Cash-strapped Saab finds a partner

Saab Automobile has agreed a strategic partnership with a Chinese company called Hawtai Motor, in the last try to keep the insolvent Swedish carmaker afloat.

Saab has been with economic problems for a few years now, but for the last three weeks things got worse, they had to stop their production chain because some of the suppliers had stopped delivering them the materials needed. It seems that suppliers did that because of unpaid bills. In order to try to solve this big problem, liquidity, Saab has been negotiating with a lot of potential Chinese partners.

Finally, on Monday 2^nd of May, the Swedish firm came to an agreement with Hawtai. No details have been given, they will be announced at the signing ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday.

Saab was also rescued last year by a Dutch firm, Spyker Cars, which bought it from General Motors, who was going to close this business. But Spyker Cars also failed to revive Saab’s success.

This agreement is another example of how China is trying to enter the worldwide automobile market by acquiring directly well-known companies, like a year ago; when a small company called Geely took over Volvo.

 Carles

Sources : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce9394a0-702f-11e0-bea7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LD16jGDa

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/caa6be2c-74ed-11e0-a4b7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LD16jGDa

Data breach hits 77m Sony customers

As most of you will know, PlayStation Network hasn’t worked since April 20^th, so no PS3 user couldn’t play online or enter to the PSN site, which allows PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users to download games, movies, and music online. It was really rare that there were problems with it, because it has always worked very well. Nobody knew what was happening, it appeared a message on the screen “Ongoing maintenance processes”, but two days ago, Sony admitted that they shut down the PlayStation Network because they had discovered an external intrusion.

A hacker, an unauthorized person, gained access to gamers’ names, mailing addresses, birthdays, mail addresses, passwords and logins. The worst thing is that the intruder also got access to users’ credit card data! The PlayStation Network, serves a reported 77 million accounts worldwide, making this one of the largest breaches of personal identity data ever. And I’m one of them!

This will make a lot of Sony consumers to lose confidence and faith in the brand, and for sure it will affect future sells. There have been several complaints by PS3 users, who are very pissed off, firstly for not being able to play, and secondly and most important, for having their private personal information stolen.

Security analysts said that the problem may mean that hackers have uncovered a fundamental flaw in Sony's networks which will be expensive and time-consuming to fix. So we don’t know we this will be fixed.

Carles

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f4026292-7053-11e0-bea7-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=9a36c1aa-3016-11da-ba9f-00000e2511c8.html#axzz1KkCZAjEX

Panini to become exclusive NBA basketball trading card maker

I’m going to talk about this article, which affects one of my hobbies, trading cards, but most of you might not know what that is. Trading cards are collectibles usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which contains an image of a sportsman and a short description of the player, along with statistics. The most traditional are baseball and also basketball cards. Some cards have a piece of jersey used by the player in an official game, and the most expensive ones come with the authentic autograph of the player featuring on the card.

Topps and Upper Deck have been producing NBA, as well as other sports, cards for decades but before the beginning of the 2009-10 season, The Panini Group reached an agreement with the NBA to be the sole trading card licensee for the next 4 years. The trading card market moves an enormous quantity of money, but lately sales have been declining, the league along with the two American card-makers agreed that an exclusive deal was the best solution, but Panini beat their best offers. The NBA's move to go with Panini would indicate the league's continued push toward becoming a more global enterprise. There is some speculation Panini will use this license as a stepping stone to pursue other American sports properties as they become available. Panini also wants to launch trading cards in the overseas market, although it only represents 5% of the overall NBA trading card sales.

Panini is an Italian company very well known in Europe and has its headquarters in Modena. The big problems are that Panini had no presence in the USA before this deal and that they weren’t used to produce products of this high quality. So Panini created a subsidiary known as Panini America to handle the trading card business in the USA, and also had a significant invest in advertisement.

After a year, what I can say is that Panini had some problems with its first collections launched last year, but it has been learning how to produce high quality cards and has gained lots of followers.

Carles Urpí

Sources: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2009/01/Issue-89/Sponsorships-Advertising-Marketing/Italian-Company-Panini-To-Be-Nbas-Sole-Trading-Card-Licensee.aspx

http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/panini-to-become-exclusive-nba-basketball-card-maker/

http://www.tuffstuff.com/article/Topps%20Upper%20Deck%20out%20as%20NBA%20Licensees/

You can also check my Autograph trading card collection here: http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/ae44/7air/Autographs%20-%20PC%20-/

And my Tracy McGrady collection (475 different cards at the moment):

http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/ae44/7air/Tracy%20McGrady%20Collection%20-%20PC%20-/

Ebay purchases GSI Commerce

The biggest online auction site, Ebay, has announced the acquisition of the e-commerce brand, GSI Commerce. With this buyout Ebay aims to improve its ability to connect buyers and sellers. The company has paid $2.4bn ($2,400 million), which is $29.25 per share, an increase of 51% over GSI’s closing share price last week.

With this move, Ebay aims to reach Amazon, trying to become a platform for third-party sellers (retailers), because Amazon has a larger distribution network. GSI handles the e-commerce activities for large brands and retailers, including well known brands like Ralph Lauren, Toys R Us and the National Football League.

“The acquisition of GSI, which offers the most comprehensive integrated suite of online commerce and interactive marketing services available, will significantly strengthen our ability to connect buyers and sellers worldwide,” said John Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive.

This deal has been Ebay’s largest in North America since 2005, when it acquired Skype. Ebay shares have fallen 2.8% to $30.80 in the US Stock Exchange this morning, while GSI’s stock climbed to $29.18, an increase of more than 50%.

Ebay has also experienced an increase in its reliance because of the Paypal online payments service, which is a safe and fast way to pay within Internet.

On the other hand, I think it will let ebay increase its monopoly on internet auctions, so it will rise it's commissions, and as a result users will earn less money for their auctions. They will not be able to do anything because ebay it's the internet auction leader by far, with the most potential buyers looking for any of the products you might want to sell. 


Carles Urpí




Source:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5d286670-594f-11e0-b9f6-00144feab49a.html#axzz1HyZjsMup

China's Surprising Trade Numbers

This article explains the Chinese trade numbers. During 2009, the Chinese commerce decreased constantly because of the world economic crisis, this led to a fall in demand for its products. But last year, China experienced a higher growth than expected, and became the world’s leader in exports, surpassing Germany to take the lead. Many producers in China are low-cost manufacturers that assemble equipment for iPods, for example, using foreign components.

From the economic statistics released last week by Beijing, there were some unexpected figures. Imports increased by 19.4%, and exports only 2.4%, which is the lowest increase since 2009. This leads to the biggest surprise, the $7.3 billion trade deficit, the first since last March. It’s even more surprising when you get to the expected numbers, experts were predicting a surplus of $4.9 billion. Some analysts, like Goldman Sachs and UBS, said that these unusual numbers are because of the Chinese New Year, which was on February, when a lot of factory owners and workers take some days off around these days.

But do you believe that this can have such a several effect on the exports? From the expected $4.9 billion surplus to a $7.3 billion deficit? Really?

One of the biggest factors of the big exports from China is the currency policy, which is very criticized by the other countries. The devaluation of the currency leads to increase exports. That’s not fair competition.

Carles

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2011/03/chinas_surprising_trade_numbers.html

The NBA’s Most Valuable Teams

There are 30 teams in the NBA, and now the average NBA team is worth $369 million, this is 1% more than the year before. The NBA has also been affected by the crisis, and some teams haven’t fully recovered. If we compare it with the value of two years ago, they are still 2.6% below the figures reached back in 2009, with $379 million.

Furthermore, 17 teams lost money last year, the most since the lock-out season in 1998-99, and operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) fell to an average of $6.1 million, 22% lower than the previous season and the lowest figure since 2002-03. Franchise like Detroit Pistons and New Orleans Hornets are on the market, but there are no buyers. Recently the NBA has rescued the Hornets because they were nearly bankrupt. This has been a subject of discussion because it’s though that the NBA can have influence on the success of the team, so can gain value, while they wait for a buyer.

In the 64 years of history of the NBA, no player had such impact on teams economies. During this summer, LeBron James went from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat. His former team plummeted 26%, to $355 million, while his current team, Miami Heat, it’s worth 17% more than last year, $425 million. The biggest drop and gain in team values, respectively.

The New York Knicks have replaced the Los Angeles Lakers as the most valuable team, worth $655 million, up 12% from last year. The key factor has been the acquisition of Amar’e Stoudemire, an All-Star caliber player. Because of that the Knicks sold out their full-season ticket inventory for the first time since 2001-02, and also signed a sponsorship deal worth $30 million a year over 10 years. You can check the ranking of team values here: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/32/basketball-valuations-11_rank.html

In the NBA, there is the salary cap, which is the maximum amount of money teams can pay to players. This figure varies every year and is calculated as a percentage of the League’s revenue from the previous season. The salary cap for this season is $58,044,000. If a team surpasses this quantity, for every dollar exceeded it has to be paid a dollar to the NBA as a fine. This is used to allow every team to be competitive and to keep teams from buying all of the top players in the market.

I think this is a good rule to promote a great competitiveness between each and every team. The main example is the Miami Heat, that won the championship in the 2005-06 season, and two years after, they were the team with the worst record in the league. I put this example sometimes discussing with my friends, in the Spanish soccer league, it’s only between F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid, because they have too much money compared between the other teams, so they always get the best player. Obviously, I prefer it that way because I’m a Barça fan, but I think it’s not fair for the others. What do you think?

More interesting information:

Top 5 highest payrolls in NBA for 2010-11 season

1. Los Angeles Lakers – $95,218,987
2. Orlando Magic – $89,855,582
3. Dallas Mavericks – $85,761,280
4. Boston Celtics – $83,317,155
5. Denver Nuggets – $83,020,059

Top 10 highest paid NBA players for 2010-11 season

1. Kobe Bryant – $24,806,250
2. Rashard Lewis – $20,514,000
3. Kevin Garnet – $18,800,000
4. Tim Duncan – $18,700,000
5. Michael Redd – $18,300,000
6. Pau Gasol – $17,822,187
7. Andrei Kirilenko – $17,822,187
8. Yao Ming – $17,686,100
9. Gilbert Arenas – $17,686,100
10. Dirk Nowitzki – $17,300,000

I also think that these figures are excessive! Don’t you think so?

I hope you enjoyed the read,

Carles Urpí

 

Sources: http://www.insidehoops.com/nbasalaries.shtml

http://blogs.forbes.com/mikeozanian/2011/01/26/the-nbas-most-valuable-teams-2/

http://blogs.forbes.com/kurtbadenhausen/2011/01/26/nbas-best-teams-for-buck-2/

my knowledge (no link available)

Nokia and Microsoft announce strategic partnership in the Smartphone sector

A month ago, Microsoft and Nokia announced that they were going to join forces to try to compete in the Smartphone sector. It all begins when Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, sent an email to all its workers reproaching the current situation of the company.

Nokia is struggling to compete with the other companies in the sector, which experienced a great increase on innovation and in sells. Nokia was the world’s leader in manufacturing smartphones with more than 200 millions of clients around the planet. But in 2007, Iphone was released and since then Nokia hasn’t even produced any product up to it. Furthermore, Android, which has been in the market for 2 years, has replaced Nokia as the world leader in sells. Only in a year, Nokia has lost market share from 40% to 31%.

So I think Stephen Elop had so many reasons to be upset with the late performance of Nokia. I even remember almost 10 years ago, when Nokia was clearly the leader in sells by far in the mobile phone sector. For sure most of you had a Nokia 3210, 3310 or 3330. Through the years they have been improving but lastly, as Elop said, they got immobile.  

Therefore, Nokia has agreed with Microsoft to ally with the objective of becoming the leader in its sector. Microsoft is the world leader in software, but its sales aren’t very impressive, so it’s a good move for both companies. So Nokia will embody Windows Phone 7 as its software. Well as the other, they have a great experience in the business world and comprehension of the consumer. With this deal Nokia is optimistic to retake the leadership in the sector.

In my opinion, I think that it’s not only a good strategy for both companies, but also for us, the consumers. Consumers are the clear winners, with a great competitiveness in this sector, a lot of improvements will be done, resulting as new designs and innovation, new experiences for users.  

Carles Urpí

Sources: http://www.expansion.com/2011/02/09/empresas/tmt/1297246892.html

http://www.expansion.com/2011/02/10/empresas/tmt/1297331540.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12427680