Tuesday received a blunt warning from the president who tried in vain to provide universal coverage 15 years ago — and who suffered the political consequences of failure (Los Angeles Times).
On Hill, Clinton Gives A Health-Care Pep Talk Former president Bill Clinton urged Senate Democrats on Tuesday to resolve their differences with a health-care bill and pass an overhaul as soon as possible. Summoning the lessons of his own history with health-care reform, Clinton warned, “The worst thing to do is nothing” (The Washington Post).
Bill Clinton Presses Senators To Pass Health Bill Former President Bill Clinton came to Capitol Hill Tuesday to underline for Democrats the political consequences of failing to pass a health overhaul, saying doing nothing was the worst outcome (The Wall Street Journal).
Reid Says Health Bill Will Be Done By Christmas The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Tuesday that he expected to bring major health care legislation to the floor next week and to complete work on the bill before Christmas. But other Democratic leaders said it was unlikely that a bill could reach President Obama’s desk by year’s end (The New York Times).
GOP Tries To Recapture Town Hall Anger Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander said Republicans are “quietly” planning some 50 in-person and telephone town hall gatherings over the next three weeks to drum up opposition to Democratic health care bills. Republicans believe this effort will pick up new urgency once Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) releases his long-awaited bill — possibly next week (Politico).
‘Opt-Out’ Proposal Puts State Leaders To The Test In the two weeks since the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, embraced a proposal that would allow states to opt out of a new government health insurance plan, state leaders have begun debating whether to take part, and the question has emerged as a litmus test in some campaigns for governor (The New York Times).
Health Vote Pits Democrat Vs. Democrat Democrats who thought a vote against the sweeping health care package would inoculate them from political attack are facing serious blowback from angry constituents and interest groups on the left—fierce opposition that could prove as consequential as anything Republicans could have thrown at them (Politico).
Are Democrats Nearing Civil War Over Healthcare Reform? Three days after the House’s historic passage of comprehensive healthcare reform, Democrats are grappling with the downside of being a “big tent” party: Their coalition is diverse, and internal tensions rise to the boiling point when major legislation is on the line (The Christian Science Monitor).
Congress Has History Of Reversing Cuts In 1997, Congress passed a budget law that mandated tough curbs on Medicare spending, setting up formulas to reduce doctor payments if broad spending targets were exceeded. But when the formula began taking a serious bite out of doctor reimbursements in 2002, Congress acted to reverse the cuts — a step it has repeated five times since then (The Wall Street Journal).
Falling Far Short Of Reform Reduce the growth of health care costs. Bend the curve. Find the game changers. Reform the delivery system. Yawn. Health care reform has always had two main goals. The first — insuring the uninsured — carries grand overtones of social justice. The second — making the health care system more efficient — can seem abstract, technocratic and a bit nerdy (The New York Times).
Gay-Rights Groups See Gains In House Health Bill Gay-civil-rights groups have sought certain changes in health care policy for years without success. Now they’ve got a chance because of several provisions included in the House health care bill passed Saturday (NPR).
The Influence Game: Bishops Shape Health Care Bill Catholic bishops have emerged as a formidable force in the health care overhaul fight, using their clout with millions of Catholics and working behind the scenes in Congress to get strong abortion restrictions into the House bill (The Associated Press).
Maine Finds A Health Care Fix Elusive When his car repair shop’s health insurance premiums doubled between 2000 and 2002, David White saw the problem as akin to a sputtering engine. So he got under the hood of the state’s health system and tried to fix it (The New York Times).
Mass. Keeps Eye On Bill’s Abortion Funding Ban Massachusetts officials are closely monitoring an abortion funding ban in the sweeping health care legislation before Congress to make sure that it does not restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the state. Abortion is a covered service for low-income Massachusetts women enrolled in subsidized insurance plans available since 2006 through the state’s landmark health care law (The Boston Globe).
Lawmakers Call For Emergency Sick-Leave Requirement Against the backdrop of the H1N1 flu pandemic, congressional Democrats are pushing for emergency sick-leave legislation and using the crisis to garner support for a wider-ranging bill — both of which, they say, would help prevent a more rapid spread of the virus by mandating that employers provide workers with paid time off (Los Angeles Times).
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Prosper, a San Francisco-based operator of a peer-to-peer lending marketplace, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from QED Investors. QED managing partner Nigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One, will join the Prosper board of directors. Prosper previously raised around $40 million, from firms like Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Fidelity Ventures, DAG Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners and Omidyar Network.
Prosper, the largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S. with over $180 million in loans and 870,000 members, today announced that Nigel W. Morris, Co-Founder of Capital One, has joined its Board of Directors and his venture capital firm, QED Investors, has invested in the company.
“The future of consumer and small business finance is changing rapidly, and Prosper is at the forefront of this transformation,” said Nigel Morris, Managing Partner of QED Investors. “By disintermediating banks, Prosper’s model allows consumers to directly benefit, both on the lending and borrowing sides. We are excited to be part of a company that will play a pivotal role in the future of lending.”
“To maximize and fast track our growth and revenue potential, we’re honing our strategy to holistically approach marketing and risk modeling,” said Chris Larsen, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Prosper. “Bringing in Nigel Morris and his team of operationally-oriented investors will immediately enhance our own team’s analytical capability. And just as Nigel and his team were able to deploy such a capability at Capital One to revolutionize the consumer lending industry, we expect our team at Prosper to revolutionize the P2P lending space.”
Nigel Morris co-founded Capital One in 1994, and during his ten-year tenure, Capital One’s customer base grew to an extraordinary 45 million, managed loans increased to more than $70 billion and the company emerged as one of the top seven issuers of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the world.
Nigel Morris is currently the managing partner of QED Investors, a direct investment fund focused on high-growth companies that leverage the power of data strategies. In addition, he works in an advisory capacity with General Atlantic Partners, Columbia Capital, and Oliver Wyman. He also serves on the board of The Economist Group, London Business School, and Venture Philanthropy Partners.
About Prosper
Prosper is America’s largest peer-to-peer lending marketplace with over 870,000 and $184 million in loans. It pioneered peer-to-peer lending, which allows people to invest in each other in a way that is socially and financially rewarding. Prosper’s auction model provides an open and transparent way to get a personal loan or invest in loans on terms that are favorable to everyone involved in the transaction.
People and institutions list and bid on loans using Prosper’s online auction platform. Borrowers can list loan requests between $1,000 and $25,000 on Prosper and set the maximum rate they are willing to pay an investor for the loan, and tell their story. People and institutional investors register on Prosper as lenders, then set their minimum interest rates, and bid in increments of $25 to $25,000 on loan listings they select. In addition to criteria commonly used by institutional lenders, such as credit scores and histories, Prosper lenders can consider borrowers’ personal stories, endorsements from friends, and community affiliations.
Once the auction ends, Prosper takes the bids with the lowest rates and combines them to facilitate the funding of one simple loan to the borrower, and then issues what are called “Notes” to all the winning bidders. Prosper handles all on-going loan administration tasks including loan repayment and collections on behalf of the matched borrowers and investors. Prosper members are then able to trade Notes with other members on the Folio Investing Note Trader platform, provided by Foliofn Investments, Inc. Follow Prosper on twitter @prosperloans
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Fubon Financial, parent of Taiwan’s No.2 insurer, and China’s State Development & Investment Corp will set up a 3 billion Chinese yuan ($440 million) private equity fund, the Commercial Times reported on Wednesday, citing a Fubon executive.
The private equity fund, aiming to tap industries in Fujian province, will be the first such fund to operate across the Taiwan strait, the paper said.
Fubon (2881.TW) will take a 30 percent stake in the fund, State Development & Investment Corp will hold 40 percent and an investment firm controlled by Fujian province will hold the remainder, the paper said, citing Fubon president Victor Kung.
Trade ties between Taiwan and China have warmed since Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou took office last year. Both sides have agreed to sign a financial service pact soon, paving the way for banks to invest in each other’s economy.
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Ken Wills)
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea may have to offer steep discounts to sell key state assets such as bank stakes, to help cut a growing fiscal deficit, while pumping money into the economy to pull it safely out of a global downturn.
The alternative is more delays, but the desperation for funds may be enough to override government fears of criticism for selling state assets on the cheap.
“The government will be more flexible, shifting away from its previous stance that it won’t sell the stake below a certain price. That could mean a big discount,” said one fund manager at a domestic asset management firm, asking not to be named because he is not authorised to talk to the media.
He was referring specifically to Woori Finance Holdings (053000.KS), which could be among the first to be offered and which has been in government hands since it was bailed out during the Asian financial crisis a decade ago.
The government wants to sell an initial 7 percent in South Korea’s third-ranked bank, worth $800 million at current market prices.
It is also selecting an adviser for the sale of 49 percent in Incheon International Airport, the main gateway to South Korea, in a deal worth an estimated $2 billion.
The offerings come as South Korea seeks fresh revenue after record spending to stimulate the economy over the past year has sapped state coffers, and as it tries to create more jobs. The government expects the 2009 fiscal deficit to be 5.0 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
But scaled back lending by banks and concerns about a slowing global economic recovery may reduce appetite for state assets, and some bankers say that could well mean some delays.
Concern about selling strategic assets to foreign investors could also be a barrier in some cases.
“There seems to be resistance to sell part of such infrastructure assets to foreign capital, considering those companies are not in financial difficulty,” said Kim Sun-bin, a chief researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute.
“That will be the hottest issue going forward.”
In a similar move, India’s government plans to list some profitable state firms as Asia’s third-largest economy seeks to fuel growth without further widening a large fiscal deficit.
For foreign strategic buyers eyeing South Korea, the absence of management rights for the assets will make them less attractive. National security concerns could be another stumbling block.
“I doubt if the sale process will be able to proceed, considering market liquidity conditions,” said one M&A banker at a top local brokerage, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“Daewoo Engineering’s case indicates the current market situation, with companies not ready to initiate active investments,” he said.
The auction for a majority of Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co Ltd (047040.KS), in a deal estimated at $3 billion, has drawn just three foreign investors after the sole local bidder, private equity firm MBK Partners, dropped out.
Australia’s Macquarie (MQG.AX) is tipped as a possible foreign bidder for some government assets, given its track record in infrastructure deals. It declined to comment.
TIMING
President Lee Myung-bak, who won office almost two years ago, had made privatising state-run institutions a centrepiece of his pro-business policy agenda, though this was put on hold after his popularity sank in a row over U.S. beef imports.
Some analysts said the government may now be tempted to try selling stakes as South Korea looks set to be among the first economies to recover from the downturn and with the local stock market up 40 percent so far this year.
With more state assets in the pipeline, including KDB Financial Group, the parent of Korea Development Bank, and stakes in Industrial Bank of Korea (024110.KS), the government may have little option but to opt for current market prices rather than hold out for the possibility of more later.
“We plan to speed up the process now that market conditions have been improving,” said one finance ministry official overseeing the sale plans.
“Timing will depend on market conditions, but there is no change to the deadline,” he said, referring to a 2012 timeline by which the government hopes to sell stakes in 112 state assets and raise about 4.6 trillion won ($3.97 billion). [ID:nSEO27569] ($1=1154.1 Won)
By Kim Yeon-hee (Additional reporting by Yoo Choonsik; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher, Ian Geoghegan and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
LONDON (Reuters) – Publisher Reed Elsevier’s (REL.L) (ELSN.AS) said on Wednesday its Chief Executive Ian Smith had quit because he was the wrong man for the times.
Smith, an industry outsider who resigns after only eight months in the job, will be replaced by divisional chief Erik Engstrom.
A company spokesman said: “Ian and the board decided it wasn’t the right role for him in the current economic circumstances. Erik has proven sectoral experience. There is no disagreement on strategy.”
Reed said Smith’s resignation would take immediate effect and was by mutual agreement. Engstrom has been CEO of the company’s scientific-publishing division Elsevier for the last five years.
Reed also warned that 2010 operating margins would likely be modestly reduced, due to a weak revenue environment combined with increased investment, particularly in U.S. legal markets.
Shares in Reed Elsevier fell 3 percent in early trading, the leading decliners in a flat European media index .SXMP.
Chairman Anthony Habgood said in a statement: “Ian has had the difficult task of leading Reed Elsevier during unprecedentedly turbulent economic times. The boards and I would like to thank him for his contribution in this respect and wish him well for the future.”
Smith — who had previously held senior roles at Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), General Healthcare Group and housebuilder Taylor Toodrow (TW.L) — was not immediately reachable for comment.
Engstrom, 46, has been CEO of Elsevier since 2004. He previously worked at private equity firm General Atlantic Partners, book publisher Random House [BERT.UL] and Swedish paper-products firm SCA (SCAb.ST).
Under his leadership, Elsevier’s revenues and profits have grown every year, creating a business with turnover of 1.7 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) in 2008.
TURMOIL
Paul Richards, analyst at London brokerage Numis, said: “Reed is supposed to be a solid defensive stock, so to have this sort of management turmoil and the cautioning on 2010 trading — it’s pretty disappointing.”
UBS analyst Polo Tang wrote in a note: “The news will be negative for sentiment, although we believe investor opinion on Smith was divided.”
Smith had made a largely unpopular decision to issue new shares in July representing 9.9 percent of the company’s issued share capital to reduce its $8.4 billion net debt after failing to sell its trade-magazines unit RBI last year.
Reed Elsevier stock traded in London has underperformed the FTSE 100 index .FTSE by 20 percent this year.
Smith had made a strong case for accelerating investment, particularly in the U.S. legal market, where Reed has been losing market share to Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO)(TRI.N).
In the company’s last trading update in July, he said: “Despite the global recession, I believe that now is the right time to develop more aggressive market and product strategies to capture the market opportunities and increase competitive differentiation.”
Reed said on Wednesday first-half trends had continued as expected in the second half, with advertising and promotion markets and employee screening remaining difficult but likely to stabilise as comparatives get easier.
“The major professional markets, accounting for the majority of Reed Elsevier’s business, are proving more resilient than most but not immune from late cycle pressures given the subscription nature of much of the revenue,” it said.
By Georgina Prodhan and Kate Holton
(Editing by Joel Dimmock and Andrew Callus)
LONDON (Reuters) – The private equity backers of Danish telecoms group TDC (TDC.CO) are meeting banks this month as they look to line up advisers to sell part of their $7.4 billion stake, people familiar with the matter said.
Buyout firms Blackstone (BX.N), KKR, Permira, Apax and Providence Equity Partners are meeting banks in November but might not pick a syndicate to run a share sale until next year, one of the sources said.
The buyout firms bought 88 percent of TDC in 2006 in what was then Europe’s largest leveraged buyout (LBO), eclipsed only by KKR’s 11.1 billion pound ($18.6 billion) deal for Alliance Boots the following year. The remaining 12 percent is listed on the Danish stock exchange.
The private equity firms declined to comment. TDC had no immediate comment.
Based on TDC’s share price, the company is worth about $8.4 billion.
($1=.5973 Pound) (Reporting by Simon Meads and Quentin Webb; additional reporting by Peter Levring in Copenhagen)
TOKYO (Reuters) – Private equity firm TPG Capital could partner with American Airlines on a minority investment in Japan Airlines (9205.T) to prevent its defection to a rival airline group, the chief financial officer of American parent AMR Corp (AMR.N) said.
The emergence of TPG as a potential investor comes as the loss-making Japan Airlines seeks its fourth state bailout since 2001, saddled with $15 billion in debt, a massive pension deficit and dozens of unprofitable routes.
The Japanese government pledged on Tuesday to enlist a state bank to offer bridge loans to prevent the airline from running short of cash and said it may introduce legislation to cut a pension shortfall that hit $3.7 billion in March.
Even as it struggles to avoid bankruptcy, JAL is being wooed separately by American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which are keen to gain access to JAL’s network in Asia and a stronger foothold in Japan. JAL is Asia’s largest carrier by revenues.
AMR’s Thomas Horton said TPG, which helped fund Continental Airlines emergence from bankruptcy in 1993 and backed a failed takeover attempt for Australia’s Qantas Airways (QAN.AX) in 2007, has agreed to potentially invest in JAL as part of any deal with American Airlines.
“As appropriate and if it were welcomed by Japan Airlines and the government of Japan, TPG could also be part of a comprehensive recovery plan,” Horton told reporters in Tokyo.
“They have been active in the airline space over the years.”
A spokesman for TPG in Tokyo declined to comment.
American partners JAL in the Oneworld alliance, which pools frequent flyer miles and feeds passengers between members, and is keen to block it from joining Delta in the rival SkyTeam group.
American has argued that JAL and Delta would have difficulty clearing regulatory hurdles if they sought antitrust immunity for closer business ties because the alliance would give SkyTeam control of 60 percent of air traffic between Japan and the U.S.
American, which has hired Rothschild [ROT.UL] as an adviser on the deal, also estimates that defecting to SkyTeam could drain JAL of about $500 million in revenues during a transition period of 18-24 months.
A Delta spokeswoman in Tokyo declined to comment.
SIDE SHOW
In addition to a capital investment, American has been talking with JAL on forming a joint venture to cooperate more closely on scheduling, pricing and marketing. American estimates this could bring another $100 million in annual revenue to JAL.
Such close cooperation requires an “open skies” agreement between Japan and the United States. The two governments are in negotiations and are aiming for a deal this year.
The posturing by American and Delta remains a side show in the context of the much larger hurdles facing JAL. Any investment from the U.S. carriers would likely be a fraction of the 300 billion yen in capital a government-appointed task force estimated it needs to stage a sustained recovery.
JAL applied last month for a bailout from the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan, a state-backed body that is expected to take until January to study its assets and decide whether it is worthy of an injection of public funds.
Japan’s recently elected government is under pressure to save JAL while contending with growing investor concern it faces a funding crunch to finance public debt expected to swell to 200 percent of GDP this year.
The government said on Tuesday the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) would extend loans to keep it in operations until the ETIC can decide on support, part of a rescue package to ease market jitters ahead of JAL’s first half earnings report on Nov. 13.
The Nikkei business daily reported JAL was likely to post an operating loss of more than 90 billion yen, hurt by a decline in passengers and per-customer sales.
The government will also consider legislation to forcibly cut pension payouts, aiming to get around current laws that allow retirees to easily block such a move.
Shares of JAL, which have lost almost half their value this year, rose 4.8 percent after the government announced its support for the pension and bridge loan issues. The benchmark Nikkei Average .N225 ended flat.
The government did not announce the size of the bridge loan but two sources told Reuters on Wednesday the state-owned DBJ would offer a 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) line of credit, while private banks would put up 25 billion yen.
Loans from units of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (8306.T), Mizuho Financial Group (8411.T) and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (8316.T) will be used to buy aircraft and will be guaranteed by another state-owned bank, the sources said.
The sources also said JAL would announce its application for a debt restructuring scheme on Nov. 13 under which a third party would mediate between JAL and its creditors.
The scheme, called “Alternative Dispute Resolution”, would trigger a suspension of loan payments. This would reduce the amount of funds JAL needs to secure in the near term.
JAL CEO Haruka Nishimatsu is likely to resign to take responsibility for the airline’s woes, one source said.
A JAL spokesman said nothing has been decided on the size of the loans or whether it would apply for the ADR scheme. ($1=89.63 Yen)
By Nathan Layne and Nobuhiro Kubo
(Additional reporting by Taro Fuse in Tokyo and Mansi Dutta in Bangalore; Editing by Chris Gallagher and Lincoln Feast)
The Prime Minister marked the passing of the First World War generation during a special service at Westminster Abbey this morning.
Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah joined the Queen, heads of the Armed Forces and members of the public at the service on Remembrance Day.
The ceremony was held following the deaths earlier this year of the last three veterans of the First World War living in the UK.
During the ceremony the PM joined people around the country in observing the traditional two-minute silence.
In a statement, the PM said has was humbled to be present at Westminster Abbey as the bravery and sacrifice of the First World War generation was remembered.
“With their sad passing, we have now lost our living link with the Great War. But we must never forget what they did for each and every one of us. The courage and selflessness of those brave men who fought in that war will never be forgotten. “It is our duty to teach our children and grandchildren of their heroism. “And today of course our thoughts are also with all the men and women of our Armed Forces, serving with such distinction at home and overseas.”
“With their sad passing, we have now lost our living link with the Great War. But we must never forget what they did for each and every one of us. The courage and selflessness of those brave men who fought in that war will never be forgotten.
“It is our duty to teach our children and grandchildren of their heroism.
“And today of course our thoughts are also with all the men and women of our Armed Forces, serving with such distinction at home and overseas.”
Previous story: Remembrance Sunday
Reader Cameron Boykin alerts us to the news that a game modder appears to have filed a DMCA claim against Infinity Ward for its video of a certain part of Modern Warfare 2, claiming that the element in the game was influenced by a mod he had created. While this may seem amusing to the folks who are pissed off at Infinity Ward for various consumer-unfriendly positions, it still appears to be an abuse of the DMCA. It doesn’t sound like Infinity Ward flat out took this guy’s code or anything — and having similar gameplay elements is unlikely to be copyright infringement at all. While it may have just been a joke or a “protest” sort of move, filing a bogus DMCA takedown is bad news no matter how you look at it, and can get the filer into a lot of legal hot water pretty quickly.
The installer installs the latest DirectX components and Adobe AIR. After installation, the game automatically searches for updates. Cool.
