NEW YORK | Officials from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association have stated that Greece has not had a ‘credit event’ and credit default swap payments will not be triggered, at least not yet. The body’s decision has reignited the debate over the usefulness of CDS. CDS are a US$32 trillion market, which is more than twice the US gross domestic product and more than twice the national debt. They…
By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | Greek politicians’ sheer incompetence and the stiff resistance of its population to renounce living beyond its means are branded as evidence of that country unavoidable failure. Yet it only shows European leaders’ blindness in grasping how a monetary union should work. Their diagnosis on where the problem laid has proved to be utterly wrong. Obsession about budgetary targets, they knew beforehand to…
NEW YORK | The US are anxious over Greece. Wall Street fell on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its biggest one-day decline this year. Treasury 10-year note yields traded below 2 percent as European leaders work on an eventual €130 billion financial bailout for Athens at their next meeting on February 20. Investors did not hide their worries: “As much as we’d like to ignore Greece and…
NEW YORK | It’s a catastrophe, experts say: about 1.2 million US students drop out every year and this imposes a huge cost on the whole economy. “Many of these schools [with high dropout rates] are in the inner-city and are made up of blacks and Latino students who are not graduating at great rates. This increases the level of poverty, it increases crime, it increases the incarceration rate. 80…
AEW Europe has announced the merger of its three existing logistics funds, creating a €1bn pan-European logistics platform. The new Logistics Fund will own one of the largest logistics investment portfolios in Europe. The logistics market has been undergoing structural change and consolidation in recent years as logistics providers seek to increase market share and geographical coverage. Third party logistics providers and retailers are increasingly seeking to work with fewer partners…
US company Insight Enterprises, a global technology provider of hardware, software and service solutions, has announced that its European operation will acquire Frankfurt-based Inmac, a broad portfolio B2B hardware re-seller based in Germany and Netherlands servicing clients across Western Europe. Inmac’s revenues are approximately $120 million. The transaction is expected to in mid-February. “We are extremely excited about the acquisition of Inmac, which will provide a great team, broad client base…
NEW YORK | While European companies and banks try to forget this annus horribilis, some US financial firms are rubbing their hands: under pressure from regulators, Europeans will have to shed up to $3 trillion in assets over the next 18 months, according to Morgan Stanley. Market dislocation on this side of the Atlantic means also a great occasion for American companies to go shopping. This month the German Commerzbank…
