| From: richardred | 11/10/2013 10:22:52 PM | | | | | | Google Autocomplete Predicts Your Next Acquisition
By Chris TaylorOct 28, 2013
In case you haven't noticed, Apple is ridiculously wealthy and just keeps getting ridiculously wealthier. As of its earnings call Monday, the company has $146.8 billion in the bank. That's not only a record for cash on hand, it's 10% of all corporate cash (not counting financial companies) on the planet.
The drumbeat for Apple to do something with that money — perhaps a stock buyback, per Carl Icahn's suggestion; perhaps a few major acquisitions — has been growing for years. But Apple isn't alone. Most major tech giants have substantial piles of cash burning holes in their wallets.
See also: Is Apple Getting Into New Categories? Tim Cook Says It 'Can'
Microsoft has $68 billion in the bank. Google has a not-too-shabby $50 billion. Yahoo and Amazon have about $5 billion apiece. Facebook has a couple of billion to play with.
Clearly, these companies are spoiled for choice. To give them some ideas — and to get the economy moving again — we decided to ask that oracle of all things in the modern world, Google autocomplete. Here's what the algorithm — based on both search results and web content — told us.
Apple Should Buy ... 
Apple has long needed an out-of-the-box play to shake the company up and enter new product categories — and autocomplete has just the thing! Its first suggestion: Elon Musk's disruptive electric car maker Tesla. It makes sense: both companies are obsessed with design, precision manufacturing, storefronts, and the luxury market. Apple's cash hoard could help construct a nationwide network of charging stations within a year. Are you ready for the iRoadster?
Amazon Should Buy ... 
Amazon doesn't have anywhere near the cash to buy Netflix (market cap: $18 billion), and it already has a streaming video service in Amazon Prime. But maybe the WebOS, currently owned by LG, could come in handy for a new range of Kindles?
Facebook Should Buy ... 
The social network has consistently denied that it is interested in manufacturing a Facebook phone. But Autocomplete knows better, and it knows where to find a whole heap of cheap smartphone engineers. Mark Zuckerberg had better save up his pennies for BlackBerry, currently worth around $4.7 billion.
Google Should Buy ... 
Autocomplete saves its most ambitious suggestion for its parent company: Google should buy the entire city of Detroit? Or perhaps it means the big three automakers? We're betting the city currently comes a little cheaper.
Microsoft Should Buy ... 
Microsoft could certainly afford BlackBerry — but given that the company just paid $7.2 billion for Nokia's manufacturing division and intellectual property, that might be one phone company too many. Atlus is a Japanese videogame maker that was acquired back in 2010. Chip-maker AMD, however, would be a smart play if Microsoft wanted to get further into the hardware market.
Yahoo Should Buy ... 
Another smart suggestion — after all, Yahoo has always harbored ambitions to be a broadcast media giant. Could Marissa Mayer afford content giant Hulu the way she snapped up Tumblr? Quite possibly, but it might hamper her ongoing startup-buying spree.
Are you seeing different autocomplete results in your region or country? Let us know in the comments.
Image: Flickr, Photosteve101
mashable.com |
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| To: richardred who wrote (3528) | 11/10/2013 10:29:35 PM | | From: richardred | | | | September 1998 - Google Inc. is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin
July 2000 - Google becomes world's largest search engine and by December has 1 billion indexes
July 2001 - Images search is launched
February 2003 - Google buys blogging platform Blogger
March 2004 - Gmail launches
October 2004 - Google launches Desktop Search and by reaches 8 billion indexes by December
June 2005 - A busy month for Google as it launches Google Earth, Maps, Talk and Video
July 2005 - Android is bought by Google
October 2006 - Google buys video site YouTube
September 2008 - Search index reaches 1 trillion and the Chrome browser is unveiled
July 2009 - Google launches its Chrome OS for netbooks
July 2010 - The first Nexus smartphone handset - the Nexus One - is launched
August 2011 - Plans are announced for Google to buy Motorola Mobility
March 2012 – Google launches the Play store with TV and movie rentals as well as apps
June 2012 - First Google tablet, made by Asus, launches called Nexus 7 and Google Glass is unveiled
June 2013 – Google buys mapping and navigation company Waze to boost its mapping software and self-driving car capability
June 2013 – Google balloons fitted with internet transmitters launched
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| From: richardred | 11/12/2013 12:53:49 AM | | | | | | Analyst See Small Cap Gold Stocks as Takeover Bait by Big Gold Producers
Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE: GG) can buy large assets now. One target cited by Cowen for Goldcorp would be Rubicon Minerals Corp. (NYSE: RBY).
Kinross Gold Corp. (NYSE: KGC) has low near-term spending capacity and it needs Canadian production. The company may have an interest in Exeter Resource Corp. (NYSE: XRA).
Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (NYSE: AEM) should buy or build sub $1 billion assets in the United States and Canada. A potential target may be Gold Standard Ventures Corp. (NYSE: GSV).
Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE: AUY) is one of the favorite names to buy at Cowen. The analysts think the company can step up to larger asset purchases or buy low risk production in Canada. Brigus Gold Corp. (NYSE: BRD) may prove a nice fit for Yamana.
247wallst.com |
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| To: richardred who wrote (3365) | 11/13/2013 10:31:40 AM | | From: richardred | | | | ROC- Rockwood Holdings Inc has cash and should be looking for acquisitions.
>Mr. Ghasemi added, “As a result of the successful execution of our strategy, Rockwood now has a very solid balance sheet with expected cash on hand of approximately $2.5 billion. We are committed to deploy our cash to expand and strengthen our core businesses, maintain our dividend and buy back shares as and when appropriate.”
finance.yahoo.com |
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| To: richardred who wrote (3524) | 11/14/2013 12:26:35 PM | | From: richardred | | | | RE:SKY Hypothetically & Speculatively speaking. The SKY pictures below display some of Warren likes. Hypothetically the best of both worlds. Manufactured housing for Clayton homes and Forest River for the RV business. Granted, only If the SKY board can be convinced . This is a PLAUSABLE case IMO where taking out a weak competitor can help take out excess capacity and IMO benefit BH in the long run. For SKY, their Manufactured Housing and RV recovery is taking to long. Still holding
 A BH COMPANY
Forest River-A BH company
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| From: richardred | 11/15/2013 1:40:38 AM | | | | | | RE: Samsung Shares of Samsung face their first annual decline in five years as the company becomes more dependent on smartphones amid mounting worries over slower growth and intensifying market competition. The company, which holds $39 billion in net cash, said it will pursue more acquisitions as it seeks to grow amid fears its core businesses are nearing saturation.
businessweek.com |
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| From: richardred | 11/15/2013 1:47:25 AM | | | | | | Oil industry jobs, dealmaking expected to rise
Posted on November 14, 2013 at 1:21 pm by Collin Eaton in Deals, Jobs
(AP file photo/Reed Saxon)
HOUSTON — After two years of steady decline, hunger for oil and gas deals is picking up as economic uncertainties clear up around the world, according to an EY survey of industry executives released Thursday.
The percentage of oil and gas executives who expect to make a deal over the next 12 months jumped to 39 percent in October, up from 28 percent a year ago. While that’s still under the 48 percent peak the industry saw in October 2011, plans for oil and gas deals outpaced all but the industrial products and life sciences industries last month, according to the EY report.
EY, the new global brand for financial services provider Ernst & Young, surveyed 169 oil and gas executives in September for its Capital Confidence Barometer, which the firm has published for four years. More than 1,600 executives across a dozen industries responded to EY’s survey.
Renewed confidence in the global economy and a growing number of high-quality assets on the sales block are driving the industry’s instinct to acquire, and more potential buyers and sellers believe they can meet at a fair price and close a deal, the firm reported.
Help Wanted
As executives become more bullish on the global economy, 57 percent of the survey’s oil and gas respondents said they plan to boost hiring in the next 12 months, up from 34 percent in October 2012.
The industry’s expectations for increased economic growth jumped from 46 percent last year to 71 percent in October, but other measures, including confidence in stock market valuations and the market’s stability, dipped slightly. Views on corporate earnings stayed level with last year, with 36 percent of respondents expecting margins to improve.
Organic growth, the executives say, comes mostly (38 percent) from improving core products and focusing on existing markets, but 25 percent say advances in technology also have enabled companies to develop new products and markets, according to EY.
Cat and Mouse
Buyers told EY that market share gains in existing footprints were the main attraction to scooping up more assets, signaling an affinity for “bolt-on” acquisitions that fill strategic gaps in companies’ existing businesses. Seventy-five percent of the firm’s oil and gas sample said the number of good buys on the market should increase over the next 12 months, up from 44 percent last year.
Forty-six percent of the respondents said they see asset prices going up over the next 12 months, up from 33 percent last year, as sellers post more attractive targets. And more players — 21 percent, up from 12 percent last year — say they expect to see more large deals over $500 million in value.
The increase in price tags comes as companies use more cash to finance deals, a measure to offset the high debt used in building shale positions. The percentage of executives who see cash as the source of deal funding increased from 40 percent last year to 48 percent in October, as shareholders and management teams become more concerned about leveraging up.
After a significant ramp up in debt on the books, more oil and gas companies, EY reported, are focused on reducing interest costs and extending debt maturities.
fuelfix.com |
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| To: richardred who wrote (3502) | 11/15/2013 1:58:35 AM | | From: richardred | | | | Chalk up another EMM vendor acquisition: IBM bought Fiberlink. Here’s our take.
by Jack Madden 
For a few years now, the constant refrain about the enterprise mobility management space has been that with so many vendors, it’s ripe for consolidation. So it shouldn’t be too much of a shock that yesterday we learned that IBM is buying Fiberlink, makers of the MaaS360 EMM suite.
IBM’s recent mobility efforts have centered around a suite of products called MobileFirst. I’m actually not too familiar with it, but according to the website it has all sorts of components, including development and planning services, analytics, security, and basic mobile device management through IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices (which came with the BigFix acquisition in 2010).
By acquiring Fiberlink, IBM is getting a wider set of mobile device and app management capabilities. Fiberlink may have a slightly lower profile than the likes of AirWatch and MobileIron, but they bring a fairly complete package none the less. For MDM, Fiberlink support iOS, Android (including a range of custom versions of Android), Windows Phone, Symbian, Mac OS, and Windows. For mobile app management, they have apps for email, browsing, and file syncing, along with a MAM SDK and app wrapping tool.
The question is now that Fiberlink will be part of IBM, will it become a product that only IBM-centric companies buy? IBM touted planned integration with the rest of its products, and as Gabe said earlier this week, “There are two types of companies in the world, those that love IBM and those that stay the hell away from them.” If that’s the case, Fiberlink could lose some visibility among the non-IBM crowd, but on the other hand as a part of the IBM, Fiberlink’s technology could now be put in front of thousands of new customers that might not have considered it before.
There’s also the fear that “IBM is where companies go to die,” but looking at other recent EMM acquisitions, most of the acquiring companies (Citrix and Symantec, for example) are putting a lot of work into their offerings, a necessity in the still young and fast-moving EMM space.
Surely IBM buying Fiberlink will set off another round of matchmaking speculation for other EMM vendors (AirWatch and MobileIron will top that list, of course), so get ready for that, too.
brianmadden.com |
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