New IBM Business Integration Software Helps Enterprises Accelerate Adoption of Social Business, Cloud and Mobile Technologies - Yahoo Finance
LAS VEGAS, May 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled a range of new business integration software capabilities designed to help organizations quickly begin incorporating the collaborative and intelligent capabilities of social media, mobile computing and cloud computing into their enterprise applications. (#IBMimpact)
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO )
The cornerstone of enabling enterprises to embrace these critical technologies is the new version of IBM WebSphere Application Server. The fastest application server on the market, WebSphere Application Server now provides clients with new flexibility for embedded deployments and is ready for cloud with built in virtualization. This new offering provides the software platform that today powers more than 100,000 clients worldwide.
Complementing WebSphere Application Server is a range of new integration software offerings including:
- IBM Business Process Manager – Combines new capabilities around social, collaboration, governance and mobile to dramatically improve the way work is done. This allows organizations to gain visibility in the ways they change, manage, measure and improve the processes that run their business.
- IBM Operational Decision Management – Speeds and simplifies the way that organizations manage the business rules that control a wide range of decisions across business processes and applications. The new "social media" style user interface provides an intuitive environment for collaboration and simplifies searching, viewing and making rule changes.
- IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Live Web Application Programming Interface (API) Services – Allows companies to extend their services to support the emerging community of developers who are building new social, mobile and cloud applications. This new purpose-built offering provides a comprehensive solution to deliver, socialize and manage business API assets.
The Ottawa Hospital Turns to IBM to Improve Patient Care
One client – The Ottawa Hospital has already begun testing how these new software and services from IBM can dramatically change their business model. Working with IBM, they are building a new system that improves the quality of patient care and helps them to better manage the flow of patients throughout the hospital.
Recently, the hospital had seen a tremendous increase in patients, resulting in higher occupancy rates and ultimately, overcrowding. Additionally, the patients being admitted had complicated and acute symptoms, placing a greater strain on the need for coordinated healthcare delivery. The IBM system provides extensive patient information and hospital resource availability to the clinical staff, via mobile device, at the point of care – speeding both admission and treatment.
"Physicians should be focused on patient care, not be tied up doing lower value activity, like calling for consults or trying to negotiate admission for a patient," said Dale Potter, Senior Vice President & CIO at The Ottawa Hospital. "The concept behind our new system from IBM is that we are able to help our staff have one consolidated view on important data and processes, getting the right information to physicians at the right time."
For example, the attending physician can send an electronic request to the patient's physician for clarification on past diagnosis. The patient's doctor receives the consultation request immediately on their most accessible device – a tablet, smart phone or a computer. They respond directly to the specific consult questions electronically, so the attending physician can correctly diagnose the patient.
The new system builds upon IBM's expertise in the area of Business Process Management (BPM), Operational Decision Management and analytics, and is critical to helping the hospital rethink the manner in which it utilizes its IT infrastructure in order to cut across functional silos and better coordinate care.
A Decade of Leadership
IBM has been the overall marketshare leader in middleware software for eleven consecutive years. In fact, IBM now commands 32.1 percent market share and has extended its lead to nearly double that of its closest competitor. (1)
Key to WebSphere's success within the middleware segment is IBM's continued investment in product performance, a commitment that has once again resulted in industry leading benchmarks. In the first test of its recently announced WebSphere Application Server v8.5, IBM was named world leader in middleware performance as measured by SPECjEnterprise 2010 in EjOPS/processor core which measures efficiency of middleware software servers. Based upon the latest industry standard benchmark results, IBM's middleware software is 16 percent faster than any other vendor's middleware software on equivalent hardware. (2)
These new capabilities are on display at this year's IMPACT conference, which features more than 8,500 attendees and hundreds of client testimonials, presentations, workshops and product demos. For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/37590.wss
For more information on how IBM is helping clients and partners make smarter, faster decisions and increase their business, visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet
(1) Gartner, Inc., Market Share: All Software Markets, Worldwide, 2011, March 29, 2012
(2) SPEC and SPECjEnterprise 2010 are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.
Results from www.spec.org as of 04/29/2012 Oracle Sun Blade X6270 M2 - 452.285 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS/core (equivalent hardware to world record result), Oracle Sun Fire X4170 M3 - 519.386 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS/core (Oracle's best SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS/core result so far). IBM HS 22 Blade - 524.621 SPECjEnterprise2010 EjOPS/core (world record SPECjEnterprise2010 EJOPS/core result)
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, WebSphere, SmartSOA, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
All other company, product or service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of others. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Reseller prices may vary.
Big Data Equals Big Business Opportunity Say Global IT and Business Professionals - Yahoo Finance
INFORMATICA WORLD, LAS VEGAS, Nevada, May 14, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- By a greater than two-to-one margin, organizations today view big data primarily as a business opportunity rather than an IT challenge and are moving quickly to do something about it, according to a recent global survey of almost 600 IT and business professionals conducted by Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA - News), the world's number one independent provider of data integration software.
Designed to assess the state of big data projects and understand big data strategies, the survey reveals an aggressive move on the part of organizations to master big data for business advantage, with the majority of enterprises, nearly 70 percent, now considering (44 percent), planning (22 percent), testing (13 percent) or running (20 percent) big data projects.
The complete survey report entitled, Balancing Opportunity and Risk in Big Data, is available for download.
The Multiple Facets of Big Data
The new survey reveals the diversity of big data and its breadth of opportunities and challenges. When asked which aspects of big data are relevant to their organization, most respondents cite the management of growing transaction volumes (74 percent), indicating there are still significant challenges even in the more traditional enterprise data realm. But also of relevance are new technologies such as Hadoop and NoSQL (46 percent) for efficiently processing big data. Meanwhile, the management of big interaction data - including social media data (35 percent), mobile device data (31 percent) and machine-generated data (22 percent) - is very much rising in relevance due to the insights, efficiencies and customer engagement these new data types can help drive.
Many Eyes on Many Prizes
What do organizations intend to get from their big data efforts? A wide variety of benefits, according to survey respondents. Improving efficiency in business operations by doing more things with more data is the number one business driver (71 percent). This is followed by increasing business agility (51 percent).
But also important is introducing new products and services (50 percent) and attracting and retaining customers (49 percent), as well as enhancing analytics (47 percent), and lowering IT costs through technologies such as Hadoop (38 percent).
Big Data Challenges
Lack of maturity in big data tools is the top challenge (52 percent) that respondents face in big data projects, including a lack of support for reuse and metadata in current Hadoop environments. Lack of support for real-time streaming data is another key challenge (39 percent), followed by concerns over poor data quality (38 percent), data security and privacy (38 percent) and the limited availability of skilled developers to manage big data (35 percent). Other top concerns are overly difficult development for Hadoop (34 percent), and lack of data governance capabilities (32 percent).
"The reality is, big data represents both opportunities and challenges, but those key challenges identified by our survey respondents are set to diminish with the advances introduced in the newest version of the Informatica Platform, Informatica 9.5," said Girish Pancha, chief products officer, Informatica. "Engineered expressly to help organizations maximize their return on big data, Informatica 9.5 will accelerate the 'mainstreaming' of new technologies such as Hadoop, enable existing skill sets to be leveraged for big data projects, and enable organizations to realize the promise of big data while maximizing the data's value and reducing its costs."
Tweet this: New @InformaticaCorp #bigdata survey http://bit.ly/Lh2aTI: 70% of Organizations Considering, Planning or Running Big Data Projects
About Informatica
Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA - News) is the world's number one independent provider of data integrationsoftware. Organizations around the world rely on Informatica for maximizing return on data to drive their top business imperatives. Worldwide, nearly 5,000 enterprises depend on Informatica to fully leverage their information assets residing on-premise, in the Cloud and across social networks. For more information, call +1 650-385-5000 (1-800-653-3871 in the U.S.), or visit INFA - News)">www.informatica.com. Connect with Informatica at http://www.facebook.com/InformaticaCorporation, http://www.linkedin.com/company/informatica and http://twitter.com/InformaticaCorp.
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Note: Informatica, Informatica Platform, Informatica 9.5 and PowerCenter are trademarks or registered trademarks of Informatica Corporation in the United States and in jurisdictions throughout the world. All other company and product names may be trade names or trademarks of their respective owners.
Making Money from Gold as a Personal Dealer with the “Gold Profit Formula” - YAHOO!
Novices are making money from gold with Absolute Wealth's new gold dealing training course.
Austin, TX (PRWEB) May 21, 2012
Making money from gold doesn’t have to involve a brick and mortar business, or a pawn shop mentality of cheating the customer. Any one, no matter how much or how little experience they have, can become a successful gold dealer and earn more money than they could have imagined, according to a recent AbsoluteWealth.com article. Thanks to outrageously high gold prices, the business is booming and people are jumping at the chance to dump their unwanted precious metals, the article said.Sellers are earning good money, and buyers are turning their items in to refiners for even better money, said the article. Absolute Wealth has recognized the growing interest in gold dealing, and has accessed one of the most experienced and knowledgeable minds the jewelry and precious metal business has ever seen.
That expert shares his story and his advice in the “Gold Profit Formula,” the new training course that molds people into legitimate gold dealers. It teaches about the types of gold, silver, and other pieces of jewelry that get good money and shouldn’t be treated as scrap. It also teaches how scrap (whether it’s old, broken, or just not high-quality) can be turned into major profits through the refining process. It’s basically an easy gold guide that’s jammed with valuable information, the online article said.
It’s all about learning the value of precious metals and offering accordingly. The tools used to determine weight, size, and financial worth are explained using video trainings and a full-scale manual. “Gold Profit Formula” also guides people in the process of confidently connecting and communicating with potential customers to make them comfortable enough to conduct business. Sometimes the sleaziness of a “Cash for Gold” company creeps people out, said the article. If dealers act in a professional and fair way, they’ll see business pick up fast and have more customers than they could have ever expected.
Absolute Wealth is an expert team of real investors and advisors devoted to identifying winning strategies for exceptional returns. Members subscribe to the Independent Wealth Alliance for professional investment analysis and recommendations on the latest trends and progressions. For more information and subscription instructions, visit AbsoluteWealth.com.
Folks are eager to access the value of their gold, giving dealers the opportunity for real income generation. This is a chance to gain a significant amount of extra cash with the “Gold Profit Formula.” The article said it’s the most complete source of information on making money from gold, and it’s available now from Absolute Wealth.
Paul Norwine
AW Research Publishing, LLC
512-892-3022
Email Information
Financial Markets Stabilize but Downsides Remain - NASDAQ
(IBTimes) - Financial markets stabilized in Asian session on Monday after the G-8 meeting. However, the actual macroeconomic outlook and the situation in the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis have not changed much from previous week. Therefore, it is reasonable to anticipate more downsides after the recovery. In China, Premier Wen Jaibao was reported of having said that the priority should be given to stimulating growth. This led to anticipations that further reduction in RRR will come.
The focus of the G-8 meeting over the weekend was undoubtedly on the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. It was stated in the communiqué that world finance leaders "agree on the importance of a strong and cohesive euro zone for global stability and recovery, and we affirm our interest in Greece remaining in the Eurozone while respecting its commitments". Concerning the global economic outlook, the leaders acknowledged persistence of "significant headwinds" and they pledged to "take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stresses, recognizing that the right measures are not the same for each of us". However, there were no further detailed plans on how to resolve the problems.
In China, Premier Wen Jiabao stated that the government "should continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, while giving more priority to maintaining growth". The comments indicated that the government sees more is needed to be done to stimulate growth. It's expected that the PBOC will implement further RRR cuts following last week's reduction which would inject RMB 400B to the banking system.
Commitments of Traders:
Speculators were mixed towards the energy complex in the week ended May 15. Net length for crude oil futures added +503 contracts to 184 463. Net length for heating oil slipped -3 084 contracts to 10 131 while that for gasoline dropped -2 581 to 71 811. Net short for natural gas futures added +4 349 contracts to 109 424.
Speculators were bearish towards precious metals. Net length for gold futures dipped -9 161 contracts to 114 142 while that for silver declined -1 089 contracts to 11 474 contracts. For PGMs, net length for platinum decreased -1 358 contracts to 14 370 while that for palladium dropped -2 134 to 2 919.
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Original Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/343284/20120521/financial-markets-stabilize-downsides-remain.htm
For more information, go to www.ibtimes.com
Ask SCORE: Figuring out your target market a key to business success - Bellingham Herald
Question: I've been told that I need to do some market research. My business is young and small, and I really don't know much about this. Can you give me some basics?
Answer: Yes, and unless you have tons of money and can afford to market blindly, your best bet is to do some research and find out about your market base. Let's talk about this.
In today's column we'll look into some central concepts of market research; some terms you should know a bit about; several examples of specific market research techniques; and some helpful information sources.
A main objective of market research is to define and identify your "target market." This means: Who are your likely customers or clients? What specific groups of people might be interested in your goods and services? You will use this information to prepare a marketing strategy, which details how you will reach those customers and encourage them to buy.
One extremely important function of market research is that it compels you to direct your attention to the wants and needs of your customers. You can't be focused just on your products and services themselves. Consider this: say you have a unique product, but no sales yet. If you have a product fixation, you'll conclude that it's time to jump right in to advertising and selling it. But hold on. You're looking through the wrong end of the telescope. If you have a market orientation, you will realize that your effort is better spent on finding out who has a "felt need" for the product.
Market research has multiple applications.
• For a new business, it's an essential component - and one of the most important - of your written business plan.
• An existing business, when considering adding a new product or service, needs to know how to best launch it successfully.
• An active, growing business should always be looking at new markets. This could be a different geographic market, like exporting; or a new demographic market, like selling to a younger age group.
• A mature business needs to adapt and refresh its offerings to change with the times.
Data sources are categorized as primary or secondary. Primary data is information you generate. Examples: a customer survey you conduct; a focus group you arrange; a comparative analysis of your competitors' websites. Three big advantages of primary information: it is very current, more specific and can be tailored to your business' particular needs. The main disadvantage is that it costs more than using existing data.
Secondary data is information you get from existing outside sources. Examples: department of revenue sales figures; information from a trade organization about industry trends; business information from one of the library's online databases. Two big advantages of secondary sources are that they are readily available and usually free. The tradeoff is that they may be dated, or too broad geographically to be relevant.
Two data types are: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data is easy to generate: just ask someone a question and note their answer. An example would be a retail store surveying customers about their satisfaction or product preferences. Or, a service business might ask customers to comment on its pricing compared to the competition. It's more conversational than statistical.
Quantitative data is expressed in numbers. This type of research can be simple, like a phone survey of your local market. Example: "About how much would you be willing to pay for [describe your product]?" Or it can be very involved, like the rigorous work a retail chain conducts before choosing a new location.
A major asset for your market research is the local library system. Here's the scoop: the Whatcom County library system has unified. This means that you as a library card holder have access to all of the local (public) and also the academic libraries' resources. These include the system's online databases, many of which are subscription-only and have private information not available on the internet or to the general public.
To start, go to bellinghampubliclibrary.org. For a quick overview of the powerful AtoZ database, click on "Research Tools" tab and then "Premium Content". Click on "AtoZ database" and then the "Intro Videos" tab. In person, the reference desk staff at the central Bellingham branch are skilled and ready to help with your business research; just tell them what you're trying to find out.
For more information, Google "market research tips small business." For a good overview of information sources, go to score.org and enter "market research" in the search box. Also check out
ABOUT SCORE
To learn more about managing cash flow, and other small business matters, contact SCORE, "Counselors to America's Small Business." SCORE is a nonprofit nationwide organization with more than 13,000 volunteer business counselors who provide free, confidential business counseling and low-cost training workshops to small business owners. Call the local SCORE chapter at 360-685-4259 to schedule an appointment. For details about the organization,visit SCORE.org.
Think Like Warren Buffett to Build Your Business: Opinion - CNBC
There are several reasons this is an exceptionally good time to be a small business owner.
The first: The fundamental opportunity to grow a business asset value over time, as opposed to receiving a paycheck over time that cannot be sold.
Just as Warren Buffett views a stock purchase as the acquisition of an “equity bond” with an expanding coupon, a business owner can view the business as a compounding engine in which earnings can be reinvested at potential high rates of return resulting in expanded value over time.
Proof in the Pudding
Typically, three approaches can be used to fix a price tag on a business and prove the expansion of value: the asset-based approach, the comparable market analysis approach and the earnings approach.
Think of the asset-based approach this way: you decide to sell me your lawn care business which is comprised of two assets: a lawn mower and a weed eater. After 10 years of neglect, lack of oil changes, blade sharpening and being tossed in the back of a truck, the equipment is on its last legs. The clientele of the business should not be included in the valuation we decide since most are angry about their half-trimmed yards. The equipment brand new costs $1,500. We settle on $150.
The comparable market analysis approach echoes the method used to sell residential real estate in which the selling prices of comparable homes are adjusted up and down based on superior and inferior qualities; except in our case, we use businesses instead of homes. This approach is useful in valuing non-productive assets such as the 10 acres of land sitting under a cash-flowing donut stand but it lacks the ability to value productive assets.
The earnings approach accommodates for this and uses the accounting net profit with discretionary items and non-cash expenses added back-in. This figure is then divided by a capitalization rate in order to reach a business value. The capitalization rate is equivalent to a required return on investment and can be thought of as the level of perceived risk in the business, ranging anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent for small business. For example, if the donut stand averages $50,000 a year in earnings and we use a capitalization rate of 20 preecent, we arrive at a value of $250,000. ($50,000/20 percent).
This approach is most similar to how Warren Buffett values the future share price of a business, projecting forward a future value and rate of return based on earnings per share and growth.
Increasing Return During a Downturn
Another good reason to be a small business owner today is found in the opportunity to increase returns as a result of cheaper inputs. Warren Buffett identifies quality businesses with a durable competitive advantage, a strong earnings track record, a high return on equity and the ability to reinvest in the compounding engine. He does not merely look for the discarded cigar butts with one or two puffs left in them. He identifies great companies with a durable competitive advantage and then patiently waits for them to go on sale.
His argument is that if he can buy a company today for $31 a share and it will be worth $80.40 a share at the end of 10 years, then his annual rate of return will be 10 percent. If he can buy the same business for $26 a share, then his return will shoot up to 11.95 percent. In a downturn, great businesses go on sale.
Similarly, the owner of a small business with a durable competitive advantage can purchase cheaper inputs such as labor and materials during a draw-back and increase returns over the long haul.
Typically, bigger fish with solid financials can outlast competition during recessions and price wars. Thus, the survivors of tough economic times, those with durable competitive advantages, can emerge on the other side to find a clearer field, bereft of distracting competition and chock-full of new market-gap opportunity. Good businesses will shine while mediocre businesses will wane.
Help Is On the Way
Additionally, with a federal focus on job creation, new programs are available to assist small business owners, programs such as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act and the Small Business Jobs and Wages Tax Cut.
It’s a great time to be a small business owner because of fundamental, underlying asset building principles, the opportunity to increase returns in a draw-back and the reduced competition. The owner of a small business can increase asset value over time just as Warren Buffett seeks out investments with a clear, underlying ability to expand in value over time.
Adam Brownlee is author of "Building a Small Business Warren Buffet Would Love."
NATO chief sees financial aid for Afghan forces - Bay News 9
(AP) — NATO's secretary-general says he's optimistic that the international community will continue to finance the Afghan security forces.
"This summit is not a pledging conference, but nevertheless a number of countries have announced substantial contributions to the Afghan security forces, so I'm optimistic," Anders Fogh Rasmussen told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
The international community in general has a responsibility and interest in ensuring the Afghan forces take full responsibility for the country's security after 2014 to prevent terrorists from reestablishing safe havens and launching attacks against Europe and the United States, the NATO chief said.
The Afghan security forces are expected to cost about $4.1 billion a year. The Afghan government will pay about $500 million of that, and the rest will come from donors. The NATO summit, which opens in Chicago on Sunday, is not a pledging conference, but there will be much talk about who will pay. About $1.3 billion is expected to come from nations in the NATO coalition other than the United States. Pledges for about a third of that have been announced by Australia and European nations. U.S. taxpayers and some nations outside the military coalition likely will make up the $2.3 billion difference.
President Barack Obama is expected to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the summit's sidelines to discuss planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections and the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban. NATO's plans keep foreign forces in Afghanistan through the 2014 election but withdrawing by 2015.
Fogh Rasmussen pointed to Afghanistan as an example of NATO interests extending beyond the alliance countries' borders.
"We are in Afghanistan to prevent the country from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists, who can use that safe haven as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Europe and North America," he said. "So though territorial defense remains the core task of NATO, we realize that defense of our borders may well start far from our borders in today's world."
As business suffers, David Cameron retreats - Daily Telegraph
Taken together, these two factors deter employers from recruiting new staff and hinder businesses from developing the higher productivity on which sustainable growth depends. And far from making things better, the past decade has seen a steady increase in the level and complexity of employment law. Beecroft’s report would have reduced the amount of regulation in a comprehensive and principled way – and, by doing so, would have introduced new certainty and confidence.
That confidence matters, because businesses are far too short of it at present. British businesses collectively hold about £750 billion in cash. To reach its fiscal targets, the Government needs a steep rise in investment – the rate at which they spend that money. Speaking last week, David Cameron said that he leads “a Government resolutely committed to being on the side of enterprise, entrepreneurs, businesses large and small, wealth creation of all types and descriptions”. To many, that is clearly not the case. A full-blooded Beecroft Review would reassure such people, just as a pale imitation would reinforce their concerns.
Taking a step back, today’s news adds to a sense of unease about what the Coalition is actually trying to achieve. This is a Government that claims to have deregulation at its heart, fired by a Tory belief in free markets and a Lib Dem distrust of central direction. It has a policy to stop the growth in regulation (so-called “One In, One Out”) and to reduce the stock of it (the “Red Tape Challenge”). In general, it is supposed to have rejected an old approach based on more debt and higher state spending, and to be looking for real growth via higher productivity.
Recently, however, we have seen a weakening in the Government’s position. Last autumn, the Chancellor pushed his deficit reduction target from the end of this Parliament into the middle of the next. Last week, the Prime Minister hinted at new borrowing to finance infrastructure – exactly the way that Gordon Brown justified his record spending increases. At the same time, the retreat over the NHS has cast a long shadow over the Coalition’s commitment to public-service reform, and its changes to the planning system are taking much longer than expected.
In recent days, the Prime Minister has urged his European counterparts to take action by saying that the eurozone is “at a crossroads”. He should hold his own Government to account in the same terms. Given the challenges facing the country, it is surprising that he needed an independent report to propose changes to employment law at all. Now that he has it, it will be remarkable if he does not implement it – and then keep up the pressure.
Mr Cameron is right that the country’s basic economic problems are due to poor productivity rather than lack of government action. He will know, however, that the contrary view is growing in popularity (and, indeed, capable of winning elections in other countries). The more his policies focus rigorously and consistently on improving the efficiency of the economy, the more successful they will be.
Andrew Haldenby is director of the independent think tank Reform
Barclays offloads fund management business BGI to BlackRock for $13.5bn - Daily Telegraph
Asked about the windfall he will receive, American-born Mr Diamond explained that he bought shares in BGI at the same time as many other “senior people”. “The way the business has performed over the last six years, driving from $100m a year of profit before tax in 2003 to as high as $1.5bn in 2007 means the returns to employees who bought shares were good. I’ll leave it at that,” said Mr Diamond.
Both he and Mr Varley will join the BlackRock board should the deal - which values BGI at 11.8 times 2008 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) - be approved by shareholders. The sale proceeds would lead to a net gain for Barclays of $8.8bn, raising the bank’s Tier One capital ratio to 8.3pc from 6.7pc.
There remains a slim chance that the deal could be scuppered should a consortium led by CVC Capital Partners – which had originally offered $4.4bn to buy the iShares part of BGI in April - chooses to propose a higher offer for the entire BGI business.
CVC has until June 18 to propose such an offer, with Mr Diamond on Thursday night confirming that it was “pretty clear” that Barclays’ board would accept an offer only for the whole of BGI and not just iShares, which specialises in exchange traded funds.
However, if CVC does not trump BlackRock’s offer, the proposed combination will be recommended by the Barclays board and put to a shareholder vote, which, if successful, will lead to the creation of the renamed BlackRock Global Investors with $2.8 trillion of assets under management.
Mr Diamond went on to admit that the two companies have been talking on-and-off for the last 6 to 7 years, but that although “it wasn’t the right time then, clearly it’s the right time now.”
BlackRock is funding part of the deal through a $2.8bn institutional share offering. Although Mr Fink would not disclose the identity of any of the investors involved, the Sunday Telegraph revealed last week that the Qatar Investment Authority, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Kuwait Investment Authority were all interested in backing BlackRock.
Shares in Barclays, which closed up 16p at 304.5p on Thursday on expectation of the deal’s announcement, are set to rise further when the market opens for business this morning.
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