Filed under: Management, Raising money

The private equity scene in the US continues its freeze. So many firms are looking for opportunities overseas, especially in Asia. For example, according to a piece in The Wall Street Journal, TPG is finishing up its deal to buy a 43.4% stake in NIS Group, a Japanese lender.

Interestingly enough, it looks like JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) wants to jump in too.

The firm announced that it has plowed $750 million into a new fund that’s focused on Asia. The main principals of the fund, Varun Bery and John Troy, are the folks who built TVG Capital Partners, which has extensive experience in Asia.

No doubt, Asia is still growing at a nice clip, which means that deals require less debt. And, because of regulatory stipulations, the deal-making tends to be in the form of minority stakes, which means less by way of equity capital infusions.

However, the fact remains that many other funds are gunning for the Asian market — including Blackstone (NYSE: BX) — which could drive valuations and lead to the kinds of problems that we’ve seen in the US.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Share This

Share This

Man indicted on threatening communications counts in aborted shooting
International Herald Tribune - Havelock told authorities he was upset that the city of Tempe denied him a liquor license application for a Halloween-themed bar. Before the planned attack, the indictment said, Havelock sent several letters to Web sites and news organizations

Dan Farber Appointed Editor-in-Chief of CNET News.com
Forbes - CNET (www.cnet.com), where people go to discover the latest in technology and consumer electronics information, and a property of CNET Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:CNET), this day announced that Dan Farber has been appointed editor-in-chief of CNET News.com

What is a news feed reader?
Chicago Tribune - Feed readers grant you to swiftly follow the topics you select. Many feed readers are integrated into e-mail programs or Web browsers, or will pop up a new window when a new article is available. Where can I get an RSS feed reader? Many Web browsers

Reuters World News Highlights at 0200 GMT, Feb 20
Guardian Unlimited - HAVANA - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro stepped down on Tuesday 49 years after taking power in an armed revolution, closing the book on a Cold War career that made him an icon to leftists and a tyrant to his foes. ISLAMABAD - Pervez Musharraf’s

Depressing News for Americana/Alt-Country Fans
Boston Globe - Following the May-June issue, its 75th, No Depression magazine will cease publishing. The well-liked, bi-monthly periodical, which has covered Americana, roots, and alt-country music since 1995, has fallen prey to, among other things, a drop in

Serbs in Kosovo Set 2 Border Posts Afire
Washington Post - Everything else is fair play,” said Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic at a news conference Tuesday after an emergency meeting in Vienna of the permanent council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe . But international officials

McCain to tour Ford Wayne Stamping plant Thursday
Detroit Free Press - News Feeds | E-Newsletters Find it: Jobs | Automobiles | Real Estate | Apartments | Shopping | Classifieds The Arizona senator has at times knocked heads with the domestic automakers — Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and

Miami rejoices at news of Castro’s resignation
Detroit Free Press - MIAMI — The streets of Little Havana started to come alive with chatter this day as people in the heart of the Cuban exile community awoke to the news that Cuban President Fidel Castro had officially resigned power. Motorists honked vigorously at

At least 3 killed in Peru clashes between farmers, police
International Herald Tribune - LIMA, Peru : Clashes between police and farmers left at least three protesters Tuesday, as a national strike against free John Harwood discusses whether or not Mitt Romney’s withdrawal is good or bad news for John McCain.

News.com Extra: Posts by Emily Shurr
CNET News - In Wired ’s interview with new-generation Hummer HX creator David Rojas, he says the alligator was a primary inspiration for the front grille of the ethanol-fueled beast. Talking for a new generation of auto designers, he holds forth on Halo , the

US Military Imposes Curbs in Japan
Washington Post - The U.S. military imposed tight restrictions on all personnel in Okinawa on Wednesday, limiting troops to bases, places of work or off-base housing amid a furor over the arrest of a Marine on suspicion of rape. (AP Photo/Kyodo News, Yuki Sato) (Yuki

Obama and McCain are winners in Wisconsin primaries
International Herald Tribune - She seemed to be alluding to Michelle Obama, who was quoted by ABC News as saying: “For the first time in my adult lifetime I’m really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

News Blog: Posts by Elinor Mills
CNET News - The head of strategic partnerships for Microsoft states he’s confident the company can work out a deal with Yahoo, despite reports that Yahoo is speaking to News Corp. about forming an alliance to fend off Microsoft. “We still have great confidence we

Wisconsin? Texas and Ohio are where all the action has gone
International Herald Tribune - Further evidence came this week when The Philadelphia Daily News reported that the Clinton campaign in Pennsylvania had failed to file a complete slate of delegates for that state’s primary, falling 10 or 11 delegates short of the 103 delegates to be

News.com Extra: Posts by Jonathan Skillings
CNET News - It’s not necessarily cheap, but $99 a month is at least predictable. Verizon Wireless is hoping that the flat-rate, unlimited-calling plan will also prove attractive to high-end customers. While other carriers have already launched flat-rate plans of

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Budgets, Cards, Debt

People frequently tell me they’d love to pay down debt using the snowball effect or the round robin strategy, but they just don’t have the extra funds needed to pay off their cards. If you’re having trouble finding the extra cash to pay down credit cards, it’s time to do some soul searching and put yourself on a cash diet.

The best way to find your extra funds is to keep a journal of each penny you spend for a month. And, yes, I literally mean every penny. Carry a small notebook with you and write down even that cup of coffee you buy in the morning on your way to work. Don’t grumble. Yes this is a tedious process, but if you take the time to do it for a month, what you’ll learn about your spending will be eye opening.

At the end of the month, it’s time to examine your spending. As you look through your spending journal, put a numeral one next to all the must pays. This would include your mortgage or rent, your utilities, your food and any other bills that must be paid. Put a numeral five next to all items that you didn’t need and you could easily do without. Put a numeral two next to items you believe you need but are not an absolute necessity. Put a four next to items you didn’t need and could probably do without. Put a three next to items that you don’t feel strongly about and don’t need, but do want.

Now remember a need is a necessity. Something you must have to live. A want is a desire. Something that you’d like to have but could live without. If you’re serious about wanting to pay off debt, you’re going to have to put your other wants on the back burner for a while.

Total all of your 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, 4’s and 5’s. Then, to find the biggest lump you can to pay down debt, total your 4’s and 5’s and stop spending on those things. You can then use the cash to pay down debt. If you really want to pay down debt quickly cut out your 3’s as well. Here’s a sample of what an analysis might look like:

Total of 1’s: $1800

Total of 2’s: $ 500

Total of 3’s: $ 300

Total of 4’s: $200

Total of 5’s: $100

This person could swiftly find $300 to use toward debt pay-down just by slicing out his 4’s and 5’s. That could give his snowball a nice push down the debt payoff hill.

If you find after a while you just don’t have that extra cash for paying off bills, do yourself a favor and keep a journal for a month. You’ll probably find a bunch more 4’s and 5’s that can be cut.

Lita Epstein has written more than 20 books including the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Improving Your Credit Score.”

Share This

Share This

Filed under: World wide web, Social Software

Ever wonder what you would get if you crossed Digg with Techmeme and gave the new site a slick Web 2.0 style theme? Yeah, neither did we, but that’s a half decent description of Newspond, a news aggregation site that launched today.

Newspond isn’t a social news site like Digg. Articles aren’t submitted by users. Newspond is more like Techmeme in that the site gathers stories from across the web using an automated system to examine the topics that blogs and news sites are speaking about. Articles show up on the front page or in a variety of subsections like tech, games, and science. Under each main article is a list of links to more articles on the same topic from other web sites. You’ll have to click the “View All Sources” tab to see additional articles, but Newspond will pull them up without a page refresh.

While there’s no user generated primary content on the site, Newspond does have a nifty commenting system which adds a social aspect to the site. The comments are threaded and easy to read. But you really have to play with them to get the full effect.

[via Mashable]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: World wide web, Social Software

Fatigued of logging into Facebook and MySpace each day to find out which friend posted new photos, who wrote on your wall, or left you a message? Sociagami is a desktop application for Windows that’ll send you alerts whenever your friends update their profiles.

Sociagami offers a slick interface for browsing comments left on your MySpace or Facebok pages, approving friend requests, or responding to messages. You can also right-click on any friend to see their friends or pics. The Friend browser is pretty slick. You can click on any friend’s photo to find more friends or look at their pictures. And you can zoom in and out or scroll around the screen to find more friends.

There are a few things that Sociagami doesn’t do. For example, you can’t update your Facebook status or see your friends’ status updates. And you can’t interact with Facebook applications. So if you’re looking to play a game of Scrabulous, you’re still going to have to login to your Facebook account.

Oh, and while Sociagami has half the features of social networking tool Digsby, it eats about twice the RAM. We found that Sociagami used up about 170MB of RAM after just a few minutes use.

Read

Share This

Share This