Monthly Archive for November, 2010

Gearing Up for the Coming Tech Boom

Published on November 30, 2010 in Real-Time Web and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .


Amongst others, VC firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is gearing up for the coming tech boom. That’s one of the reasons they hired famous Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker as a new partner on Monday [Source].

Meeker said: “We’re at the beginning of another great wave of tech innovation and I am incredibly excited by the opportunity to help the next generation of Internet technologies and leaders.” [Source]

Gordon (partner @ Kleiner) said he sees a big boom coming, not a bubble, much like Kleiner’s managing partner John Doerr, who said that we’re in the midst of yet another boom for internet investments at the recent Web 2.0 Summit. The reason is that he sees a lot of technologies that are changing the way we live.

“The world of digital media is being transformed,” Gordon said. “A bunch of new businesses can be reinvented, thanks to social graphs, the mobile internet, and the new shopping habits of the young. Those are going to create a whole generation of cool new companies.” [Source]

Read related articles:
Another Technology Bubble?
M&A to Hit $3 Trillion in 2011
Private Equity Thrives Again
The Web Is Reborn (HTML 5)
Web Browsing is turning into Social Browsing
US$250 Million sFund
The Future of the Internet
Google Gets Semantic
Facebook is Pushing a Platform Strategy

Silicon Roundabout

Published on November 28, 2010 in Global Strategy, High Tech & Media and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

London’s high-tech start-ups: A patch of east London has quickly become a world-class technology hub. Last.fm, a music website and Silicon Roundabout’s biggest success so far, was bought by CBS Interactive, an American company, for £140m ($280m) in 2007.

Silicon Roundabout’s firms are generally small-to-medium sized and highly specialised. One makes software for the fashion industry; another runs an online dictionary. There is a hotel-comparison website, a firm specialising in 3D and interactive content, and several digital-design firms with their own niches.

Measured by the concentration of technology firms and the availability of generous and informed investors, California’s Silicon Valley is still in a league of its own. But in the second division of hubs, this chunk of east London is near the top, along with the likes of Boston and Tel Aviv.

Silicon Roundabout emerged without government support, or even direct links with universities, should pique the interest of countries that have tried to cultivate technology hubs without the same success [Source].

General Motors I.P.O. now World’s Biggest

Published on November 27, 2010 in International Finance. 0 Comments Tags: .

General Motors Co’s underwriters exercised their full overallotment option, making the initial public offering of the U.S. automaker the biggest in the world, at $23.1 billion. GM has now raised $23.1 billion, outpacing Agricultural Bank of China’s $22.1 billion July IPO and making GM the biggest IPO globally [Source].

The largest IPO in U.S. history, came a year and a half after the U.S. government rescued the automaker and forced a massive overhaul. It also marked the beginning of the end of the government’s 61 percent ownership stake in the company, which the Obama administration said it hopes to shed entirely by mid-to-late 2012 [Source].

Consolidation of the Food Industry

Published on November 26, 2010 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: .

The buyout of Del Monte Foods is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar deals in the food industry this year, including the $19.5 billion takeover of Cadbury by Kraft Foods, and Coca-Cola’s $13.6 billion purchase of Coca-Cola Enterprises’ North American operations.

Many in the sector expect more deals to come as legacy brands look for growth opportunities and private equity firms pursue cash-rich companies [Source].

“There has been a lot of mergers and acquisitions activity in this space,” said Farha Aslam, an analyst with Stephens. “Food companies typically have very strong cash flow and many have worked down their debt levels.”

Visualising the Global Dialogue

Published on November 25, 2010 in Ranting and Raving. 0 Comments Tags: .

The World Economic Forum is often described as “the world’ s largest brainstorm” — and the issues on the global agenda are increasingly interconnected and require systemic thinking [Source].

The School of Visual Arts in New York City developed a design that tackles the complexity issue by looking at which WEF councils are seeking dialogue with one another. Their wheel lets you hover over a council name — and the lines indicate the other council they want to reach. The darkness of the line indicates the strength of the relationship [Source].

For example, the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” council understandably has a strong dialogue with their “Terrorism” colleagues. They want to engage the “International Legal” team — but that connection is quite weak.

Please find the wheel here.

Another Technology Bubble?

Published on November 24, 2010 in International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Is the world ready for another Internet bubble?

Ready or not, it appears to be coming. In fact, it may already be here. And it seems to look, not surprisingly, like the last Internet bubble [Source].

First, there’s plenty of deal flow. Dealogic data shows that the number of technology deals — more than 5,100 so far this year — is at its highest point since the year 2000. Back then, in the peak year for Internet deal-making, there were 7,007 technology mergers and acquisitions.

At the Web 2.0 Summit, Venture capitalists John Doerr said technology was in the middle of a third wave of innovation. (The previous two waves were the PC revolution in the 1980s and the Internet boom in the mid-1990s.) The current wave, he said, is focused on smartphones and social networking — or “social graphs” as he called them.

Doerr: I prefer to think of these bubbles as booms. I think booms are good. Booms lead to overinvestment, booms lead to full employment, booms lead to lots of innovation. You know, there was a boom when they started the railroads. We’re in another bubble — or boom — and it’s an exciting time [Source].

Facebook’s Platform will Rule them All

Published on November 17, 2010 in Real-Time Web and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

“Email–I can’t imagine life without it–is probably going away,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in June, citing how only 11% of teens use email daily.

That’s the same story parroted Monday by Sandberg’s boss, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who introduced the company’s new messaging service by suggesting a generational shift away from email.

Based on Sandberg’s and Zuckerberg’s comments, it’s no surprise the blogosphere proclaimed the social network’s new service a “Gmail killer.” But that’s entirely the wrong term to be using. For starters, Gmail isn’t that big a deal. It has only a 15% market share. Hotmail has double and Yahoo triple that userbase. Facebook isn’t interested in killing off any of them as a messaging platform–its goal is to rise above them all, contain them all, and thereby rule them all [Source].

Related stories:

  • Why Facebook Wants Your E-Mail [Click]
  • How Facebook plans to reinvent email and online messaging [Click]
  • How Facebook’s Messages System Helps It Win [Click]
  • Schimdt on Facebook Messages: Competition Is Good [Click]

M&A to Hit $3 Trillion in 2011

Published on November 16, 2010 in International Finance. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Global mergers and acquisitions activity is expected to rocket upward 36% next year to $3.04 trillion, getting its strength from the financial and real estate industries, according to a report released Monday by Thomson Reuters.

The report also predicted that two sectors would shine in 2011 for deals: real estate and financial firms. After being pummeled by the credit crisis, many companies from these industries will need to restructure their businesses, pursue consolidation, divest assets or simply play catch-up [Source]. Also check another post on private equity thrives again.

“Financials seem to be the most bullish on a percentage basis,” Mr. Toole said. “This year we saw Goldman Sachs divesting its prop trading desk. … Now we’ll see it on a fuller scale.”

Newfound Strength in Frontier Markets

Published on November 15, 2010 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Frontier investing is a new-enough phenomenon that professionals disagree on which countries make up the sector. Different managers and index providers include different names. The Guggenheim Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), for example, has Chile and Poland among its top five holdings, though neither is part of the MSCI Frontier Index. The index includes such diverse countries as Argentina, Romania, Kenya and Kazakhstan. See also this post.

Even if you believe that frontier countries will grow far faster than the developed world, you have to deal with the practicalities, including cost, of investing in them, he said. Frontier funds tend to be more expensive than average and have short records.

Almost everyone, including MSCI, puts Nigeria in the frontier category. “I get people asking, ‘Who’s the next Brazil?’ “said Adam J. Kutas, manager of the Fidelity Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa fund. “I answer without hesitation that it’s Nigeria,”.

OnGreen raises $1.4 million

Published on November 14, 2010 in Greentech and International Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

OnGreen, a social media platform for green entrepreneurs looking for investors, this week announced a $1.4 million first round of financing by China Southern Hong Kong Investment, a cleantech investment fund in Shanghai.

The company calls itself the “LinkedIn” of cleantech investing. “We don’t just connect people with people, we connect ideas with money,” said CEO Nikhil Jain.

The company launched its OnGreen.com web site, in July, which has since been used by nearly 300 entrepreneurs in more than 35 countries. Startup hopefuls use the site to upload a business plan, and investors can contact entrepreneurs directly if they’re interested in investing in the idea [Source].