UPDATE 2-Coca-Cola Q3 profit beats Street by a penny
* North American volume up 1 pct ex licensed brands* Shares down 20 cents in premarket tradingOct 18 (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co reported a quarterly
profit on Tuesday that slightly beat Wall Street estimates, as
sales increased worldwide.The world’s largest soft-drink maker, whose brands range
from Sprite to Minute Maid and Powerade, said net income was
$2.22 billion, or 95 cents per share in the third quarter, up
from $2.06 billion, or 88 cents per share, a year earlier.Excluding items, earnings were $1.03 per share. On that
basis, analysts on average were expecting $1.02 per share,
according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.Revenue jumped 45 percent to $12.25 billion, boosted by
last year’s acquisition of its North American bottling
operations, price increases and a 5 percentage-point currency
benefit. Analysts expected revenue of $12.01 billion.Worldwide volume rose 5 percent. Volume in North America
also rose 5 percent, helped by the addition of new
cross-licensed brands such as Dr Pepper. Excluding those
brands, North American volume rose 1 percent.Volume increased 7 percent in Latin America, 2 percent in
Europe, 7 percent in the Eurasia and Africa segment and 6
percent in the Pacific region.Coca-Cola shares fell 20 cents to $66.80 in premarket
trading.
TEXT-Fitch:No immediate rtg impact on AyT Unicaja Financiacion 1, FTA
Fitch understands that the transaction documentation
specifies that remedial actions have to be taken by the
respective counterparty upon a downgrade below ‘A’ or ‘F1’.
Fitch’s SF counterparty criteria indicates a minimum rating
threshold of ‘A’/’F1’ for notes rated above ‘A+’ and entities on
RWN are considered one notch below their Issuer Default Rating
(IDR) for eligibility purposes. The agency has been informed by
Ahorro y Titulizacion SGFT (AyT) that remedial actions will be
implemented if the formal triggers within the documentation are
breached. Moreover, as the circumstances of the merger do not
raise imminent credit concerns, Fitch is not taking immediate
rating actions on SF transactions with Unicaja as transaction
counterparty.If Unicaja’s IDRs are downgraded, the agency would expect
swift implementation of mitigants to address the counterparty
risk.Unicaja is the account bank, paying agent and swap
counterparty for AyT Unicaja Financiacion 1, FTA.
Obama recruits more big cash donors for re-election
At least forty-one people have raised at least half a million dollars for the president, compared to 27 in Obama’s first report, according to an analysis of campaign data released on Friday.The big donors, known as “bundlers,” are typically well-connected people who pledge to gather tens of thousands of dollars for a candidateFormer Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine and Dreamworks Animation chief executive executive Jeffrey Katzenberg are on Obama’s elite list and raised $500,000 or more.The president’s campaign finance report shows he can still pull in major cash despite a stagnant economy, dipping approval ratings and grumblings among some liberal supporters that he has not done enough for their cause.While still keeping ties to his famed small donor operation, Obama is relying heavily on major donors early on to finance a campaign that is likely to break records in spending, according to Anthony Corrado, a campaign finance expert at Colby College.”The emphasis has been on doing larger dollar fundraising events particularly asking for $2,500,” Corrado said. “Events like this help him to raise substantial amounts of money for the campaign allowing him to exceed his pace for 2007.”Obama and the Democratic National Committee have raised more than $150 million so far for his bid for a second term, far outstripping Obama’s Republican rivals.DOLLARS = VOTES?But fundraising prowess doesn’t guarantee victory for the incumbent, who is fighting for re-election amid a economic stagnation and high unemployment.Opinion polls show that Obama will have a tough time winning re-election next year. A Gallup poll released on Friday showed that U.S. registered voters, by 46 percent to 38 percent, are more likely to vote for an unnamed Republican presidential candidate than for Obama in 2012.Bundlers raised about a third of Obama’s warchest so far.Earlier on Friday, Republican Mitt Romney posted $14 million for the quarter, second to fellow Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry’s $17 million. Obama’s comparable fundraising figure for the three months was $43 million.Obama voluntarily releases a list of bundlers. No other major candidate has done so.The president regularly brings in more than $1 million in a single evening of fundraising, as supporters donate the legal maximum of $35,800 to his campaign and the Democratic party for the chance to have dinner and take a picture with the president.UBS executive Robert Wolf and hedge fund executive Orin Kramer are also big Obama fundraisers.At least 40 percent of all the money raised by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee last quarter came from those giving in increments of $200 or less.The Obama campaign has been touting its connections to mainstream Americans who send smaller checks, calling itself a grassroots effort.”They are still doing well with small donors,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.The campaign said that in the third quarter about 600,000 people donated to the campaign.Much has been made of dipping support among Wall Street for Obama. Some financial executives, including hedge fund managers, have complained about Obama’s tax and financial regulation policies and his comments about the wealthy, at times calling them “fat cats.”In the second quarter, more Wall Street money did flow to Romney, who has deep ties there. Still, Obama boosted the number of bundlers with Wall Street ties in that period.
UPDATE 1-S&P cuts BNP Paribas, sees French bank sector risks
S&P cut BNP Paribas’ long-term credit rating to AA-minus
from AA as it revised France’s banking industry country risk
assessment, or BICRA, to Group 2 from the lower-risk Group 1.”We see weaker economic prospects for Europe, including the
peripheral countries to which some French banks are
significantly exposed,” S&P said in a statement. “We expect
lower earnings due to this more difficult environment and
higher funding costs.”The ratings agency, which downgraded 10 Spanish banks two
days ago, including giants Santander and BBVA, said it believes
French banks will increase their capital ratios by 2013.”But until then we are placing more emphasis on their
currently moderate capital positions in our ratings,” it said.Despite that, S&P affirmed the ratings of the other four
largest French banks — BPCE, Credit Agricole , Credit
Mutuel and Societe Generale — saying it expects
extraordinary government support for them.The outlook on all five banks is stable, S&P said.
DIARY- Spain corporate events
Spain main eventsEuropean corporate eventsDate GMT Company Name RIC Event————————————————————————21/10 Bankinter Q325/10 Enagas Q325/10 Enagas CONFCALL26/10 BBVA Q326/10 BBVA CONFCALL26/10 Ebro Foods Q326/10 Mapfre Q326/10 Mapfre CONFCALL27/10 Abertis Q327/10 Abertis CONFCALL27/10 Acerinox Q327/10 Banco Sabadell Q327/10 Banco Santander Q327/10 Banco Santander CONFCALL27/10 Ferrovial Q327/10 Iberdrola Q328/10 Banco Popular Q304/11 IAG Q304/11 IAG TRAFFIC08/11 Gas Natural Q310/11 Gamesa Q310/11 Indra Q310/11 Repsol Q310/11 Telefonica Q3————————————————————————Event types:Full Year = Full year resultsQ1, Q2, Q3, Q4 = Quarterly resultsANALYSTS = Analysts’ meetingsAVCG = Asset value and capital gain figuresNEWSCONF = News conferenceSHAREHOLDER = Shareholder meetingCONFCALL = Conference callTRAFFIC = Traffic figuresBOARD = Board meeting
FEATURE-Epic bank heist exposes Brazil’s security flaws
* Crime a big part of Brazil’s competitiveness problemBy Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Brian Winter and Bruno
MarfinatiSAO PAULO, Oct 13 (Reuters) - It was around midnight on a
Saturday when a group of men in gray overalls calmly strolled
into a bank on Brazil’s equivalent of Wall Street, waved to the
guard and said they were there to fix the alarm.More than 10 hours later, they had pulled off one of
Brazil’s biggest bank heists — emptying out more than 100
safe-deposit boxes for a multimillion-dollar bounty of rubies,
Colombian emeralds, antique Rolex watches and cash.No alarms went off, and the guards offered no resistance.
The thieves were so relaxed, in fact, that they reportedly
ordered fast food and then left the wrappers behind with their
tools: a set of drills, a blowtorch and a chain saw.The Aug. 27 robbery at the Itau Unibanco bank on
Sao Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, and the inept investigation that
followed, highlight the security challenges still facing
Brazil. Despite considerable progress in some areas, crime
remains a major drag on the economy, and it is arguably one of
the biggest obstacles standing between Brazil and its dream of
attaining rich-world status in the coming decade.The economic consequences of Brazil’s crime problem can be
seen everywhere — from pockets of poverty that have so far
been untouched by a long economic boom, to less obvious areas
like a long slump in Brazilian manufacturing.One of the first things visitors notice in big Brazilian
cities is the astounding number of private guards in suits
keeping watch at hotels, restaurants, apartment buildings —
virtually any place where there’s money.The costs are massive. All told, Brazilians spend about as
much every year on private security — roughly $8 billion — as
the U.S. government spent on security contractors such as
Blackwater during the first four years of the Iraq war
combined, according to data from Brazil’s biggest private
guards’ union and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office.There are also less obvious security-related expenditures,
such as high insurance premiums. Executives in Sao Paulo,
Brazil’s business capital, have spent an untold fortune on one
of the world’s largest fleets of helicopters and armored cars
as they try to evade assaults.Even the city’s notorious traffic, which costs billions of
dollars a year in lost productivity, is partly a consequence of
crime, as people who are too scared to take public transport
choose to spend hours a day in their cars instead.Add all that up, and security is right there with high
taxes and heavy bureaucracy as one of the biggest elements in
the so-called “Brazil cost” — the high operating expenses that
make Brazilian goods so expensive compared to other countries.Officials will likely have to get a better handle on the
problem if President Dilma Rousseff is to fulfill her goal of
making Brazil a middle-class country by 2020.”The trend is positive … but there’s an enormous amount
of work still to be done, and the cost to the economy in the
meantime is substantial,” says Geert Aalbers, general manager
for Brazil for Control Risks, a security consultancy.FALLING MURDER RATES A HOPEFUL SIGNIt’s hard to tell which was scarier — the Itau Unibanco
heist itself, or the investigation that followed.For reasons that are unclear, police did not begin their
investigation until about a week after the robbery, a source
close to the probe told Reuters on condition of anonymity.The two guards inside the bank were not interviewed by
police until 11 days after the heist, the source said.One of the 12 or so robbers has since been caught. Yet that
has done little to quell speculation in Brazilian media that
police were somehow involved with the heist — especially given
the eerie confidence with which the robbers acted.Marcos Carneiro, a top official for the city’s civil
police, admitted the probe had been plagued by “operational
flaws” but denied police involvement in the crime.Looking beyond the Itau Unibanco case, Sao Paulo officials
acknowledge problems but also highlight major advances —
namely murders, which are down 75 percent in the last decade.At 9.9 per 100,000 people, Sao Paulo’s murder rate now
compares favorably to many big U.S. cities such as New Orleans
(51.7), Washington, D.C (24.0), and Houston (12.6).Antonio Ferreira Pinto, the public security chief for Sao
Paulo state, attributes the improvement to better technology,
bigger police budgets and civic policies that reduce crime,
such as early closing times for bars in troubled districts.”Our big priority since the 1990s has been murder, and we
needed to focus on that above all,” Ferreira Pinto said. “Our
next priority is property crime, without a doubt.”Sao Paulo is clearly safer than it was a decade ago. The
evidence is not just in data but in street scenes: a commuter
train full of people fidgeting with their iPhones, middle-class
revelers walking late at night downtown, and other glimpses of
normal urban life that were hard to find not so long ago.Nationwide, the number of bank robberies has actually
plummeted in the past decade — from about 3,000 a year to just
343 in 2010, according to Brazil’s main banking federation.Security progress has been even more dramatic in certain
areas of Rio de Janeiro, where the murder rate has also fallen,
and banks and other companies are opening up shop in troubled
neighborhoods for the first time.Helping matters further: Brazil’s robust economy, which has
lifted 40 million people from poverty in the past decade,
reducing social inequality and unemployment.”Things are slowly improving, especially in the biggest
cities,” said Nivio Nascimento, an official in the Brazil
office for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or
UNODC. “For the first time, you have an alignment between
levels of government that have made (crime) a priority.”POLICE “DON’T HAVE THE RESOURCES”Despite the progress, business leaders say they see no end
in sight to their decades-old arms race against crime.The reason: While the number of crimes has fallen in some
areas, those that do occur are getting more sophisticated —
and are more likely to target high-value assets, as the Itau
Unibanco assault shows.When police crack down on one kind of offense, crime
syndicates simply move on to a new, more vulnerable target. In
Sao Paulo, it seems like a different crime comes into fashion
with every month: February saw a wave of assaults on apartment
blocks, June saw restaurants fall victim, and now it’s banks.Meanwhile, officials are discovering that economic growth
can often fuel crime rather than stopping it. In parts of
Brazil where the economy is booming but law enforcement is
weak, such as the northeast, murders and assaults have soared.”We don’t see anything that would allow us to reduce our
(security) costs, and I’m not optimistic,” said Abram Szajman,
president of the Fecomercio business association in Sao Paulo.”The authorities simply don’t have the resources to deal
with this problem,” he added.Ferreira Pinto, the Sao Paulo security chief, doesn’t
dispute that. “We have our limitations, companies are aware of
them, and they end up taking care of themselves,” he admitted.The UNODC’s Nascimento says that Brazil could make inroads
by focusing more on border enforcement to slow the flow of
drugs. He also said that improvements to the justice system,
including better enforcement of minor crimes, could prove
effective against both petty thieves and organized crime.”They need to remember that it was tax evasion that got Al
Capone,” Nascimento said with a laugh.Yet the outlook for game-changing reforms under Rousseff’s
administration is bleak. A government official told Reuters
that Rousseff is “concerned” about the recent security problems
but sees crime as primarily an issue for states and municipal
governments — a stance echoed by her predecessors.”I think we’re 20 or 30 years away from any serious
improvement,” Szajman said. “It will require education … a
change in mentality. There’s no guarantee of success.”
Britain’s O2 tests Skype-style free VoIP calls
The service, called O2 Connect, will initially be available
on Apple and Google’s Android smartphones to
1,000 customers, with a view to launching a commercial service
next year, Telefonica-owned O2 said on Wednesday.”This trial will allow us to explore the potential of
delivering VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services to
customers,” said Richard Porter, O2’s head of consumer products.The company said that in a commercial product, some parts of
the O2 Connect service would be included within existing
pricing, while others would be sold as extras.Internet protocol services, typified by Skype, which
Microsoft is buying for $8.5 billion, offer free voice
and video calls routed over Internet networks.O2 said the service would not need any additional log-ins
and would not require the receiver of the call to be signed up,
both of which were key advantages over existing VoIP services.Analysts at Fitch said the plan highlighted a challenge for
network operators: overcoming the commoditisation of voice calls
— a process that was being facilitated by declines in the rates
mobile operators charge one another for connecting calls.Damien Chew, senior director in Fitch’s TMT team, said: “A
key barrier to free voice at present is mobile termination
rates, which remain high compared to landline rates.”“However, regulatory pressure has and will continue to drive
these rates down. The lower they go, the more attractive free
voice as a loss leader becomes to a variety of market players,
beyond just Internet call companies. This will translate into
more downward pressure on voice prices.”Fitch said the product could be a brand differentiator, and
any negative price implications would be further mitigated by
the practice of bundling voice, SMS and data for the UK’s
post-paid customers.
New app uses brainwaves to track sleep quality
Called Sleep Manager, the app synchronizes with a headset that measures brain activity, eye movement and other signals in light, deep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.”The thing about sleep is that it’s not just about how much you get - it’s about the quality of your sleep,” said Ben Rubin, co-founder of Zeo, which makes the app.”In general, you want to optimize to get as much REM and deep sleep as possible.”A soft-sensor headband measures brainwave activity, muscle tone and eye movements, the same signals that would be taken by a professional sleep lab, but at a consumer level.The signals are relayed through Bluetooth to the user’s iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone and uploaded to Zeo’s website.Rubin said that sleep tracking is only the beginning. After benchmarking sleep quality, Zeo uses this information to coach the user’s sleep habits.Studies have shown that when people wake up during the light sleep phase they are more refreshed, so the app has the ability to rouse users while in this state.It also syncs with other apps such as RunKeeper, a running application, and DailyBurn, a nutrition planning app, to allow users to see how their sleep quality relates to their fitness and diets.But not everyone is convinced that Zeo can provide accurate sleep data.Rubin agrees there are limitations to the measurements that can be done but he said the app comes close to replicating a sleep lab.”If you have two experts in a sleep lab scoring the same record, they agree with each other about 83 percent of the time,” said Rubin. “Zeo agrees with those guys about 75 percent of the time. So we’re about 7/8th as accurate as a full sleep lab,” he added.The company has an in-house sleep expert on their team, as well as an advisory board made up of sleep experts from Harvard University and the University of Colorado Bolder.
