Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Helvetic’s Cardiff-Zurich flight’s Bristol stopover

http://articles.brightbridge-wealthmanagement.com/2011/11/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-helvetics-cardiff-zurich-flights-bristol-stopover/

An airline’s flights between Cardiff and Zurich will stop at Bristol, just 25 miles (40km) away, because too few tickets were sold in Wales.

It will add around 45 minutes to the flight in both directions.

Helvetic Airways said the stopover in Bristol would help business travellers and offer Swiss tourists a starting point for trips.

But Cardiff Airport said the airline had struggled to sell tickets in the opposite direction.

However, with the Welsh Government supporting the route through a marketing campaign in Switzerland, seat sales had been healthy from Zurich to Cardiff.

“Therein lies the issue here in why this particular airline is going to stop off in Bristol,” Cardiff Airport managing director Patrick Duffy told BBC Wales.

“It doesn’t have a problem in selling tickets for people coming into Wales, what it does have a problem with is selling tickets for people leaving Wales.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

For business travellers, they really need a daily flight and with only three flights a week, that doesn’t really make it viable”

Alan BowenTravel expert

“Our decline in traffic is largely attributable to that particular issue.”

Cardiff Airport said the Zurich service required support from Welsh travellers to convince the airline to operate directly without stopping over the summer season.

Cardiff has lost more passengers over the past three years than any of the other major regional airports in the UK.

Spanish airline

According to figures from the Civil Aviation Authority, in 2007 it had 2,111,148 and in 2010 it had 1,404,613, a fall of 33%.

However, Cardiff Airport said it was the only regional airport in the UK to attract two airlines in recent months in difficult economic conditions.

Besides Helvetic, it was announced last month that a low-cost Spanish airline is to start direct flights to Barcelona.

The announcement by the Vueling airline came two days before Bmibaby halted its services from Cardiff.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

For Swiss tourists, Bristol Airport is an ideal starting point for individual trips”

Bruno JansHelvetic

Independent travel expert Alan Bowen said it was always going to be difficult to attract enough passengers on the Cardiff-Zurich route.

Fast connection

“For business travellers, they really need a daily flight and with only three flights a week, that doesn’t really make it viable,” he said.

“It’s very viable for people who want to have a short break in Switzerland.”

Bruno Jans, chief executive of Helvetic, said: “With flights to Bristol, we develop our service in an economically strong region on the British Isles, providing many business travellers with a fast connection to Zurich.

“For Swiss tourists, Bristol Airport is an ideal starting point for individual trips.”

With the stopover in Bristol from next month, the flight between Cardiff and Zurich will take approximately two-and-three-quarter hours.

Plaid Cymru’s Neil McAvoy, deputy leader of Cardiff council, said the Welsh government needed to secure new business routes out of Cardiff.

He said the airport required routes to New York and Dubai, which would tie in with the new business district planned for Cardiff.

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Brightbridge funds seek to make equity and quasi-equity investments in a wide variety of enterprises. The range of investment sizes that will be considered by any fund depends on a number of factors, including the size of the particular fund. Historically, the typical range of investment sizes for individual Brightbridge funds had been from $10 million to approximately $100 million.

Brightbridge's initial focus and one of its continuing core strengths has been investments in "infrastructure" in emerging market economies. Through over 100 investments since 1994, Brightbridge has acquired a unique experience in investing in fixed and wireless telecommunications, cable television, power generation and transmission, and transportation. Brightbridge has, however, expanded this focus over time both in geographic and industry terms. Brightbridge has considerable experience in oil and gas and a number of industrial sectors including petrochemicals, cement and glass, a variety of agribusiness sectors and industries as diverse as the restaurant sector. Geographically, Brightbridge has also broadened its focus to apply its investments model to developed markets such as Japan and Hong Kong and the new member countries of the EU.

Brightbridge funds typically provide capital to growing companies at the expansion stage rather than at the start-up stage. In addition, Brightbridge will consider investment in mature companies that present restructuring opportunities. The stage at which an entry investment is made will vary depending on the overall risk/return profile of the individual investment at the time it is under consideration. Brightbridge will consider investing in "greenfield" projects either in association with a strategic corporate partner experienced in developing and operating projects or in certain regulated industries in which development risk is reduced through licenses, off–take agreements, etc.

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Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Helvetic’s Cardiff-Zurich flight’s Bristol stopover

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Brightbridge Wealth Management

An airline’s flights between Cardiff and Zurich will stop at Bristol, just 25 miles (40km) away, because too few tickets were sold in Wales.

It will add around 45 minutes to the flight in both directions.

Helvetic Airways said the stopover in Bristol would help business travellers and offer Swiss tourists a starting point for trips.

But Cardiff Airport said the airline had struggled to sell tickets in the opposite direction.

However, with the Welsh Government supporting the route through a marketing campaign in Switzerland, seat sales had been healthy from Zurich to Cardiff.

“Therein lies the issue here in why this particular airline is going to stop off in Bristol,” Cardiff Airport managing director Patrick Duffy told BBC Wales.

“It doesn’t have a problem in selling tickets for people coming into Wales, what it does have a problem with is selling tickets for people leaving Wales.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

For business travellers, they really need a daily flight and with only three flights a week, that doesn’t really make it viable”

Alan BowenTravel expert

“Our decline in traffic is largely attributable to that particular issue.”

Cardiff Airport said the Zurich service required support from Welsh travellers to convince the airline to operate directly without stopping over the summer season.

Cardiff has lost more passengers over the past three years than any of the other major regional airports in the UK.

Spanish airline

According to figures from the Civil Aviation Authority, in 2007 it had 2,111,148 and in 2010 it had 1,404,613, a fall of 33%.

However, Cardiff Airport said it was the only regional airport in the UK to attract two airlines in recent months in difficult economic conditions.

Besides Helvetic, it was announced last month that a low-cost Spanish airline is to start direct flights to Barcelona.

The announcement by the Vueling airline came two days before Bmibaby halted its services from Cardiff.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

For Swiss tourists, Bristol Airport is an ideal starting point for individual trips”

Bruno JansHelvetic

Independent travel expert Alan Bowen said it was always going to be difficult to attract enough passengers on the Cardiff-Zurich route.

Fast connection

“For business travellers, they really need a daily flight and with only three flights a week, that doesn’t really make it viable,” he said.

“It’s very viable for people who want to have a short break in Switzerland.”

Bruno Jans, chief executive of Helvetic, said: “With flights to Bristol, we develop our service in an economically strong region on the British Isles, providing many business travellers with a fast connection to Zurich.

“For Swiss tourists, Bristol Airport is an ideal starting point for individual trips.”

With the stopover in Bristol from next month, the flight between Cardiff and Zurich will take approximately two-and-three-quarter hours.

Plaid Cymru’s Neil McAvoy, deputy leader of Cardiff council, said the Welsh government needed to secure new business routes out of Cardiff.

He said the airport required routes to New York and Dubai, which would tie in with the new business district planned for Cardiff.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Franc Expected To Boost Swiss M&A In Second Half

http://www.prbot.com/57899-brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-franc-expected-to-boost-swiss-ma-in-second-half.html

ZURICH (MarketWatch) — The Swiss mergers and acquisitions market is expected to continue its resurgence in the second half of 2011 after the second quarter saw deal volumes go up threefold, according to consultancy Ernst & Young.

The continued economic upturn together with the surging value of the Swiss franc is expected to drive an increase in acquisitions past 2010 levels.

In the second quarter of the year, deal volume rose to 38.2 billion Swiss francs ($47.5 billion) up from CHF12.5 billion in the first quarter and significantly higher than the CHF4.6 billion achieved in the second quarter of 2010.

The total number of deals remained relatively unchanged during the period at about 225.

“Last year the total volume was $52 billion with around 460 deals. For this year, total deal volume might be able to increase to $100 billion,” said Marc Reinhardt, senior manager for mergers and acquisitions at Ernst & Young in Zurich.

The Swiss franc has risen 6.8% against the euro and 9.3% against the dollar during the second quarter of 2011, making it cheaper for Swiss companies to buy foreign companies.

“We know there are a lot of deals being helped by the Swiss franc. Companies are buying firms in the euro area and in emerging markets, and the strength of the franc is making it easier for them in some cases,” said Reinhardt.

Many companies have sufficient funds available for acquisitions, he added.

Companies are looking to have more of their costs outside the franc area, which would help reduce the impact of the currency eating into their margins.

“They want to encase their natural hedge,” said Reinhardt, who added revenue growth was the other main motivation for companies.

But the number of deals coming in might drop if the Swiss franc continues appreciating at its current pace, the consultancy said.

Areas such as high tech, IT telecommunications, financial services and energy are expected to be among the most active for M&A activity during the remainder of 2011, E&Y said.

The largest transaction announced in the second quarter was the $13.7 billion deal by Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company (4502.TO) to buy Swiss pharma company Nycomed SICA S.C.A.

The $21 billion acquisition of Synthes Inc. (SYST.VX) by Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.45%was actually the largest in the period, but wasn’t included in the Swiss M&A statistics because Synthes is headquartered in the U.S.

The media, technology and telecommunications sector was the most active industry in terms of the number of M&A transactions during the second quarter, accounting for slightly more than 20% of the deals, E&Y said.

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Brightbridge is a world-wide private equity firm with the resources and expertise to source, evaluate, and manage private investments globally in both developed and developing markets and across many industrial and commercial sectors. Brightbridge is manager of -- or principal advisor to -- private equity funds covering Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Islamic countries that span the globe from North Africa through the Middle East and into Asia.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Destination for Swiss investors

http://www.hotbmarks.com/business-economy/brightbridge-wealth-management-headlines-destination-for-swiss-investors/

ZURICH – President Swiss Business Council Pakistan Farukh Mazhar, currently leading a delegation of heads of Pakistan based Swiss companies and prominent Pakistani businessmen to Zurich, said that Pakistan is a huge opportunity destination for investors despite all odds.

Mazhar was addressing a seminar in Zurich at the start of an extensive interaction between the business leaders of the two countries, says a press release.
Presenting the opening address in Zurich, Farukh Mazhar said, “The Pakistani delegation is anxious to explore possibilities of mutual interest with their counterparts here in Zurich.”
Pakistani business leaders fully understand the objective behind this initiative and the dynamic members of the delegation aim to highlight investment opportunities.
within Pakistan for soliciting Foreign Direct Investment from Switzerland as well as exploring export opportunities to Switzerland, Mazhar further added.
In November 2008, Swiss Business Council in Pakistan formed an alliance with Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce (SACC) to work together in order to develop and expand trade and investment opportunities between both countries. SACC headquartered in Zurich is a strong Chamber of Commerce in Switzerland with business links to 12 Asian countries. Pakistan is now a part of this great Swiss Asian business axis. The Swiss Business council Pakistan and its members hugely value this association, said Mazhar.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Swiss Stocks Rise; Syngenta, UBS, Bucher Shares Climb in Zurich

http://earlenazehner.blogspot.com/2011/06/brightbridge-wealth-management_6080.html


Swiss stocks advanced, led by gains in chemicals companies and banks. 

Syngenta AG, the Basel, Switzerland-based pesticides maker, climbed 1.7 percent. UBS AG added 0.8 percent.

The Swiss Market Index of the biggest and most actively traded companies rose 0.5 percent to 6,527.16 at 10:28 a.m. in Zurich. The benchmark has rallied 8.4 percent since March 16 as company earnings exceeded estimates. The broader Swiss Performance Index increased 0.5 percent.

Syngenta added 1.7 percent to 292.5 Swiss francs after announcing the launch of Vibrance, a seed treatment fungicide based on the new active ingredient sedaxane.

UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, increased 0.8 percent to 16.25 francs, its first gain in six days.

Bucher Industries AG rose 1.6 percent to 209.3 francs. The agricultural machinery maker said its Kuhn Group unit has a licensing and manufacturing agreement with Deere & Co. to cooperate on large square balers.

“The strategic cooperation with the world’s leading farm equipment producer underpins Kuhn’s product and manufacturing strengths in farming,” Fabian Haecki, an analyst at Vontobel Holding AG, wrote in a note to clients today.

Dufry Group climbed 1 percent to 109.6 francs after surging 6.7 percent yesterday.

Posts Tagged ‘Bidding for Myspace comes down to two suitors’

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Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Bidding for Myspace comes down to two suitors

 July 10th, 2011 |  Author: Brightbridge Wealth Management Online Magazine

By Dawn C. Chmielewski

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-myspace-20110629,0,5533635.story

Orange County advertising network Specific Media and Bay Area private equity firm Golden Gate Capital are finalists in the bidding for struggling social network Myspace, people familiar with the matter confirmed.
News Corp. had hoped the once-dominant Myspace would fetch as much as $100 million, but bidding is in the range of $20 million to $30 million in cash and stock, said the people, who declined to be identified because talks are confidential. The media giant, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and paid $580 million for Myspace in July 2005, would retain a minority stake in the site, a person familiar with the matter has said.
The pending acquisition, which could close as early as this week, is expected to result in another round of layoffs at Myspace — as many as half the Beverly Hills company’s remaining 500 employees. Myspace laid off 500 people in January.
Names of other potential bidders have recently surfaced, including Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, and an investor group that was courting a personal investment from Activision Blizzard Inc.Chief Executive Bobby Kotick. But they have fallen to the background in discussions for now, as new front-runners emerged, said people with knowledge of the matter.
Specific Media of Irvine was founded in 1999 by Tim Vanderhook and his brothers, Chris and Russell. The company helps brands buy ads online, on mobile devices and on Internet-connected TVs. The online ad network has flown under the radar but counts among its senior executives a Myspace veteran, Jason Knapp. He previously worked for the Fox Audience Network, the online advertising unit of News Corp.
A spokeswoman for Specific Media declined to comment.
The private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, which is based in San Francisco, has about $9 billion under management and has been an active investor in the consumer sector. Over the last five years, it has invested in or acquired more than 20 brands, including Herbalife, Eddie Bauer and Romano’s Macaroni Grill.
A Golden Gate Capital spokesman also offered no comment.
It is unclear what Specific Media or Golden Gate Capital would do to turn around the struggling Myspace, which has hemorrhaged millions of users and, not coincidentally, advertising revenue.
After peaking at 76.3 million users in October 2008, Myspace’s monthly visitors fell to 35 million in May, according to ComScore Digital Analytix. Researcher EMarketer projects the site’s ad revenue at $184 million this year, down from $470 million in 2009.
On Tuesday, the website AllThingsDigital first reported the finalist bidders and the scope of the next wave of layoffs.

http://world.brightbridgewealthmanagement-mag.com/?tag=bidding-for-myspace-comes-down-to-two-suitors

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Bidding for Myspace comes down to two suitors

 July 10th, 2011 |  Author: Brightbridge Wealth Management Online Magazine

By Dawn C. Chmielewski

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-myspace-20110629,0,5533635.story

Orange County advertising network Specific Media and Bay Area private equity firm Golden Gate Capital are finalists in the bidding for struggling social network Myspace, people familiar with the matter confirmed.
News Corp. had hoped the once-dominant Myspace would fetch as much as $100 million, but bidding is in the range of $20 million to $30 million in cash and stock, said the people, who declined to be identified because talks are confidential. The media giant, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and paid $580 million for Myspace in July 2005, would retain a minority stake in the site, a person familiar with the matter has said.
The pending acquisition, which could close as early as this week, is expected to result in another round of layoffs at Myspace — as many as half the Beverly Hills company’s remaining 500 employees. Myspace laid off 500 people in January.
Names of other potential bidders have recently surfaced, including Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, and an investor group that was courting a personal investment from Activision Blizzard Inc.Chief Executive Bobby Kotick. But they have fallen to the background in discussions for now, as new front-runners emerged, said people with knowledge of the matter.
Specific Media of Irvine was founded in 1999 by Tim Vanderhook and his brothers, Chris and Russell. The company helps brands buy ads online, on mobile devices and on Internet-connected TVs. The online ad network has flown under the radar but counts among its senior executives a Myspace veteran, Jason Knapp. He previously worked for the Fox Audience Network, the online advertising unit of News Corp.
A spokeswoman for Specific Media declined to comment.
The private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, which is based in San Francisco, has about $9 billion under management and has been an active investor in the consumer sector. Over the last five years, it has invested in or acquired more than 20 brands, including Herbalife, Eddie Bauer and Romano’s Macaroni Grill.
A Golden Gate Capital spokesman also offered no comment.
It is unclear what Specific Media or Golden Gate Capital would do to turn around the struggling Myspace, which has hemorrhaged millions of users and, not coincidentally, advertising revenue.
After peaking at 76.3 million users in October 2008, Myspace’s monthly visitors fell to 35 million in May, according to ComScore Digital Analytix. Researcher EMarketer projects the site’s ad revenue at $184 million this year, down from $470 million in 2009.
On Tuesday, the website AllThingsDigital first reported the finalist bidders and the scope of the next wave of layoffs.

Posts Tagged ‘Brightbridge Wealth Management Financial and Investment Advice’

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Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Opinion: What costs trillions and kills the economy?

 July 20th, 2011 |  Author: Brightbridge Wealth Management Online Magazine

http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_1e237d66-ae68-11e0-8412-001cc4c002e0.html

Nobel Laureate in Economics, F. A. Hayek, fought totalitarianism and communism, and from beyond the grave he is taking on a new foe – political bureaucracies.

Hayek – an economist whose theories inspired George Orwell to write his epic book 1984 and whom many credit for helping to bring down the Iron Curtain through his work as an economist — is now delivering a message from beyond the grave about the demise of the U.S. economy. In an interview that took place before Hayek’s death in 1992, he warns against how big government and the growth of the civil service have the potential to doom the American economy.

Kenneth J. Gerbino, CEO of an investment management company and founder and chairman of the 1980 reform advocacy group the American Economic Council, uncovered the interview that is the centerpiece of the new documentary film The Hayek Prophecies (www.thehayekprophecies.com). In it, Hayek decries the growth of the civil service as the poison pill that could put the country in a stagnant or slow growth mode with inefficiencies and waste.

“Hayek believed that the swelling of the civil service would grow government to such an unwieldy size that it would become an unsustainable beast, dragging down the government and the economy because of its endless hunger,” said Gerbino, also producer of the film.

There are currently 2,392 bills working their way through the House and 1,291 bills in the Senate. Besides the $20-30 billion in pork in these bills there will be more government agencies, bureaus and departments created to administer and regulate any new laws that are passed. They will then further complicate and slow down the real economy. More regulations and regulators are being added to the budget every year.

The government should be dismantling agencies and downsizing and allowing the people of this country to flourish by allowing them, not the government, to spend their money.

“Tax money going toward social security should not go toward hiring more people to inhabit more government jobs,” he said. “Taxes should be reduced giving elderly people money to buy food and pay rent. Because of the thousands of new regulations to various laws passed every year, the bureaucracy to administer these regulations and guidelines waste hundreds of billions per year.”

The Heritage Foundation reported the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that current reports of wasteful duplication include 342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 safe water programs. Gerbino states that most of these agencies probably could be consolidated into three or four agencies eliminating overlapping work and reducing employed civil servants by 30-40%. Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties all for the civil servants.

The civil service has created its own perpetual motion and continues to expand, costing taxpayers more money but in many ways costing private enterprise untold legal and accounting costs to comply with regulations many of which are not needed. These costs are then passed on to consumers. The civil service expansion defeats the purpose of actually shrinking government, which makes the political call for smaller government nothing more than a punch line to a bad joke. “If our leaders really want to reduce the size of government, they should listen to Hayek and start with the civil service.”

About Kenneth Gerbino
Kenneth Gerbino is head of Kenneth J. Gerbino & Company, an investment management firm now in its 37th year. The company manages private equity accounts and the Gerbino Gold Group, LLC, a private hedge fund that invests in precious metal mining stocks. Ken is advisor to the publicly traded Precious Capital Global Metals & Mining Fund traded on the Zurich Stock Exchange. Ken was the founder and Chairman of the American Economic Council (AEC), a nationwide economic reform group that was credited with the passage of the United States Gold Coin Act of 1984, which established the United States Gold Eagle coin. AEC seminars included participation by Alan Greenspan, Noble Laureate F. A. Hayek and Robert Bleiberg, ex-Editor-in-Chief of Barron’s.

Posts Tagged ‘BofA settles on mortgage repurchase claims’

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Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: BofA settles on mortgage repurchase claims

 July 11th, 2011 |  Author: Brightbridge Wealth Management Online Magazine

by Brenton Cordeiro

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-bankofamerica-mortgages-idUSTRE75R7I420110629

A Bank of America sign is displayed outside a branch in Tucson, Arizona in this January 21, 2011 file photo. Bank of America Corp is close to a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims from a group of powerful investors that lost money on mortgage-backed securities, a person familiar with the matter said on June 28, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Joshua Lott/Files

Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:17am EDT

(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp settled nearly all of the claims related to the legacy Countrywide-issued first-lien residential mortgage-backed securitization (RMBS) repurchase exposure for $8.5 billion in cash .
The largest U.S. bank by assets said it intends to record an additional $5.5 billion provision to its representations and warranties liability for both Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) and non-GSE exposures in the second quarter of 2011.
On Tuesday Reuters reported that Bank of America was close to a settlement agreement with a group of powerful group of investors that lost money on mortgage-backed securities.