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  • 2011 BMW 335is Photos Leaked

    With the covers off the facelifted BMW 3 Series coupe and convertible for a couple of days now, nothing new seemed to be on the table from the German carmaker in the very near future. Still, BMWblog found on BMW’s US website, the first photos of the 335is, perhaps the most anticipated version of the new line.

    As we told you last week, prior to the new 3 Series models being revealed, the 335is will pack a bit more punch than its siblings, meaning 335 horsepower at 5,900 rpm and 332 lb.-ft, wit… (read more)

  • Trexa platform lets you develop your own damn electric vehicle! — Autoblog Green

    Trexa electric vehicle development platform – Click above for high-res image gallery

    Are you one of those people who believes that, when it comes to developing an electric vehicle, you could out-think Th!nk, have keener karma than Fisker or more focus than Ford’s EV effort? Perhaps you’re just tired of waiting for a product that keeps getting re-designed and re-delayed. Well, now you can build your own damn vision of automotive perfection starting with the new lithium-powered all-wheel-drive platform from Trexa. Heck, given the scalable nature of this substructure, you can develop a whole range of vehicles! The team that brought us the EDrive plug-in Prius has taken that whole skateboard thing, combined it with the iPhone app concept and voila!, a blank mobile canvas awaiting your imagination.

  • Lotus to Launch 2010 Car in London, Test at Silverstone

    Lotus F1 Team announced last week that they will unveil their 2010 challenger on February 12. And that’s a fact. However, during the same press release, the team also stated that the place where the launch will happen will be unveiled somewhere in the upcoming few weeks.

    It now seems that the reporters from Finland’s Turun Sanomat found out where the launch will take place. Although they haven’t got the exact location of the launching event, it is believed it will happen in or near London. A… (read more)

  • Conoce el Centro Historico de San Salvador atraves de los ojos de Dao!

    Fue una experiencia que me gusto mas de lo que esperaba
    mis expectativas eran realmente muy bajas, quizas por eso quede
    con una impresion un poco mas positiva de este espacio urbano
    Es cierto que el centro esta lleno de peligros y zonas muy poco potables
    aparte que las vendedoras informales arruinan el aspecto fisico del centro capitalino, pero quede sorprendido de la energia y vitalidad que se respira en el centro de la ciudad, el centro puede ser un lugar mucho mejor!
    hay mucho para ver y posee muchos tesoros escondidos e interesantes
    me quito el sombrero ante todos esos arquitectos que han diseñado infinidad de edificios que han soportado media docena de terremotos desde principios del siglo pasado y siguen
    El centro de San Salvador tiene esperanzas de resurgir y reclamar su lugar
    especial que es el corazon de la republica!

    CENTRO HISTORICO DE SAN SALVADOR

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  • YouTube Opening Online Movie Rental Service Tomorrow For Fans Of Little Choice [YouTube]

    2010 looks like the year YouTube will leap back into headlines for non-Susan Boyle-related reasons. Thank god for that. After yesterday’s live cricket streaming deal was mentioned, their move into online movie rentals should make indie movie lovers happy.

    Taking on Netflix, Apple TV, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, YouTube’s new rental service will launch on the 22nd of January—as in, 22nd of January TOMORROW.

    If you suddenly have grandiose plans of streaming the entire back catalog of John Hughes films, think again. There’ll be just five movies available at launch, titles which launched at the last two Sundance Film Festivals—The Cove, Bass Ackwards, One Too Many Mornings, Homewrecker and Children of Invention. Anyone? No, me neither.

    Prices will be $3.99 for four of those films (the fifth price is unknown), and only those living in the US will be able to live-stream them. Over a 48-hour time slot.

    This is all well and good, but if that dirty little rumor concerning iTunes.com being turned into a streaming service actually comes good, consider YouTube’s indie frolicking as being as good as dead. [BBC News]






  • Air France to charge fat people to pay double for seats

    Air France to charge fat people to pay double for seats

    Quote:

    January 20, 2010 09:17am

    OBESE people who are unable to squeeze into a single plane seat will have to pay nearly double to fly with Air France in future.
    Extra-large flyers will have to pay 75 per cent of the cost of a second seat (the full price excluding tax and surcharges) on top of the full price for the first, spokeswoman Monique Matze said, saying the decision was made for "safety" reasons.

    "We have to make sure that the backrest can move freely up and down and that all passengers are securely fastened with a safety belt,
    " Ms Matze said.

    People who cannot fit into a single seat are fastened by slotting the belt tip of one seat into the plug of the next – stretching over both seats.

    By paying for both, the overweight passenger will be assured that two seats will be available next to each other.

    They will, however, get their money back on flights that are not fully booked, Ms Matze said.

    The new measure will apply for people who book their tickets from February 1 for all flights from April 1 this year.

    The average plane seat is 43cm wide and 44cm for long-haul flights.


    :lol:^^

  • Continuous-autofocus camcorder phone Vivaz launched by Sony Ericsson

    Sony Ericsson has just launched a new flagship media smartphone, the Vivaz, running S60 5th Edition and a tweaked version of the software in the Satio. It’s a smaller device (think Nokia 5800), with 3.2″ screen and ‘human curvature’ design(!) and available in silver, black, blue and ‘ruby’. The star feature though is the camcorder functionality, with full 720p video capture and continuous auto-focus, a first in production phones. Stills are at 8 megapixels with single LED flash. Availability is this quarter.

    Kind of a silly commercial, but the video/camera specs are impressive. I think Sony Ericsson has great cameras in their phones. I was really interested in the Satio, and this phone seems to be based on it, but with Android, webOS, and iPhone 4.0 at the forefront of my interests, S60 has unfortunately taken a backseat to them.

  • Audi A3 Production Suspended

    German manufacturer Audi will halt production of its A3 in February, following poor sales results in Germany. The Ingolstadt, Germany facility will halt production for one week, autoobserver.com reported, with more than a half of the plant’s employees to be off work.

    The reason behind Audi A3’s disappointing results is surely the German scrapping scheme which ended in December, thus reducing demand for the small car. Furthermore, Audi hasn’t refreshed the A3 for some time now, as the model wa… (read more)

  • Nokia Launches Free Turn-By-Turn Navigation Around The World

    Screen shot 2010-01-21 at [ January 21 ] 1.38.16 AM

    For the past few days, Nokia has been trying to get everyone excited about.. something. They piqued our interests by sending out press event invites (for separate events in the UK and the US, no less), then revved the hype machine with a good ol’ fashion countdown timer.

    The US announcement is still a few hours away, but they just pulled back the curtain over in the UK — and while we can’t say for certain, I’m pretty sure the talk of the event will be the same on this side of the pond. The big secret? Free turn-by-turn navigation is now available for roughly 20 million Nokia handsets around the world.

    To dive a bit deeper into that “20 million.. handsets” number, we’re talking about users speaking 46 different languages across 74 different countries. If Google didn’t kill the standalone GPS market when they announced free navigation for the Android platform, Nokia may very well have just pushed the knife that last inch.

    Some of the features of the new, free Ovi Maps with Navigation:

    • Maps are stored locally, and no continuous data connection is needed
    • Traffic Information in 10 countries
    • Lane assistance, speed trap warnings
    • Pedestrian mode, including shortcuts only possible on foot
    • Free Lonely Planet/Michelin travel guides

    So why did Nokia suddenly decide to make turn-by-turn navigation free to anyone rocking a compatible handset? Besides making the somewhat antiquated S60 platform that much more competitive, it’s all a part of Nokia’s plan to snatch up a chunk of the location-based service market before things get too crowded. We had been hearing rumblings from our sources that Nokia would be putting a focus on this space, and I get the feeling this isn’t their only move – we’ll check in with our sources and see what else we can dig up.

    In the mean while, anyone toting a Nokia X6, N97 mini (Note: Not the standard N97 just yet), E72, E55, E52, 6730 classic, 6710 Navigator, 5800 Xpressmusic, 5800 Navigation Edition, or 5230 can grab the new Ovi Maps with Navigation app here.

    Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.


  • The Athiest And The Bear

    The Athiest And The Bear

    An atheist was walking through the woods, thinking to himself how beautiful the animals are, how majestic the trees are, how powerful the rivers are. As he walked along the river, a big 8-foot grizzly bear came out behind him.

    He ran, as fast as he could but the bear was getting closer. Then he tripped and fell and the bear was on top of him with his paw raised to strike him.

    The atheist cried "God Help Me"… Time stopped, the bear froze, the forest fell silent. A bright light shone upon the man and a voice from the sky said "You’ve denied my existence for all these year and have taught others that I don’t exist. Why would you expect me to help you now?" Are you now a believer?" The atheist looked into the light and said, "Well, I would be hypocrite to suddenly ask You to treat me as a Christian now, but could you, maybe, make the BEAR a Christian?"

    "Very Well," said the voice. The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. The bear lowered his right paw and brought both paws together. He bowed his head, and said: "Lord, bless this food which I am about to receive from Your bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

  • Lord Monckton is on the fringe: Barnaby Joyce

    The Age reports that even Barnaby Joyce thinks that Lord Monckton (about to commence his climate charlatan circus’ circumnavigation of the country) is out of order – Lord Monckton is on the fringe: Barnaby Joyce.

    Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the eccentric UK climate sceptic, is proving too hot for some of Australia’s most prominent climate sceptics — including Barnaby Joyce.

    Joyce, who famously said that climate change sceptics were being treated like holocaust deniers and likened environmental campaigners to eco-Nazis, believes Monckton is on the fringe of the debate and unhelpful to those who question human induced climate change.

    Monckton, an adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is about to embark on an Australian tour with our very own climate sceptic celebrity Ian Plimer.

    The tour is reaching most of Australia, except the Northern Territory and Tasmania, and it will cost $100,000. That enormous sum is being underwritten by two semi-retired engineers in Noosa, John Smeed and Case Smit — and includes the $20,000 stipend Lord Monckton has requested to do the 13-day tour.

    Monckton has had his fair share of strange moments. One of his more obscure was proposing to quarantine all aids victims in the 80s (he has since said the idea is unworkable because the epidemic has grown so much it would unfeasible).

    But it is his scepticism of the science underpinning global warming that has returned him to the public’s attention. Monckton not only promotes the usual gamut of solar radiation and hockey stick criticisms of the science, but also claims any global efforts to curb emissions is a plot to establishing a world government and give power to the World Bank.

    Monckton also says that after the Berlin Wall fell, the communists needed another way to centralise power and have created climate change as their Trojan horse.

    Joyce told Greenlines this week that while he would listen to Lord Monckton when he is in town, people should not read much into it.

    ‘‘Obviously I and my constituency have some doubts (about the science) but when you find yourself waltzing with the fringe you should take a step back,’’ Joyce said.

    ‘‘Lot’s of people from the fringe often take up causes and it can do more harm than good.’’

    A spokesman for Opposition leader Tony Abbott said he would not meet with the Lord when he speaks at the National Press Club on February 3 in Canberra (it is a private function not as a formal speech on the Gallery’s speaking roster).

    On Wednesday conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian wrote that Monckton was an extremist in his language and is hurting the cause of those who want to ask hard questions of the science.

    That is despite Albrechtsen’s column of October 28, which is devoted to Lord Monckton’s global world government theory and demanding why the Rudd Government doesn’t reveal what they are signing up to in Copenhagen.

    ‘‘Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this new world government only when a friend of his found an obscure UN website and hacked his way through several layers of complications before coming across a document that isn’t even called the draft treaty,’’ Albrechtsen wrote in the October opinion piece that you can find here.

    Well, American essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson did say foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

    Only Opposition Energy and Resource spokesman Nick Minchin was more positive about the Lord, telling Greenlines he listens to both side of the debate and would be very happy to meet him.

    Lord Monckton begins his lecture tour in Sydney on January 26 with a luncheon at the Union Club.


  • BLOOMBERG: Kraft Bondholders Say Buffett Wrong on Cadbury: Credit Markets

    By Bryan Keogh and John Detrixhe

    Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Kraft Foods Inc. bonds are rallying as debt investors reject Warren Buffett’s assertion that the company’s 11.9 billion-pound ($19.3 billion) takeover of Cadbury Plc is a mistake.

    Kraft’s 6.875 percent notes due in 2039 climbed to a three- month high of 108.7 cents on the dollar yesterday, according to Trace data. The Northfield, Illinois-based food and beverage company’s bonds have returned 2.02 percent including reinvested interest this month, compared with 1.72 percent for an index of similar debt and 1.71 percent for the global corporate bond market, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.

    While Buffett said Kraft is overpaying for Cadbury by using undervalued stock to fund part of the deal, bond investors are betting the acquisition won’t jeopardize its investment-grade credit rating. Shares of Kraft have risen 2 percent since early September, just before the offer was announced.

    “It’s not as bad on the bondholders as it is on the equity guys,” said Mirko Mikelic, a money manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he helps oversee $14 billion of fixed-income assets. “People in the bond market don’t think they’re going to want to jeopardize their BBB rating.”

    Elsewhere in credit markets, the extra yield investors demand to own corporate bonds globally instead of Treasuries is holding at about the lowest since December 2007 at 1.61 percentage points. Yields fell to 4.09 percent on average yesterday from 4.12 percent on Jan. 19. Credit-default swaps show investors are growing more concerned about the risk of companies failing to pay their debt.

    Kraft Bonds Rise

    Some Kraft bonds rose yesterday even after Fitch Ratings cut its default ranking to BBB- from BBB, citing the “the anticipated increase in financial leverage of the combined companies.” Kraft, the maker of Oreo cookies and Tang powdered drinks, said the deal will result in at least $675 million in annual savings and give it leading positions in India, Brazil and Mexico.

    Kraft’s 6.875 percent bonds initially dropped after the Cadbury bid was first announced in September, falling to 107.2 cents on the dollar from a high of 114.9 cents, Trace data show. The spread, which widened to 204 basis points, narrowed to 167 basis points yesterday, the lowest since the deal was proposed.

    “It’s obviously a good company to a bond investor in the sense that it’s a steady business,” said Jason Brady, a managing director at Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Thornburg Investment Management, which oversees about $55 billion, including Kraft bonds. “When you start levering up to do transformative things, I think bond investors start to get kind of nervous.”

    Biggest Candy Maker

    The takeover creates a company with about $50 billion in annual sales, displacing Mars Inc. as the world’s biggest candy maker, according to Euromonitor data. Kraft fell 63 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $28.78 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

    “I think this deal was a mistake,” Buffett said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Kraft was very undervalued before. I feel it’s less undervalued after doing this deal.”

    Kraft will likely keep its investment-grade ratings, Moody’s Investors Service said. Bonds rated below Baa3 by Moody’s and BBB- by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch are considered below investment grade. The company will “no doubt” sell bonds in the U.S. and Europe to help finance the purchase, Gary Jenkins, head of credit strategy at Evolution Securities Ltd. in London, said yesterday in a note to clients.

    Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment-Grade Index Series 13, which is linked to 125 companies and used to speculate on creditworthiness or to hedge against losses, increased 0.5 basis point to 85 basis points yesterday, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group. A rise in the index signals a decline in investor confidence.

    Vanguard Issue

    Vanguard Health Systems Inc. plans to sell $1 billion of eight-year notes as soon as today to yield 8 percent to 8.25 percent, according to a person familiar with the offering, who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set.

    Swiss Re’s forecast for increasing sales of bonds that pay when catastrophes occur matches that of larger German rival Munich Re, which earlier this month said issuance will climb to $5 billion in 2010 from about $3.5 billion last year. About $5 billion of notes expire this year, Swiss Re said.

    Swiss Re, the lead manager on more than half the 2009 issues, said the market may almost triple over the next five years as demand for coverage increases and the securities replace some traditional reinsurance.

    “The pipeline for new cat bonds is very active and the momentum of 2009 will surely continue,” Martin Bisping, head of non-life risk transformation at the Zurich-based reinsurer, said in an interview. “We expect the market to broaden.”

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  • With New Ovi Maps, Nokia Seeks Location Heaven

    Nokia's Ovi Maps

    In an attempt to ward off competition from the likes of Google, Nokia, the largest maker of mobile phones, has released the latest version of its Ovi Maps software and made the app available for free. Nokia, despite an early start in the mobile phone-focused maps and navigation space, has lost attention to Google and Apple’s mapping and navigation efforts.

    With the new Ovi Maps app, the company is hitting back, especially at Google. More importantly, it’s Nokia’s big chance to become the GPS device maker of choice in countries where standalone navigation devices are still hard to find.

    “Maps and navigation are as core and natural in a phone as digital cameras,” Tero Ojanperä, Nokia’s EVP of services, said to me about Nokia’s new release. “We think that the mobile phone-based navigation market is about to take off in a big way. GPS is now commonplace and average consumers are perfectly comfortable with navigation systems, but more importantly complete solutions are finally coming to market.”

    I would agree — and I think it’s further bad news for the standalone GPS companies such as Tom Tom and Garmin. As I said earlier, 2010 is shaping up to be the year of location.

    In an interview last year, Ojanperä said, “We want maps to be part of everyday life, and as a result, we are working on building a richer experience on top of the map…I think it is going to become obvious that companies with mapping assets are at an advantage.” Nokia bought gate5 and Navteq as part of its efforts to get a toehold in mapping and location-based services.

    If gate5 gave the company the ability to build maps into mobile phones, Navteq is giving it a lot of contextual information and up-to-the minute maps. Ojanperä said that while it’s easy to build a mapping navigation, there needs to be enough intelligence built into the mapping and navigation systems to provide context to location. Navteq provides exactly that.

    For instance, he pointed out that the new Ovi Maps have the ability to add location context to your Facebook status messages. This feature is called Share Location via Ovi Maps. How it works is that if I’m eating at Delfina Pizzeria on 18th Street in San Francisco and say so on Facebook, my friends would know exactly where I am, instead of seeing a bunch of numbers. The reason Nokia is able to do this is primarily because it’s constantly collecting local data via its Navteq division.

    “Coordinates don’t mean anything, but social location makes everything interesting,” Ojanperä said. With the new software, Ojanperä believes that Nokia is pushing mapping and location into a new phase, one in which advertising will also become part of the whole experience.

    During our conversation, Ojanperä made no bones of hiding about his scorn for Google. For starters he pointed out that Nokia has over 84 million GPS-enabled devices in the market.  Google Maps Navigation, he said, is only available for a handful of device in one country in one language.

    In comparison, he said that the new Ovi Maps includes essential car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries in 46 languages, traffic information for more than 10 countries and detailed maps for more than 180 countries.

    As of March, the new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones will include the new version of Ovi Maps along with Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides at no extra cost. More importantly, Ojanperä said that Nokia’s software was superior to Google because the company used hybrid vector maps, which are high-quality vectors that are stored into the device.

    In comparison, Google Maps Navigation has to download maps constantly over a network connection.  It doesn’t matter if your don’t have a 3G connection or have lost data connectivity, the basic functionality of Ovi Maps will work, Nokia claims. This low data consumption model is something carriers are going to love, Ojanperä said. Why? Because it will save them money on network costs, as explained by this image.

    Another reason why carriers are going to love Ovi Maps: It will help them sell data upgrades to voice-centric customers, even in emerging markets such as India and China where standalone GPS devices have yet to become commonplace, unlike in the U.S. and Europe. To me, this is Nokia’s big opportunity.

  • Hertz International Appoints Michel Taride as President

    The world’s largest general use car rental company, Hertz, has appointed Executive Vice President Michel Taride to President of Hertz International. He will be based at Hertz International Headquarters in Uxbridge (London), UK.

    Taride is the former President of Hertz Europe. His responsibilities have now been expanded to lead the company’s Asia and Pacific car rental and leasing business in addition to the ones in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Taride will also have to develop new joint … (read more)

  • Luano City/ Lubumbashi/ Mixed used development.

    USD$4 billion Development. Investors; South africans.

    "Luano City’ project


    Luanao City
    is located in the DRC’s fastest growing city, Lubumbashi, with current population in excess of 1.8 million people with a growing middle and upper middle class. Situated on the richest copper belt in the world, its fast rising income levels are as a result of the booming mining sector. Focus is on the building of new mines as well as the re-opening and expansion of existing mining facilities with numerous international mining houses operating in the vicinity (over US $10bn of inward investment). A Chinese investment of US $6bn for road infrastructure is approved and underway an there is a desperate need for the supply of housing, office, shopping and other community related facilities.

    There is an availability of cost-effective bulk services and it has the highest level of provincial and local government support

    Project overview and the opportunity

    The project proposes a brand new city centre on the most prime land to the north-northeast of Lubumbashi, adjacent to the Lubumbashi Luano International Airport. There is an opportunity for a new city with pent up demand for all types of property. This Capital City of the province has the richest mineral deposits in Africa. The present landholding consists of 300 hectares, with an additional 80 hectares under negotiation.

    The developmental rights have been secured for the planned development of:

    Residential: Over 3,000 medium/high density residential opportunities,

    Retail: 200,000 sqm of retail space

    Golf Course: 18 hole golf course with 60 room hotel and clubhouse

    Hotel:3 Business and Luxury Hotels

    Commercial: 300,000 sqm of commercial office and light industrial space

    Amenities: Education, medical, religious and
    Consular precinct .
    Parks and Leisure Areas
    Sport Stadiums

    Shipping Center with major SA Tenants, Including Restaurants , Conference Facilities and Investor Opportunities.


    Casino and Conference Center.

    It is anticipated that it will take 7 years to sell the land and 15 years for the completion of top structures.

    The Project views.

  • No, David Bowie Is Not Responsible For The Financial Crisis

    We’ve talked in the past about some of the many rather innovative efforts by David Bowie to come up with new business models. He’s been a huge pioneer in embracing what new technologies allow — and also new markets and financial opportunities. Of course, most famously, many years ago he “securitized” himself with Bowie Bonds, that allowed him to cash out quickly, while letting others buy into his future earnings. It was actually quite a creatively done idea. But now, ChurchHatesTucker points us to an article by Evan Davis suggesting that David Bowie and his Bowie bonds are at the heart of the financial crisis. This is — let’s just say it — flat out ridiculous. Financial engineering and all sorts of derivatives were already coming into fashion, and in the unlikely event that Bowie’s setup inspired others to securitize mortgages, you can pretty much guarantee that someone else would have come up with the same idea before too long, anyway. Taking a future cash flow and turning it into a security isn’t an inherently bad idea, either. It has many good and useful attributes. The problem wasn’t securitizing the debt, but using that process (and further engineering) to hide the underlying assets and the true risk associated with the offering. That was not David Bowie’s fault by a long shot. It’s really too bad that an “economics editor” would confuse the basic concept of securitizing future cash flows with abusing that process to hide actual risk. And dragging David Bowie and his innovations down along with such a confusion doesn’t help anyone.

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  • Coasting into Corvallis

    The Cardinal women’s basketball team starts its second conference road trip of the season tonight against Oregon State at the Gil Coliseum in Corvallis.

    Michael Liu/The Stanford Daily

    Michael Liu/The Stanford Daily

    Stanford (15-1, 5-0 Pacific-10) comes into this match riding the heat of a six game winning streak, whereas the Beavers (9-6, 1-4 Pac-10) have dropped their last four, sinking to ninth in the conference after a very promising beginning to the season.

    On its best start since the 2002-03 season, the No. 2 Cardinal has only lost one game — to No. 1 Connecticut, last year’s NCAA champions and the team that has kept Stanford off the top spot. Statistically, at least, it enters tonight’s contest as the favorite, but perhaps that is not always the best place to be.

    Every team that faces the Card hopes that they will be the one to take the prized scalp of one of the best programs in the country and perhaps this pressure is starting to show. Since the second half of the Connecticut game, in which the Huskies overturned Stanford’s narrow lead with a crushing 30-6 run, the team seems to have struggled to play its best.

    Injuries to key personnel are taking their toll on the Card, as guards junior Jeanette Pohlen and redshirt juniors J.J. Hones and Melanie Murphy have all been sidelined in some recent games.

    “We count on Jeanette to push the ball for us, we count on Mel [Murphy] to come in for us and JJ, they are our three most experienced and up until now most productive guards,” said Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer.

    While there is a chance that Pohlen and Hones might be fit enough for tonight’s game, their absence could provide opportunities for other players to step up and play themselves into contention.

    “We’ve got to have other people ready,” VanDerveer said. “Our plan is to be ready with [sophomore guard] Lindy [La Rocque] and [redshirt junior forward] Michelle [Harrison]. [Junior forward] Ashley [Cimino]’s been playing well, we’re just trying to move people around a little bit more.

    “It is a challenge for our team. I’m hoping that, obviously we want to get Jeanette, Mel and J.J. back in some capacity and I really think and hope that this is something that will help us in the long run, but is painful in the short run.”

    If all goes to according plan and the Cardinal get another shot at Connecticut in March, then the current difficulties could turn out to be crucial in developing a good rotation of players that will be robust enough to handle the odd injury or off game. But before any of that can happen there are a lot of minutes to be played on court, a lot of points to be scored, rebounds to be caught and games to be won.

    The good news for Stanford in tonight’s game is that four members of the usual starting lineup should be ready. Sophomore forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike leads the Pac-10 in both points per game and field goal percentage, with 19.3 percent and 64.1 percent respectively and is second on rebounds with 10.0 per game. Closely behind her in the stats comes junior forward Kayla Pedersen, third in points per game and fifth in rebounds per game and senior center Jayne Appel, fourth in both points per game and rebounds per game.

    In comparison, the highest Oregon State players in the rankings are junior forward El Sara Greer, first in offensive rebounds and junior guard Talisa Rhea, fourth in points per game. Greer’s ability to pick up rebounds could prove crucial tonight, given the fact that the Cardinal has conceded so many in its last two games.

    Having started every game this year, redshirt senior Rosalyn Gold-Onwude is also turning into a crucial piece of the Stanford jigsaw. Gold-Onwude has scored in double figures in the last three contests, perhaps justifying remaining in her place on the starting lineup even if and when the other guards return.

    “Ros is doing what we always wanted and hoped that Ros would do,” VanDerveer said. “Today in practice she was running our offense, our zone offense, talking and she is playing great. Maybe this is something really good to come out of our guard problem — she is playing great.”

    “One thing that she has to do is eliminate turnovers,” VanDerveer added. “If she can eliminate those turnovers, then we’re talking about being a championship-type guard.”

    Stanford looks to extend its 19-game winning streak against Oregon State tonight at 7 p.m.

  • BUSINESSWEEK: Buffett Rewards Flowers, Berkowitz Pricing Symetra at Premium

    January 21, 2010, 01:23 AM EST

    By Michael Tsang, Jamie McGee and Nikolaj Gammeltoft

    Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Warren Buffett is helping two of the world’s most successful investors increase their profits by forgoing instant earnings for himself in the first initial public offering of a U.S. life insurer since 2004.

    Symetra Financial Corp., 53 percent owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd., is raising $378 million today, selling shares at $12 to $14 each. The IPO values the Bellevue, Washington-based company at about 85 cents for each dollar of net assets, a 21 percent premium to the median book value for 24 U.S. life and health insurers.

    The premium will boost proceeds for J. Christopher Flowers and Bruce Berkowitz by $9 million to $51 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bloomberg data. IPOs by private-equity investors helped turn the end of 2009 into the busiest period for new sales in almost two years and six deals were pulled in November and December.

    “The fact that Buffett is holding on will help the funds get cash because it will make the deal more likely to get done,” enriching Flowers and Berkowitz, according to Nick Einhorn, an analyst at Greenwich, Connecticut-based Renaissance Capital LLC, which has followed IPOs since 1991.

    The offering, along with sales by Terreno Realty Corp., Cellu Tissue Holdings Inc. and Chesapeake Lodging Trust, are the first U.S. deals of 2010 and make today the busiest day for IPOs since Sept. 23. American companies may raise as much as $50 billion through initial offers this year, more than triple the amount in 2009, when deals recovered during the biggest stock- market rally since the Great Depression, estimates from London- based Barclays Plc and Bloomberg show.

    Symetra Stake

    Symetra, which sells group medical insurance that covers employees’ prescriptions and doctor visits, plans to offer a stake of about 25 percent. The company will receive 64 percent of the proceeds before expenses, with selling shareholders getting the rest.

    J.C. Flowers & Co., the New York-based private-equity firm founded by Flowers, 52, will raise $28 million selling all of its 2.175 million shares, based on the midpoint price of $13, a Jan. 15 filing with the SEC showed.

    Flowers was part of a group that bought Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan Ltd. for about $1.1 billion in March 2000 in the first acquisition of a Japanese bank by overseas investors, after the company was nationalized in 1998. The $2.2 billion IPO of the lender, which was renamed Shinsei Bank Ltd. in 2004, and a $2.7 billion share sale a year later contributed to profits of as much as $7 billion for investors.

    Berkowitz Profits

    Berkowitz, 51, will receive $23 million as his Miami-based Fairholme Capital Management LLC, which runs the $11.2 billion Fairholme Fund, sells 1.74 million shares.

    Fairholme Fund returned an average of 13 percent over the past 10 years, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell by an annual 1 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. He was named manager of the past decade in the U.S. stock fund category by Chicago-based Morningstar Inc.

    Flowers didn’t respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment. Berkowitz, who is also a director at Hanover, New Hampshire-based White Mountains, declined to comment, according to Hedda Nadler-Hurvich, a spokeswoman for Fairholme.

    The S&P 500’s 68 percent rebound from a 12-year low in March has prompted leveraged-buyout firms to use IPOs to return cash to investors after fundraising shrank to a six-year low. Money raised by private-equity funds worldwide tumbled 78 percent from a year earlier to $35 billion last quarter, according to London-based researcher Preqin Ltd.

    Higher Valuations

    Symetra’s IPO will pay Flowers and Berkowitz more than the median valuation for U.S. life and health insurers. At $13 a share, Symetra would have a market capitalization of $1.43 billion, based on its 110 million outstanding shares after the offering.

    That’s 0.85 times Symetra’s shareholder equity of $1.69 billion at Sept. 30, based on data compiled by Marina del Rey, California-based IPODesktop.com and Bloomberg. The median for U.S. life and health insurers is 0.70 times book value, or assets minus liabilities, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

    Symetra also estimated it would have so-called tangible book value, a measure of shareholder equity that excludes assets that can’t be sold in liquidation, of $12.42 per share after the offering. At the midpoint price, the company would be valued at 1.05 times tangible book value, compared to the median of 0.98 times, Bloomberg data show.

    Shelved Plans

    Symetra, formed after a group led by Berkshire and White Mountains paid $1.41 billion for Safeco Corp.’s life insurance unit in 2004, shelved a $790 million IPO in November 2007 as credit markets froze. Back then, Buffett, Flowers and Berkowitz all anticipated selling 37 percent of their holdings. Flowers and Berkowitz planned to retain stakes of 1.5 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.

    Now, Flowers and Berkowitz are benefiting because Buffett will remain Symetra’s largest shareholder, said Jean-Luc Nouzille, founder of Bristlecone Value Partners LLC.

    Buffett, 79, built Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire over four decades from a failing maker of men’s suit linings into a $162 billion company through stock picks and takeovers. He didn’t return a message left with his assistant, Carrie Kizer.

    “As an investor I wouldn’t go into an IPO with Buffett selling on the other side, especially not in the insurance industry where he is very knowledgeable,” said Los Angeles- based Nouzille, who owns Berkshire shares. “It would be self- defeating for the IPO and its valuation if he had sold.”

    Prudential Financial

    Symetra is relatively cheap compared with some larger competitors. The company trades at a discount of 17 percent to Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential Financial Inc., the second- biggest U.S. life insurer, which is valued at $1.02 per dollar of its net assets.

    Cellu Tissue, the Alpharetta, Georgia-based maker of paper products, plans to raise $132.6 million. Terreno Realty, the San Francisco-based company that acquires industrial real estate in coastal markets, will sell $300 million of shares. Chesapeake Lodging plans to raise $150 million after postponing its IPO last month. The Fairfield, New Jersey-based company formed to buy hotel properties has cut the size of its sale to 7.5 million shares from 12.5 million.

    IPOs have increased in the past four months from the slowest pace on record after the failure of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. froze credit markets.

    The revival in deals hasn’t coincided with bigger returns for investors. Almost 40 percent of U.S. IPOs in the second half of 2009 fell, while companies from Old Greenwich, Connecticut- based Ellington Financial LLC to National Beef Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri, pulled their sales, Bloomberg data show.

    –With assistance from Damiano Sasso in New York. Editors: Daniel Hauck, Chris Nagi.

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