Monday, January 28, 2008

Fortis Bounces Back after Dresdner report

Fortis jumped to a Five Year high (rose to fifteen percent, before stabilizing at 8.1 percent), after stating that the company will meet all solvency requirements, in spite of the subprime related debt obligations. Petercam analyst Ton Gietman mentioned that this report is comforting, though issued a little late. After taking in the impairments, a profit of Four Billion Euros (approximately USD 5.9 Billion) is expected for the full year.

The company spokesperson said that they were fully on track in implementing the twenty four Billion Euro financing plan for ABN AMRO acquisition. Last year October, Fortis along with Banco Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland announced that their offer of eighty six percent of outstanding ABN AMRO stock was accepted, which resulted in one of the biggest financial transactions ever. Mark Fischer from Royal Bank of Scotland was appointed as the CEO. Banco Santander, with a market capitalization of EUR 88,436 is world's 12th largest financial group.

Fortis has announced the 2009 dates for publication of results, AGM and dividents. Annual results will be available on March ninth 2009. The annual General meeting will take place on twenty ninth April 2009.

Links mentioned in this article : Royal Bank of Scotland , Banco Santander

Sunday, January 27, 2008

More writedowns at Fortis - Dresdner Kleinwort

Dresdner Kleinwort has said that Fortis (Belgium's largest Financial Institution), may announce further writedowns on subprime related assets ( home equity loans and mortgage backed securities ). The repercussion was immediately felt in Japan, where the largest and second largest banks ( Mitsubishi UFJ & Sumitomo Mitsui ) both lost 2.7 percent. The ratings on the stock has been changed to "ADD" (from "BUY").

Fortis ( Chairman : Maurice Lippen, CEO : Jean-Paul Votron ) is among the top twenty financial institutions in Europe with a market cap of Forty Three Billion Euros. The group has presence in over fifty countries and has a workforce of 60000. Fortis has extensive presence in the Benelux area , considered as one of wealthiest in Europe.

Here's an interesting tidbit : Fortis has been in Financial Services for nearly three hundred years and financed United States' puchase of Louisiana from napoleon !!!

Links mentioned in this article : Fortis , Dresdner Kleinwort

Umicore (Belgium) to Join S&P Europe 350 Index



Umicore - a leading name in Zinc and Copper mining businesses, has diversified into recycling precious metals and other materials like Germanium Substrates etc. Germanium substrate is used in Solar Cells on NASA's exploration Rovers. Many of you may remember the Umicar Infinity, which finished second in a gruelling Five day race ( Panasonic World Solar Challenge) from Darwin to Adelaid, Australia. The Umicar Infinity had an array of Solar Cells made up of a layer of Gallium Arsenide, which is placed on top of Germanium Substrate. These are further processed into highly efficient (conversion efficiency of 28.5%) radiation hard solar cells by an American Company - Emcore .

Umicore would be joining the S&P Europe 350 Index from January 29th ( Classified under Materials Sector ).
The S&P Europe 350 Index is a free float Market Cap weighted index which measures the Performance of Equities in seventeen European Markets. This approximate covers about seventy percent of the total Market Cap. This index is part of the S&P Global 1200 [ Base Date : Dec 31, 1997 - Base Value : 1000].
External Sites mentioned in this article : Umicore , Emcore

Belgium and Vietnam sign 5.7 Million Water Deal

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and the Belgium Embassy in Vietnam signed a USD 5.7 Million deal for assessing and managing water resources. The main activities include setting up integrated water resource management institutional framework, developing water resource development plan, an interactive database for seven provinces.

The mission of this project is to increase capacity with the Ministry and it's district bureaus.