Greenspan Says ...

[nmosley]

I read this earlier and am having trouble figuring out what this means for us - really... can anyone of you shed some interpretive light? Thanks

Khaleej Times Online >> News >> THE U.A.E
Borse Dubai, Nasdaq and OMX in deal
By Lucia Dore (Assistant Editor, Business)

21 September 2007



DUBAI ? Borse Dubai, the US electronic stock exchange Nasdaq, and the Nordic stock exchange operator, OMX AB, yesterday announced a deal to create a global exchange platform spanning the US, Europe, the Middle East and other strategic markets.


Speaking to Khaleej Times, Borse Dubai vice-chairman Soud Ba?alawy said the deal was a ?win-win? for all parties and would establish a gateway for accessing the Middle East?s excess liquidity, estimated to be in the region of $2.3 trillion. ?It is one of the greatest opportunities in terms of developing the region?s capital markets,? he said.

Through a complex set of transactions, Borse Dubai will become a shareholder in Nasdaq and Nasdaq will become a strategic shareholder in the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX). Steps will be taken to allow DIFX to be rebranded with the Nasdaq name. Borse Dubai will purchase a 28 per cent stake in the London Stock Exchange (LSE) from Nasdaq and Nasdaq will win control of OMX, given that all the necessary regulatory conditions are met.

Borse Dubai will retain 19.99 per cent of Nasdaq?s share capital, amounting to 42.6 million shares, and hold 18 million shares, or 8.4 per cent of share capital, in trust, to be eventually sold. For regulatory reasons, Borse Duba?s voting rights in Nasdaq will be restricted to 5 per cent.

Borse Dubai will continue with its bid for OMX AB, for which it offered $4 billion all-cash offer in August, topping the $3.7 billion bid Nasdaq made in May. Borse Dubai holds a 4.9 per cent stake in OMX along with option agreements for another 23.5 per cent share of the exchange.

Given that this deal wins regulatory approval, Borse Dubai will sell its 28 per cent stake in OMX to Nasdaq and buy Nasdaq?s 28 per cent stake in LSE, for 14.14 pounds a share. Nasdaq will retain its remaining 3.5 per cent of shares. Ba?alawy described the acquisition of LSE shares as a ?strategic long-term investment?.

A statement outlining the terms of the deal said that the parties expect the necessary conditions to be fulfilled in January 2008 and that Borse Dubai?s tender offer for OMX?s shares will open for acceptances at that time.

Meanwhile a Reuters report says, Nasdaq will take a 33 per cent stake in the DIFX, and will invest a further $50 million in the exchange as well as allowing the DIFX to use the Nasdaq name across MENA and South Asia.

Borse Dubai chairman, Essa Kazim, also told the news agency that Borse Dubai would have a separate joint venture agreement in China.

The announcement ends weeks of wrangling between Nasdaq and Borse Dubai, the holding company for the Dubai government?s stakes in the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and the DIFX to wrest ownership of OMX.

The agreement means the DFM will become Dubai?s domestic exchange and the rebranded Nasdaq-DIFX exchange the region?s international one, Ba?alawy said in a telephone interview.

But as Borse Dubai was looking to seal its 28 per cent stake in LSE, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) was buying 20 per cent of LSE shares in a deal worth about $1.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Only two days earlier the QIA, Qatar?s sovereign wealth fund, was expected to close a $5.6 billion offer for Nasdaq?s 31 per cent stake. The QIA has also reportedly told shareholders to take no action on the Borse Dubai/Nasdaq offer pending a further statement.

The QIA has said it has bought a stake in LSE as part of a plan to ?build long-term investments in high quality businesses,? and doesn?t plan to make a takeover bid, in a statement made available to Bloomberg.

The fund, however, ?reserves its position in the event that a third party announces a firm intention to make an offer,? it said.

In a further complication, late yesterday the QIA had bought a 9.98 per cent stake in OMX, through Citigroup, paying 260 kronor ($39) per share. Borse Dubai is paying 230 kronor ($35) per share.

 

[seal]

Great find, NMosley.

I think the key is in the last part of the first sentence: "a global exchange platform spanning the US, Europe, the Middle East and other strategic markets."

It looks like they are laying the groundwork to combine stock exchanges. The question I ask is what will be the currency of choice? The dollar, the Euro?

Europe began unifying the economies of its countries via a common currency, the Euro. There are plans for the North American continent as well.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3jdQxDC7pA"]YouTube - CNBC Interview with Stephen Previs about the Amero [hq][/ame]

And, for the bonus round, the Security and Prosperity Partnership is scheduled to be complete by 2010:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65f3q_Lm9U"]YouTube - Lou Dobbs: North American Union Orwellian Brave New World[/ame]

 

[seal]

As an Patriotic American, I am encouraged by the number of views on this thread.

PLEASE investigate and research what is happening to our republic.

Please remember that our fathers, grandfathers, and forefathers fought and died so that we could be free.

I have come to love watching CNN's Lou Dobbs. Other than that, if you are counting on the main stream media for your news, you are uninformed.

We, the people, have the Internet.

 

[elgordoboy]

As an Patriotic American, I am encouraged by the number of views on this thread.

PLEASE investigate and research what is happening to our republic.

Please remember that our fathers, grandfathers, and forefathers fought and died so that we could be free.

I have come to love watching CNN's Lou Dobbs. Other than that, if you are counting on the main stream media for your news, you are uninformed.

We, the people, have the Internet.

And if you are counting on Lou Dobbs for your news you are informed by ignorance.

 

[Beach Runner]

He also said in an interview that he was in the bathtub when he asked Andrea Mitchell to marry him. He declined when asked if she was in the bathtub with him at the time.;-)

 

[seal]

And if you are counting on Lou Dobbs for your news you are informed by ignorance.

Are you saying Lou Dobbs is uninformed, or is passing on false information?

I watch Lou Dobbs for a fraction of my news. I like the fact that he keeps attention on the border situation.

Here are a couple of good ones:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

http://www.bullnotbull.com/bull/ Lots of good links on this one.

 

[slandmarks]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17210282

Greenspan: Recession Odds 'Clearly Rising'

Morning Edition, December 14, 2007 ? Global forces beyond the Federal Reserve's control helped fuel the bubble that led to the current housing meltdown, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday. In an NPR interview, Greenspan also said that the odds of a recession are "clearly rising."
This week, Greenspan wrote a commentary in The Wall Street Journal looking at the roots of the current mortgage crisis. In the article, he defended the Fed's decision to keep rates low ? a move that some people say fueled the housing bubble.
'Extraordinary Forces of Globalization'
"The problem is not explaining myself," Greenspan told Steve Inskeep in an NPR interview. "The problem is getting a focus on how to look at the world's economy more appropriately. Certain things are happening in the world which are affecting central banks, have affected central banks, essentially because of the extraordinary forces of globalization that arose subsequent to the end of the Soviet Union."
Greenspan rejected the criticism that the Federal Reserve fueled the housing bubble by lowering interest rates.
That argument "doesn't coincide with the facts," he said. "First of all, we've had housing bubbles in two dozen or more countries around the world ... everybody's long-term rates have gone down."
Fed 'Lost Control' of Long-Term Rates
Greenspan noted that there has been a disconnect in recent years between the Fed's short-term rate moves and long-term rates, such as those that apply to mortgages.
When the Fed began to raise rates in 2004, the central bank had expected to get ? "as a bonus" ? a rise in mortgage rates, Greenspan said. But that didn't occur, he said.
"We concluded that the monetary forces that were arising in the world globally had become so overwhelming, relative to the resources of central banks, that we had effectively lost control of long-term interest rates and the forces directing higher prices and homes," he said.
Asked if the Fed could have prevented, or eased, the U.S. housing bubble, he said, "There's only one thing we could have done ? cutting off short-term credit. But that would have broken the back of the economy and brought the housing boom down."
Short of raising interest rates dramatically, "the evidence is very clear that there was nothing that any central bank could have done, or tried to do."
He said the housing meltdown was "inevitable in one sense: When you get a type of euphoria building in an economy, you're dealing with the innate aspects of human nature. And I've watched bubbles inflate and deflate for 60 years. I'm pretty much convinced that we will never be able, by monetary or fiscal policy or government actions, short of disabling the economy, (to undermine) those bubbles.
"Eventually, this has to defuse itself," he said.
Economy Close to Stalling
Greenspan said it's too soon to say whether a recession is coming, "but the odds are clearly rising."
"We're getting close to stall speed" in economic growth, he said. "And we are far more vulnerable at levels where growth is so slow than we would be otherwise.
"Indeed ... somebody who has an immune system which is not working very well is subject to all sorts of diseases, and the economy at this level of growth is subject to all sorts of potential shocks."

 

[full time]

Lou Dobbs - isn't he an old boxing trainer? Does training Mexican fighters make him an expert on immigration issues?