General Intel.

General Intel.
Kraft hit by exodus of Cadbury executives. Consumer Editor. Published: May 28 2010 03:00. The threat of a brain drain of Cadbury staff from Kraft Foods intensified yesterday as it emerged that five senior executives were quitting the US multinational following its £11.7bn takeover of the UK confectioner.
Mark Reckitt, who was Cadbury's chief strategy officer and who is the most senior executive left from the company within Kraft, is leaving in July. He has been jointly leading the integration with Kraft's Tim Cofer and was the only member of Cadbury to report directly to Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft's chief executive. Kraft confirmed yesterday that Mr Reckitt, who was at Cadbury for more than 20 years, is leaving, having declined to take up a post in the US. He will, however, work for Kraft one day a week as a consultant for Green & Blacks chocolate. Kraft, which this week was rebuked by the UK mergers watchdog after making promises it could not keep during its Cadbury bid, played down Mr Reckitt's departure. "Mark's former strategy role at Cadbury was redundant, and any future senior role at Kraft Foods would entail relocation to Chicago. For various family reasons, Mark is unable to relocate," Kraft said yesterday. "Mark has done a great job and our integration plans are on track. Our first-quarter results demonstrate that we've maintained the momentum in our base businesses as we integrate our operations." Kraft stressed that of 400 leadership positions across the group, 30 per cent had gone to Cadbury staff. "These teams truly represent the best of both companies," it said. Kraft has 11 of the 17 most senior Cadbury executives still in place, despite Mr Reckitt's departure. However, such a high profile departure could be a setback in its effort to galvanise Cadbury staff. "He has a huge profile in the Cadbury organisation and he was a big symbol of Kraft's promise to keep the 'best of both' [in the enlarged group]," said one former Cadbury executive. Others thought to be leaving include: Lee Rolston, global Cadbury brand director; Murray McGowan, global commercial strategy director; Sanjay Purohit, Cadbury's Asia-Pacific head for chocolates and Geoff Whyte, commercial director Cadbury Africa, Middle East. Kraft last night could not confirm the departures. Phil Rumbol, Cadbury's UK marketing director, quit last month.

Spill risks turning into Obama’s Katrina. May 28 2010 03:14. When you are sitting in the White House, you should expect the unexpected. What on April 20 must have looked like a medium-sized irritant – the explosion of the BP oil rig – has steadily escalated to a point where it now has the potential to become “Obama’s Katrina”. Few scenarios terrify the White House more. In addition to New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina blew away what remained of George W. Bush’s credibility. His numbers never recovered. Then Senator Obama described Mr Bush as having handled the disaster with “unconscionable ineptitude”. As Mr Bush found out, once they stick, charges of negligence are very hard to scrape off.
That sorry condition has not yet been reached – and may never be so. Barack Obama is no George W. Bush. But a good measure of how rapidly that concern is escalating is the fact that Mr Obama’s press conference on Thursday was the first to which he had agreed in almost a year. Having avoided the media for so long, Mr Obama then spent an hour raising as many questions as he attempted to answer.
Two things shone through. First, Mr Obama wanted to emphasise that the fight to contain the oil spill has been his number one priority since the day it happened five weeks ago. That is certainly true now. Mr Obama on Thursday described the spill as an “unprecedented disaster”. But it did not seem to be the case a few weeks ago when he described it as a “nationally significant” emergency. “This is what I wake up to in the morning and it is what I go to bed with at night thinking about,” Mr Obama said. He added that his daughter Malia had popped her head round the door on Thursday morning while he was shaving to ask whether he had capped the leak yet. “This has been our highest priority since the crisis occurred,” he told reporters. The second is the growing complexity of the crisis that is unfolding before him. Quite apart from the fact that the public is now beginning to divide the blame between BP and the White House, having initially focused most of its anger on the former, Mr Obama’s fortunes are essentially tied to the skill and competence – or their opposite – of a foreign multinational. Mr Obama may be keeping his “boot on the throat of BP” – a phrase that Ken Salazar, Mr Obama’s increasingly beleaguered interior secretary, used earlier this month. But BP has simultaneously acquired custody over a delicate portion of Mr Obama’s anatomy. Mr Obama and BP are in this together – at least until it is time to wrangle over the size of BP’s economic liability. As Mr Obama made clear again on Thursday, the US government lacks the technical expertise and equipment to plug a deep undersea leak of this nature. The political backwash is also increasingly complex. Just as the oil will continue to wash up on the Gulf coast long after the leak has been plugged, the political ramifications will ripple outwards for months and probably years. Up until the explosion, Mr Obama had been fashioning a delicate bipartisan way ahead to push a climate change bill through the Senate. That compromise was built on Mr Obama’s new found enthusiasm for offshore oil drilling, which was an essential precondition to winning the support of a necessary quota of Republican senators. It was only a month before the disaster that Mr Obama announced his road to Damascus on offshore drilling. While never embracing the Republican chant “drill, baby, drill”, Mr Obama appeared to have conceded enough to have a decent chance of getting a bill through. That possibility is increasingly remote. On Thursday, Mr Obama cancelled or froze many existing licences and extended for six months the ban on new offshore drilling off all US coastlines. Yet he also reassured the people of Louisiana and Mississippi, who are as dependent on the oil industry as they are fearful of this spill, that the US would continue to rely on domestic oil for the foreseeable future. Whichever way you cut it, Mr Obama has a nightmare on his hands – trying to manage an actual environmental disaster and a potential political one.

Former Greek minister says was given money by Siemens. Published: 27th May 2010 22:12:13. A former Greek minister says he was given money by the German electronics giant Siemens.
His statement comes amid an investigation into bribes paid to politicians in return for contracts.
The former Socialist transport minister, Tassos Mantelis, told a parliamentary committee he had accepted the equivalent of 100,000 euros (£116,000, $122,000) in 1998. The minister said the money had been paid as a "campaign donation". The money was paid into a Swiss bank account and Mr Mantelis has been charged with money laundering. The case relates to contracts being granted in the run-up to the Athens Olympics of 2004. Siemens officials are accused in Greece accused of paying politicians and officials at the state telecoms operator OTE to help it get a multi-million-euro contract before the Games. Co-operating
A Siemens spokesman was quoted on the Reuters newsagency saying they were helping with the process.
Speaking from the group's headquarters in Munich, he said: "The authorities came to Siemens and we are fully co-operating." He declined to comment on Mr Mantelis' statements. At the time of the payments to Mr Mantelis, who had responsibility for OTE at the time, Germany was still using the Deutschmark. A second sum, worth around 110,000 euros, was paid into the same account by an unknown donor in 2000.
Greece's Supreme Court on Thursday pressed money laundering charges against Mr Mantelis and banned him from leaving the country. The minister is the latest high-profile Greek to be in the spotlight for wrong-doing with money. Corruption. Earlier this month, a serving minister, who was deputy for tourism, was dismissed over her husband's unpaid taxes. Corruption in Greece has been thrown into the spotlight in recent months, with its poor record on of tax collection and propensity to black market payments seen as one reason for its poor economic health compared with other eurozone countries. The Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, has pledged he will stamp out corruption in his country. Siemens itself though has been embroiled in bribery cases before. In 2008, it paid out 1.3 billion euros ($1.6bn) in penalties and fines as a result of US and German investigations into bribes to foreign officials between 2000 and 2006, making it the biggest scandal in corporate German history.

Russia signs India nuclear deal. Russia has announced it will build 16 nuclear reactors in India as part of defence and energy deals. The long-anticipated nuclear agreement came as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited India. He said nuclear co-operation was one of the most important aspects in the partnership between the two countries which have strong trade ties. Russia's state-owned nuclear company earlier said six of the reactors would be built by 2017. Russia is already building two reactors in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "The agreement sees construction of up to 16 nuclear reactors in three locations," Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, accompanying Mr Putin, said. Russia is competing with French and US firms for contracts to build nuclear power plants in Asia's third-largest economy which is looking to increase its energy supply to sustain rapid economic growth. The increased competition began after India's landmark civilian nuclear deal with the US in 2005 which ended the isolation India had experienced since it tested an atom bomb in 1974. "This is one of our most important and promising areas of co-operation," Mr Putin said in New Delhi on Friday. Coal still accounts for more than 50% of India's energy use - but a substantial expansion of nuclear power reactors is proposed over the next few decades.
Fighter aircraft Over the next decade alone, the contribution of nuclear energy is expected to rise from just 3% to 6% of India's total needs. The two countries have had close links since Soviet times, with India remaining a top buyer of Russian weaponry. However, the relationship faces new challenges, including competition from the West and the growing economic and military might of China. As part of the deals signed during Mr Putin's visit, Russia will refit an aircraft carrier, supply an additional 29 fighter aircraft to India and jointly develop transport aircraft. Russian and Indian officials also discussed boosting bilateral trade, which is currently worth $8bn.

The number of victims of the bombing in Stavropol. BBC Russian. Last Updated: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 05:14 GMT 09:14 MCK. Investigation Committee of the Prosecutor of Russia has described the explosion in the center of Stavropol as a terrorist attack and opened a criminal case under the relevant article of the Criminal Code. According to recent reports, the death toll to seven. In place of killing three, one died on the way to the clinic, and another three died later in hospital. Among the dead - a girl of 12 years. Hospitals Stavropol are more than 30 people injured by the explosion. They are located in regional hospitals, child edge and the fourth city. 16 people are in serious condition. The city declared a collection of donated blood for the victims. "The doctors called to donate blood. Donors and all those who want to help the victims in the terrorist attack in DC, waiting for the urban station of blood transfusion," - pass the local media. The explosion took place at 18:45 local time (14:45 GMT), near the Palace of Culture and Sport in the city center, where a quarter-hour concert was to begin a national dance troupe of Chechnya "Vainakh. According to the Interior Ministry, explosive device detonated capacity of about 200 grams of TNT packed with "striking elements hemispherical shape with a diameter of 6-7 cm and fixed on the visor adjacent building. Suffered mostly spectators en route to representation. None of the artists' Vainakhs "explosion did not hit. Concert canceled. Urban Rescue Service Civil Defense and Emergency Administration of Stavropol has published lists of the six dead and 43 injured in an explosion at the House of Culture of Stavropol, RIA Novosti reports. The updated list among the dead appear Erenkova Svetlana, (born 1969); Isaeva Baguette (1986); Gabartueva Milena (born 1984); Hodzhiva Oksana, 23 years; Trilutskaya 39 years (name tbc) ; Arsandireeva Aziz 12 years. "Appointed forensic examination of the dead, will soon be appointed vzryvotehnicheskaya examination of explosive device", - said the assistant head of UPC RF Stavropol Krai Ekaterina Danilova. According to the preliminary conclusions of experts explosive device "was produced by an improvised manner," was in a box of juice and was powered by radio or by clockwork. " In addition, the agency Interfax, in Stavropol are searching the suspect vehicle, which was near the explosion, and then disappeared. "According to intelligence data, given the orientation to find the car" VAZ-2114 "in which, presumably, there were four. The car was parked near the scene of the explosion and after the IED [improvised explosive device] detonated, fled in an unknown direction "- says a source in law enforcement agencies. Kadyrov, accusing those who do not like the 'stability'
First, criminal proceedings were instituted under Article 105 (murder) and 222 (trafficking in explosives). Later, UPC said criminal case is being investigated under attack. " Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov promised "any help and support to the administration of Stavropol Territory" and blamed the explosion on some "forces" which "does not like the fact that the North Caucasus into a stable region, becoming attractive for domestic and foreign investment for tourism business development . The Governor of Stavropol Territory Valery Gajewski on-site emergency called the explosion "a cruel unprecedented provocation" and linked it with the imminent arrival in the city of the presidential envoy in the North Caucasus Alexander Khloponin. In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, published on Thursday, Khloponin said that the deal with militants in the region is possible without the imposition of the counterterrorist operation. "In fact, the problem is that today in the guise of terrorism and religious extremism within the county are trying to work gangsters organized crime groups engaged in redistribution of property. [...] Today, criminal groups in several republics engaged in racketeering, levy tribute to the entrepreneurs. And all this "beautiful" are trying to reconcile with the name of Allah and Islam. But nothing to do with real terrorism, they do not have, "- said Khloponin.

Intel Leads American Export Juggernaut as Chips Surge. May 28, 2010. Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of computer chips, is increasing production and commanding higher prices as an export boom puts American manufacturing at the forefront of the economic recovery. Santa Clara, California-based Intel’s factories are operating at 80 percent of capacity, up from a record low of about 50 percent last year in the midst of the recession. The average selling prices of personal computer processors have risen a total of 12 percent over the past two quarters. Overseas demand for U.S.-made goods from semiconductors to printers is boosting the fortunes ofmanufacturing, which has been shrinking as a proportion of the economy in 13 of the past 14 years. As a result, trade may add to growth for the first time in a post-recession year since World War II, says Morgan Stanley economist Richard Berner. “U.S. manufacturing has really seen a renaissance of sorts driven by improved competitiveness and strength in global markets,” said Joseph Carson, director of economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York. “Exports have been the key driver of growth. We think it’s a new trend.” Net exports, or the difference in value between what the U.S. sends overseas and what it buys from abroad, will add about 0.3 percentage point to gross domestic product this year, according to Berner,Morgan Stanley’s co-head of global economics in New York. He forecasts economic growth of 3.4 percent in 2010 after last year’s 2.4 percent contraction. European Crisis. Companies from Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard Co. to Cisco Systems Inc. are boosting sales forecasts in anticipation of stronger demand for semiconductors, computers and software in the world’s fastest-growing economies. In the near term, exports may suffer from a European debt crisis that’s strengthening the dollar and making euro-zone goods cheaper worldwide. Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel, whose chips run more than 80 percent of the world’s personal computers, said this month that the PC market may expand as much as 16 percent in the next four years. The company’s ability to manufacture more advanced chips is putting it further ahead of the competition, he said. Strong demand and tight supply have allowed Intel to limit the discount it gives its customers and to raise average chip prices, according to Dean McCarron, an analyst at Cave Creek, Arizona-based Mercury Research. U.S. exports to China, the third-biggest market for American-made goods, were up 47 percent in the first quarter this year from the first three months of 2009. Shipments to South Korea, the seventh-largest importer of American-made goods, increased 66 percent during the same period, Commerce Department figures show. Business Spending. “Consumer and business demand in the rapidly growing economies have become key factors driving their growth,” Morgan Stanley’s Berner wrote in an April 28 research note. “U.S. exporters will be increasingly leveraged to that fast-growing pie as their share of exports to those regions increases, especially in capital goods and consumer business services.” In an interview yesterday, Berner said the dollar’s almost 7 percent gain against the euro this month hasn’t changed his forecast for U.S. export growth. “We had anticipated in the wake of what was going on that we would see further strengthening of the dollar against the euro,” he said. Shares in companies that make computer and technology goods are poised to weather the recent stock-market downturn better than other industries. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is up 0.5 percent so far this year, compared with a 1.1 percent decline in the broader Standard & Poor’s 500Index. Technology stocks have outperformed the S&P 500 over the last year and are trading near a 52-week high on a relative-performance basis. ‘Many Bargains’. “From a longer-term perspective I’m really bullish on this sector,” said Benjamin Tal, a senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto, who sees “many bargains in the market” among technology and communications companies. “Those big companies in the manufacturing sector in the U.S. are cheap because they will surprise on the upside two, three, four years from now,” he said. Manufacturing, which accounts for 11 percent of the world’s largest economy, down from 12.3 percent in 2006, helped lead the U.S. out of recession in the second half of last year. The industry contributed to more than half of the expansion in the past two quarters, the economy’s best six-month performance since 2003, as companies stabilized inventories after a record drawdown in 2009, according to Commerce Department figures. Export Forecast. Exports will keep growing, some manufacturers forecast. San Jose, California-based Cisco, the world’s biggest provider of networking equipment, is calling for sales of at least $10.7 billion in the current quarter, following record revenue in the quarter ended May 1. Sales of semiconductors in the Asia-Pacific region climbed to a record $12.57 billion in March, up 72 percent from a year earlier, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, based in San Jose. Worldwide sales in March were $23.1 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent from the previous month, the industry group said on May 3. The recovery is “accelerating,” John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco, said on a May 12 conference call. “I’d say now almost without exception, most people are beginning to slowly turn cautiously optimistic.” The expansion is not without risks. Sovereign-debt concerns in Europe are threatening to impede the global recovery, while a decline in the value of the euro makes European exports cheaper. Still, the crisis may not translate into significant losses for U.S. manufacturing, according to AllianceBernstein’s Carson. “Not all changes in exchange rates turn into product races,” Carson said. During the last nine months “the European demand hasn’t been there, but that still has not stopped one of the most powerful export cycles we’ve ever seen,” he said.

Results: Teixeira Duarte's profit shoots on sale in Cimpor. 28/05/10 07:42. A Teixeira Duarte closed the first quarter with a profit of 92.3 million, 484.6% over the same period 2009. In a statement sent to the CMVM, Teixeira Duarte explains that the outcome of the first three months of the year were "influenced by the inclusion of gains from the sale of the stake in Cimpor amounting to 69,800 thousand euros, and the appropriation of the results of this subsidiary until the date of its sale, amounting to 9237 thousand. " Turnover rose by 6.7% over the first quarter of 2009, reaching 296.8 million euros, "owing to the increase achieved in Portugal, the foreign market low in absolute terms and decreased expression in terms on, and still represents 57.4% of the Teixeira Duarte. " "The positive variance is due mainly to good performances recorded in the Commercialization of Fuel and property in the domestic market," notes further the Teixeira Duarte. Teixeira Duarte also says that the consolidated operating profit increased by 3.9% between January and March in the same period of 2009, reaching 307 million euros.
Already EBITDA decreased 9.7% to 36.5 million in the first quarter, compared to the same period last year, "influenced by the declining value of investment property at 5.33 million euros compared to the amounts recorded in first quarter 2009 ". Excluding this, the EBITDA would have shown a growth of 3.5%, note the builder.