Archive for March, 2008
Filed under: Financials and analyticals, Raising money, Private equity industry, Investments
There has been much talk about how the credit squeeze and slowing economy has affected the public markets, but how has it affected private-equity firms? An article in the Hartford Business discusses how private equity firms are feeling the pain, especially as many private-equity owned companies have very high risk ratings and default risks. This appears to be more concerns of the past coming to fruition over leverage and credit quality more than breaking news, but it may come front and center before long.
Additionally, private equity-backed companies have big debt loads and when combined with decreased consumer spending, companies have less cash to service those loans. Leverage has enhanced returns, but it also augments the losses and decreases the returns to the private-equity firms that own the companies. This says that 25 of the 42 companies that ratings bureau Standard & Poor’s states have the lowest credit ratings are owned or controlled by private-equity firms, which gives them the highest chances for default.
It also appears that many private-equity firms overestimated the potential value and performance of the companies they bought, or at least that conditions exists now that credit is tight and the economy slower. If many industries and sectors are struggling in today’s economy, it should come of no surprise that private-equity firms that purchased them with leverage are feeling the burn as well. A less-leveraged economy isn’t leaving the billionaires entirely immune.
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Eureka Springs, Arkansas in the Beautiful Ozark Mountains
Eureka Springs, Arkansas is a destination for all seasons. Your stay in this beautiful Victorian town will be filled with shopping, dining at great restaurants, relaxation
Thomson - Financial
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Financial Calculators from Financial Calculators, Inc
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Financial Aid at Southwestern Assemblies of God University
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World business, finance and political news from the Financial Times
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Chrysler Financial - Daimler Chrysler Financial Services - Auto
Provides consumer auto loans and leases and dealer financing throughout North America.
Financial Aid Home | University of Portland
The Office of Financial Aid provides counseling and assistance in completing the financial aid process, evaluation and determination of need. The goal of the Office of Financial
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Financial Aid at Southwestern Assemblies of God University
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Financial Aid - Illinois State University
Investing in a college education is a major financial decision and many students and families need to look beyond their own resources for assistance.
SNL Financial - Sector-focused business intelligence
A financial information provider, offering coverage of the financial services, real estate, and energy sectors in the USA.
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Freeware, World wide web Tools, Software Update, Bad Apple, Apple
 The news that Apple has stealthily included Safari in its Software Updater bounced all over the Mac blogosphere today, and earned cheers and jeers (well, mostly jeers). Here’s a swift roundup.
- The most attention probably comes from John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, who unequivocally calls the decision “wrong,” and states that doing something other than “updating” with an “updater” betrays the public trust.
- Darby Lines at The Angry Drunk says that the whole matter is just plain “whining” and that Apple is hardly forcing the software on anyone, especially taking into account that there’s a checkbox right next to the name of it. And it’s not like, as many people have said, installing Safari on a Personal computer is actually a bad move.
- The Inquirer actually makes a worthwhile joke: “Some iTunes users report that the box to sign up for Safari appears pre-ticked.” At least we think that’s a joke — you’d only state Apple was “targeting” and “hijacking” Windows users if you were joking, right?
- Microsoft Watch calls the program a “rogue updater,” while Paul Mison fisks them pretty absolutely and shows that even if Apple did somehow hurt the computers by installing a reasonable, standards-compliant browser, Microsoft has done much, much worse.
So what’s the deal overall? As we said earlier, Jobs very plainly told us this was going to happen, and though, yes, users who don’t pay attention may end up with extra software, it’s extremely simple to not install the software. While a warning might have been nice, Apple isn’t really outside its bounds here, so it’s unlikely that they’ll change it anyway.
The only real result is that users, whether Personal computer or Mac, are reminded once again to pay attention to what they’re clicking on. It’s unexpected that Apple would be the company to remind us of that, but it’s as true as ever.
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CountrywideKB
Now it’s easier than ever to get into a new KB home. Whether you’re a first-time buyer or moving up to a luxury home, you can get personalized service that makes homeownership easy
Department of Finance - Robert H. Smith School of Business
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Finance at EWU
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Finance and Operations, The University of Iowa
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Filed under: Internet Tools, Beta Beat
 The cloud storage and sync offering from Sharpcast, SugarSync, has released a public beta of its OS X client today, complementing the existing Windows, web and mobile (WinMo + Blackberry, iPhone coming soon) clients. The Mac client and the Windows client appear pretty much the same, but once you set up your sync you don’t have to look at the client UI very often.
SugarSync is a for-pay service that extends your local files seamlessly to your other personal, to a secure webpage, and pretty much to anywhere you think they ought to go. CEO Gibu Thomas describes SugarSync as “get my stuff everywhere,” a supercharged and cross-platform version of .Mac iDisk synchronization. Our colleagues at Download Squad have checked out the service in detail, and there’s a good writeup at webware.com as well.
To use SugarSync, you can define a set of folders to sync, photos to share, “Magic Briefcase” files that live in the cloud and sync down on demand, click and go — then the defined content will be available on all your computers. With both “full sync” and “light sync” modes, you can leave rarely used files on the SugarSync side and only retrieve them as needed (great for those MacBook Air users hungry for storage). You can also selectively share pic galleries or other content via the web UI.
Once you get past the 45-day, 10 GB of storage trial period, you can use the discount available through 4/15 to get a half- off data plan (starts at $25/yr for 10 GB, up to 250 GB for $250/yr).The advantages of SugarSync for backup, specificity of synced items, and a supported client may make you give it a look as an alternative to iDisk, or to cloud solutions like OmniDrive, JungleDisk or other clients for Amazon’s S3 that require you to roll your own synchronization plan.
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