フランス：核実験被ばく者補償法案承認 １３億円を予算化

フランス：核実験被ばく者補償法案承認　１３億円を予算化

　フランス政府は２７日の閣議で、１９６０年から９６年まで現アルジェリア領のサハラ砂漠と南太平洋のフランス領ポリネシアで実施した、核実験による被ばく者救済を目的とした核実験被害者補償法案を承認した。当面の対象は数百人となる見通し。

　フランスはこれまで、核実験被害に対する国家の責任を認めてこなかったが、サルコジ政権発足以降、国家賠償へと大きく方針転換した。初年度は１０００万ユーロ（約１３億円）を予算化し、補償に充てる。今後、対象を拡大していくにあたっては、被ばく者側に因果関係の立証責任を求めない。補償金を支払わない場合は、国側が「核実験との因果関係は見当たらない」との反証責任を負うとしている。

　サハラ砂漠とポリネシアで核実験に従事していた将兵、民間人や実験の影響を受けたとみられる住民は計１５万人に上るとみられ、被ばく者側は直接補償だけでなく、じん肺被害者のために設立された前例がある基金の創設を要求している。（共同）

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UK economic picture boosts sterling

By Neil Dennis

Published: May 27 2009 10:35 | Last updated: May 27 2009 22:29

Sterling rose above $1.60 against the US currency for the first time in nearly seven months on Wednesday after Britain’s service sector companies revealed improving sentiment while mortgage approvals crept higher.

The CBI quarterly service sector survey showed that, while most companies believed the UK was still deep in recession, the rate of contraction was thought to be slowing markedly.

Mortgage approvals in the UK ticked higher, continuing the gradual improvement from November’s record low.

The pound was also buoyed after risk appetite was improved by rising consumer confidence in the US, which contributed to a strong performance in Asian equity markets.

Jane Foley, of Forex.com, said sterling was benefiting from the UK economy having put much of the bad news behind it. “The pound carries a lot of bad news in its price, suggesting limited scope for further negative shocks. Arguably, both the dollar and the euro face greater degrees of uncertainty.”

Late in New York, the pound rose 0.6 per cent against the dollar to $1.6018, passing the $1.60 level for the first time in nearly seven months. Sterling climbed 1.1 per cent versus the euro to £0.8682 and 0.7 per cent against the yen to Y152.42.

Meanwhile, the dollar built on the small gains made in the previous session as investors appeared to be taking a cautious approach given recent speculation about bad loans in the European banking system.

The dollar climbed 0.6 per cent against the euro to $1.3901, 0.2 per cent versus the yen to Y95.18 and 1.3 per cent to $0.6162 against the New Zealand dollar.

Indeed, worries over the European banking system were heightened after the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, said it was raising foreign currency to boost its $22bn currency reserves.

The Swedish National Debt Office is to lend the equivalent of SKr100bn to the Riksbank, mainly in euros and dollars.

Some of the funds will come from foreign currency accumulated through recent bond issues and the earlier use of swap lines. But the debt office will be forced to borrow the remainder, some of which will be funded by selling the krona.

Over the past year, Sweden’s currency reserves fell by $6bn as the Riksbank monetised reserves to provide currency liquidity to domestic banks.

The krona’s fall was given added impetus as Stefan Ingves, governor of the Riksbank, said the country needed to build up its reserves in case the global financial crisis worsened. “We still need to be prepared for the eventuality that the financial crisis may be both severe and prolonged.”

The Swedish krona fell 1.1 per cent to SKr10.6730 against the euro and 1.6 per cent to SKr7.6638 against the dollar.

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View of the Day: Carry trade to fade

By Valentin Marinov

Published: May 27 2009 16:05 | Last updated: May 27 2009 16:05

Carry trades – where low-yielding currencies are sold to fund purchases of higher-yielding, riskier assets – may have seen a surge in demand recently, but this is unlikely to continue beyond the summer, says Valentin Marinov, foreign exchange strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort.

He says the renewed demand for carry has been fuelled by growing expectations that the global economy may soon be bottoming out. “Our G10 carry index has risen more than 10 per cent from its lows at the end of January,” he says.

But Mr Marinov warns that this demand is likely to run out of steam in the coming months.

He believes it would require signs of genuine economic recovery for the market rally to continue on a sustainable basis – and feels it is too early for such signs to materialise.

Furthermore, Mr Marinov expects a surge in corporate defaults over the summer to trigger a renewed spike in risk aversion and send the prices of risky assets tumbling again.

“All this is bad news for carry trades and we expect that they – temporarily – lose their upward impetus.

“In addition, our strategists expect commodities to give back some of their recent gains as sentiment turns sour again in the summer months. This should reduce the demand for carry investment currencies like the Australian and New Zealand dollars and further weigh on overall carry trade performance.”

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Egg yields to onion as shape of society

By Brian Groom

Published: May 28 2009 00:02 | Last updated: May 28 2009 00:02

Pyramid, egg, diamond, or onion? Efforts to visualise the changing shape of postwar British society have produced a mind-boggling array of images.

In the immediate years after the second world war, says the TUC’s report, society resembled a pyramid, with a small and privileged group at the top, a larger but still small and comfortable middle, and a large majority at the bottom.

By the end of the 1970s, with the decline of the manual working class and rising affluence, Britain had moved closer to a diamond shape (which some also called an egg) – with a small groups of rich and poor and a fatter middle.

Since then there have been two shifts: the rise of a small group of super-rich and a greater concentration of the population in the bottom half of the income distribution range.

The result, says the TUC, is that Britain is now an onion-shaped society – with a few at the top, a bulge of people below the middle and fewer at the bottom. To sow further confusion, it says this is more like the postwar pyramid than the 1970s diamond.

The TUC’s “middle income Britain” is known to statisticians as the third quintile, a group of 11m who straddle the median level between higher and lower income groups.

Today’s sinking middle is less well placed than its equivalent in earlier generations, the report says, a trend it ascribes to structural changes, especially a decline in relative wages in the middle of the earnings ladder and an absolute decline in the number of jobs paying middling wage levels.

Another factor has been a fall in the share of national output taken by wages, as opposed to profits.

It also says there has been a strengthening of the “cycle of privilege”, whereby families who already have wealth and better-paid jobs reinforce their position. Thus middle income Britain faces even tougher barriers to social and income advancement than in the past.

These structural changes, the report argues, have been accentuated by policy decisions, including the move from a progressive to a regressive tax system from the mid-1980s – so the middle now shoulders a higher relative proportion of the cost of redistributing income than in the past – and what it calls “the canonisation of the rich by post-1979 governments”.

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Saudi family group feels the pain

By Andrew England and Abeer Allam

Published: May 27 2009 22:49 | Last updated: May 27 2009 23:40

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company is one of the oldest and most respected family-owned conglomerates in Saudi Arabia. It was a group that could borrow on reputation alone, with a son of its founder on Forbes’ world rich list.

Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. Questions are being asked about the exposure banks in the oil-rich state may have with family owned companies hit by the downturn
But since one of its wholly owned subsidiaries, The International Banking Corporation (TIBC), defaulted on financial obligations to other banks this month it has sent jitters across the market.

The Algosaibi group has not responded to several requests for comment. But the fact that one of its subsidiaries defaulted has raised broader questions about the state of the oil-rich Gulf’s secretive family-run businesses as they grapple with the downturn. The concern is that some may have over-extended during the boom years, which saw Gulf states accumulate huge petrodollar reserves and fuelled rapid expansion, and are beginning to pay the price.

“For foreign counterparties the fact that there has been no public communication [from the Algosaibi group] has raised some questions about transparency, corporate governance and the disclosure of family owned companies in the Gulf,” said Emmanuel Volland at Standard & Poor’s.

The focus on Algosaibi began this month when Bahrain-based TIBC was downgraded by rating agencies after it defaulted.

At the end of 2008, TIBC had short- and medium-term debt of $2.2bn (€1.58bn, £1.38bn) – most of it short- term inter-bank borrowing, according to rating agencies.

Standard & Poor’s said TIBC, which had total assets of $3.8bn, had funds to make payments – including a portfolio of more than $400m in Saudi shares. But the ratings agency has been told that it did not do so because of “a high likelihood” that Algosaibi would implement a group-wide debt restructuring.

Capital Intelligence, which also downgraded TIBC, said it understood from TIBC’s management that Algosaibi group had recently been “experiencing liquidity problems exacerbated by the global financial turmoil”.

“This rendered the Algosaibi group unable to service its debt culminating in the implementation of a group-wide [including TIBC] debt restructuring,” Capital Intelligence said.

This led to a chain reaction, analysts say, with concerned lenders – both local and international – seeking reassurances about their outstanding obligations. The Algosaibi group’s obligations to Saudi banks is estimated to be more than $2.5bn, while it owes international banks several hundred million dollars, an analyst with knowledge of the group says.

“There is a state of flux, this is one of the most respected family businesses in Saudi Arabia and they are trying to remain credible,” said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at SABB Bank. “They have taken decisions that were too risky and have been hit by the global financial crisis and they are paying the price for it.”

Algosaibi’s website lists SABB Bank among its financial services investments.

Analysts say Saudi banks are in talks with the family group and discussing the possibility of restructuring some of the debt.

Questions are being raised about the exposure banks may have to the company, including leading Saudi banks and institutions in Bahrain, which has a large financial hub that has traditionally served Saudi Arabia.

Experts say some other family companies in the Gulf are struggling and are in talks with their banks over their obligations. Private equity groups, meanwhile, say they are beginning to see opportunities with family businesses that are looking to divest from subsidiaries as they seek to raise cash or refocus on their core businesses.

Many family owned businesses have grown across an increasingly broad range of sectors. Algosaibi, which began trading in the 1940s, lists financial services, manufacturing, real estate, trading, shipping services, travel related services, agriculture and media and exhibitions among its main investments.

Bankers say much depends on how a family business has been run and how power has been delegated – often companies have problems in the second and third generations.

“It boils down to corporate governance, and who is the patriarch and has he devolved too much responsibility to the next people down who have never experienced a downturn,” a regional banker says.

“The problem is 75 years of reputation enabled these groups to borrow as much as they wanted during credit free times and of course anybody who borrowed to the limit of their reputation will be struggling now.”

But while the boom was seen as a chance for some of the governance issues to be addressed, the downturn is causing some companies to retreat into their shells.

“If this crisis has shown us one thing it is that the worse it gets the less transparent many of these Gulf private sector companies become – and that is the key issue,” says Philipp Lotter at Moody’s.

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Ukraine May Post Current-Account Surplus, Central Banker Says
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By Daryna Krasnolutska

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Ukraine will probably post a “small” current-account surplus this year for the first time since 2004 as the recession cuts demand for imports, central bank Deputy Governor Oleksandr Savchenko said.

“The current-account surplus will be below 1 percent of gross domestic product,” Savchenko said today in an interview in Kiev. “The reason is that imports are shrinking faster than exports.”

An economic contraction and a plunging hryvnia have damped demand for imported goods such as cars and equipment. The economy, which has expanded each year since 2000, probably contracted as much as 23 percent in the first quarter, President Viktor Yushchenko said on May 25.

The current-account deficit narrowed to $594 million in the first four months of the year, compared with $5.6 billion in the same period a year ago, the central bank said on May 25.

The eastern European nation secured a $16.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in November to finance its current-account deficit, which widened to 7.1 percent of GDP last year, the biggest in at least a decade.

Ukraine’s currency lost more than 37 percent against the dollar last year as turmoil in global credit markets deterred investment in emerging markets. The hryvnia has clawed back 4.82 percent of that so far in 2009 as the central bank introduced new rules on the interbank currency market, changed reserve requirements for banks and implemented so-called “targeted auctions” for individuals and small business.

“I see a slight strengthening of the hryvnia until the end of the year,” Savchenko said. “If the currency is devalued too much, it’s also bad for exporters as they relax and then they aren’t competitive.”

Savchenko also said that “there is no problem for the government and big state-owned companies to repay their debts,” while the central bank is urging companies to restructure their loans.

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Mafia Cash Increases Grip on Sinking Italy Defying Berlusconi
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By Steve Scherer and Vernon Silver

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- In the southern Italian port city of Palermo, home to bustling outdoor markets and Arab-influenced architecture, prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato has hunted Mafia money for two decades.

Now, as the rest of the world tightens its belt in the global recession, he’s tracking how the mob is profiting by lending and investing what’s become a scarce commodity these days: a growing hoard of cash.

Scarpinato points to the 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion) of assets he’s seized on the island of Sicily, where Palermo is located, since the start of 2008. In one haul, he confiscated 12 businesses, 220 buildings, 33 plots of land and a 25-meter (82- foot) yacht from grocery-chain owner Giuseppe Grigoli.

Known as Sicily’s king of supermarkets, Grigoli, 59, is on trial in Marsala for running the food stores and other enterprises at the behest of the Sicilian Mafia. He denies the criminal charge of being a member of an organized crime group.

Unlike overleveraged companies burned in the credit crisis, the Mafia and its cash-based, debt-free business model are breezing through economic hard times. With young, savvy leaders at the helm, organized crime is poised to expand as legitimate companies founder.

“There’s a risk that Mafia organizations can profit from the current crisis by buying control of struggling businesses, infiltrating all regions of the country,” Italian President Giorgio Napolitano cautioned in May.

Grocery Connection

Not even billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who’s won praise for his response to Italy’s deadly April earthquake and has vowed to keep the Mafia out of reconstruction contracts, has been able to control the mob and its riches. This year, Berlusconi’s government has proposed legislation to make it easier to seize assets from organized crime.

Grigoli’s grocery operation and its alleged links to the Mafia and money laundering represent just a slice of the estimated 130 billion euros in annual revenue the mob handles. Some of the money is making the rounds via easy-to-transport 500-euro bills as far away as South America.

Italy’s three main organized-crime groups had combined net income of 70 billion euros last year, producing a 54 percent profit margin, according to Rome-based research institute Eurispes. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, had a profit of about half that at $45.2 billion.

Bodyguards, Pistols

“There’s a credit crisis that’s putting many businesses in a difficult position,” says Scarpinato, 57, whose dark suit sets him apart from his jeans-wearing bodyguards who tote pistols under their black-and-blue windbreakers. “The banks have tightened the purse strings, and many companies risk going bankrupt. Then there’s the Mafia world, which has vast amounts of cash.”

Prosecutors opened a window on how the Mafia was positioning itself for financial expansion in 2006, when police captured Bernardo Provenzano, the Sicilian Mafia’s boss of bosses. Credit markets worldwide began to freeze in late 2007. By then, Provenzano had helped a new generation of mobsters secure a foothold in the legitimate economy through mainly cash- based operations such as food distribution.

Today, as weakened banks get government stress tests, corporations slash jobs and families struggle to recover amid the economic rout, Italian organized crime is enjoying the fruits of its liquidity.

‘Ramping Up’

“The Mafia is ramping up its investing,” says Antonino Di Matteo, a fellow Mafia prosecutor whose bodyguard stands watch outside his office door in the Sicilian capital’s fascist-era courthouse. “The Mafia’s financial managers are trying to invest now, while the time is right, so that they can launder their fortunes once and for all.”

Italy’s cash-depleted banks may be helping the Mafia become even stronger, says Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations’ Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime.

The country’s four biggest lenders -- UniCredit SpA, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA and Banco Popolare SC -- are planning to raise more than 9 billion euros to weather the financial crisis by selling convertible bonds to the government.

On May 6, the Bank of Italy, which regulates lenders, cautioned that banks have lowered their guard against money laundering. The central bank plans a new set of anti-laundering rules to classify, monitor and collect data on clients.

In one of Scarpinato’s investigations, UniCredit Suisse Bank, a UniCredit unit based across the border in Lugano, Switzerland, was the apparent destination for 450,000 euros he eventually seized from another Sicilian grocery store owner. UniCredit spokesman Marcello Berni says the bank declines to comment on matters involving individual clients.

Fake Bonds

On May 22, Palermo prosecutors busted an alleged Sicilian Mafia ring that had tried and failed to use fake Venezuelan bonds as collateral to borrow $2.2 billion from HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of America Corp. and unnamed British banks. The two banks declined to comment.

Italy’s three main organized crime groups divvy up a big chunk of southern Italy. The Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is the most tightly knit. It’s the inspiration for the American version of the mob, says Salvatore Lupo, a history professor at the University of Palermo.

The Campania region’s Camorra is centered in Naples. It’s made up of independent Mafia families who control neighborhoods or towns. Roberto Saviano’s 2007 book “Gomorrah” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and the movie a year later have brought the Camorra into the public eye.

‘I Sell Money’

Investigators consider the third group, the Calabria region’s ‘Ndrangheta, to be Europe’s biggest cocaine traffickers. Its name comes from a word for a network of ‘ndrine, or clans.

Italy’s black market lenders have already stepped in to provide financial services.

“I sell money,” alleged loan shark Vincenzo Senese told a businessman who was trying to raise funds for a startup venture, according to the transcript of a phone call included as evidence from Senese’s Rome arrest warrant on charges related to drug trafficking.

High-interest lending to consumers and businesses posted the biggest gains among illicit commercial activities in Italy last year. Such loan-sharking jumped 17 percent to 35 billion euros, according to SOS Impresa, a Rome-based business group that fights extortion.

People shut out from legitimate lenders paid as much as 730 percent annual interest, outstripping the high of 440 percent SOS Impresa documented in 2007, according to evidence from criminal cases compiled by the organization.

Loan Shark

One desperate borrower is Maurizio Vara. On a sunny morning in March, he’s avoiding eavesdroppers in the back corner of an outdoor cafe in Mondello, a beach town outside Palermo. As a tabby cat naps on a table beneath a nearby magnolia tree, the 40-year-old hotelier and construction contractor explains that banks aren’t lending to entrepreneurs in the economic downturn.

Like countless Italian business­people, he turned to a loan shark as his business faltered.

“I haven’t been able to get credit from banks,” says Vara, who has wraparound Fila sunglasses perched atop his balding head. His loan shark sent thugs to collect the 45,000 euros he owes.

“I want to pay,” says Vara, who says he doesn’t have the cash. “I’ve lost my future.”

Unlike traditional lenders, the mob has no qualms about resorting to violence, says Alberto Caperna, a Rome prosecutor who’s pursued usury cases for 20 years.

Broken Teeth

“A bank can’t break all of your teeth if you don’t pay,” he says as he chain-smokes Merit cigarettes in his modern office near the Vatican.

As strong and feared as the Mafia is now, it’s angling for greater riches and influence once the economy rebounds, Scarpinato says. Italian organized crime groups invested 26 billion euros in industries including tourism, restaurants, car dealerships and fashion last year, according to SOS Impresa.

Senese’s son Michele used his cash to muscle in on an auto dealer in Genzano di Roma, south of the capital, according to the arrest warrant in a pending case in Rome. The owner needed capital. He also wanted Senese’s thugs to pressure another dealer to pay off a debt, according to the allegations.

While the Mafia and its hardball tactics are fixtures in popular culture, mobsters’ modern business model has emerged only in the past few years.

New Generation

In the late 1990s, younger family members with formal educations began taking the reins from older Mafiosi, says Pietro Grasso, Italy’s chief anti-Mafia prosecutor. Provenzano, 76, who was captured in a two-room shepherd’s shack, never finished second grade. By contrast, Giuseppe Guttadauro, a convicted mobster and head of a Palermo crime family, is a surgeon.

Guttadauro, 60, is part of a generation that includes his brother’s brother-in-law, Matteo Messina Denaro, a rising star who’d reported to Provenzano.

Under the old business strategy, the ‘Ndrangheta made its money in the 1970s by collecting ransoms for kidnappings. It grabbed the spotlight with its suspected involvement in the 1973 abduction of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty’s grandson John Paul Getty III.

It has since transformed into a multinational cocaine- trafficking syndicate with members posted in South America. Those overseas representatives buy cocaine wholesale and then organize shipments to Europe to other Mafiosi in Spain, Holland and Italy, Grasso says.

Cocaine

Steered by its younger leaders, Italian organized crime has taken over most of the European portion of the global $320 billion cocaine trade for 2009, says Russell Benson, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief for Europe and Africa. He says investigations show that the ‘Ndrangheta then invests its cash as far away as Canada and Australia.

“There’s a tsunami of cocaine coming to Europe,” Benson says, sitting at a mahogany table in a room with 6-meter-high ceilings at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, where he’s based. “They’re out to make a profit and invest that profit in businesses throughout the world.”

The new Mafia bosses are poised to put some of their money into financial markets. They’ll probably behave much like any investor who looks for good deals in stocks and bonds, says Ivanhoe Lo Bello, chairman of Banco di Sicilia, a Palermo-based unit of UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank.

Mafia members invest anonymously by handing their cash to frontmen -- sometimes known as gatekeepers -- who place the money in accounts held in the names of corporations or other people untraceable to the Mafiosi, Italian investigations show.

Mob Investors

“Mobsters care about their money, and they try to invest wisely,” says Lo Bello, who was born and raised near Syracuse in Sicily. “They are invested in international financial markets, more or less anonymously, or in their own territory through people who are known in their sectors as legitimate businesspeople.”

During Provenzano’s arrest, police discovered more than 200 letters, known as pizzini, which helped shed light on the Mafia’s tactics. The correspondence written to him and a few of his own letters were carefully organized next to an electric typewriter in Provenzano’s hide-out.

Through the notes, Provenzano mediated disputes, distributed cash and communicated with the outside world during his four decades on the run. He didn’t trust telephones or computers, which can be tapped and traced.

‘The Godfather’

Until Provenzano was captured, the Sicilian Mafia had been controlled by his Corleone clan, based in the town south of Palermo that gives the fictional family of Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” its name. His arrest marked the end of the Corleone crime family’s grip on Cosa Nostra. More important for the new generation of mobsters, it opened the gates for expansion.

Under Provenzano’s rule, younger Mafiosi with global ambitions were on the verge of starting a war over who would control legitimate local businesses, including food markets, the notes show. Among the junior bosses was Messina Denaro -- today one of Italy’s 30 most-wanted fugitives and the highest-ranking Sicilian Mafia boss at large.

Messina Denaro, 47, has been on the run since 1993, when he was sought for participating in bombings that killed 10 people in Florence, Milan and Rome. The blasts targeted Italian cultural sites, including Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, the home of Sandro Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus.” The attacks were an attempt to force the state to ease its use of solitary confinement for mobsters imprisoned in Italy.

‘Diabolik’

A year earlier, Palermo prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were assassinated in separate bombings.

During his time in hiding, Messina Denaro has strengthened his hold on Mafia business and enhanced his legend as a fashion- plate villain, Scarpinato says.

Unlike Provenzano, who wore jeans and wool sweaters while living as a fugitive, Messina Denaro is known for his Giorgio Armani and Versace suits. His nickname, “Diabolik,” comes from a character in an Italian comic book series, a thief who’s embedded machine guns in the hood of his black Jaguar sports car -- something that Mafia turncoats say Messina Denaro told them he admired.

Provenzano went by the less-glamorous nicknames of “Tractor” for his ability to roll over enemies and “The Accountant” for his skill in dividing up money.

Messina Denaro and other bosses pioneered the financial structure that’s benefiting the mob in today’s recession, trial documents of cases in Sicily based on Provenzano’s pizzini show.

‘A Clean Face’

Food stores were an entry point to that network. The Mafia controlled the distributor from which a market bought its merchandise. The distributor, in turn, handpicked the growers and suppliers. Mobsters, who made their cash from the drug trade, loan-sharking and extortion, pumped the money through the stores and onward through the network.

Shopping centers and supermarkets are attractive investments for all of Italy’s crime syndicates, investigations in Calabria, Campania and Sicily show, Grasso says. With a hand on the whole chain of commerce, the mob could set prices to regulate the market and position itself to prosper during hard times.

Messina Denaro, whose letters to Provenzano were among the pizzini found, laid out the food-store-based business plan.

“You have to find a clean face, someone who has never been in trouble with the law,” he wrote. He mentioned Grigoli, the market owner who’s on trial, referring to him as his paesano, or townsman. Grigoli had a license to run stores under the Despar brand of Amsterdam-based Spar International, which calls itself the world’s largest retail food store chain.

Muscling In

“As soon as you have found this person, I’ll tell my paesano” -- meaning Grigoli -- “to buy the outlet in your town and kick out the current owner,” Messina Denaro wrote in a message dated May 25, 2004.

Grigoli denies being part of Cosa Nostra. He says he was a victim of extortion, according to Paolo Tosoni, one of his lawyers. In Sicily, it’s inevitable for the Mafia to try muscling in on businesses. That’s what happened to Grigoli, Tosoni says.

“He doesn’t deny having been in contact with some lower- level criminal figures,” Tosoni says. “He didn’t benefit from this relationship. On the contrary, he did nothing but pay.”

Police Bug

The Mafia’s ability to mix illicit and legal funds from cash-based businesses has multiplied its power, Scarpinato says. Another of his cases involved a chain called Sisa SpA. The Sicilian Mafia used Sisa stores to invest and launder criminal money, according to the asset seizure request Scarpinato filed in November against the estate of Paolo Sgroi, the late owner of some of the chain’s stores.

Scarpinato won court approval to seize 250 million euros from the estate as part of his recent 2.7 billion euro haul. The evidence he’s uncovered indicates that millions more have already made it into the global financial system.

Scarpinato got a break on April 29, 2006, when Sgroi and his wife, Monica, were driving to the Palermo airport in their Mercedes-Benz car. A police bug picked up their conversation as they concocted an alibi for the 450,000 euros they’d stashed in their luggage. If caught while boarding their flight to Milan, they’d tell the police they were smuggling the cash to evade taxes, Sgroi said.

His wife agreed, rehearsing the scene: “‘Where are you going?’” she said, playing an airport official. “To the Virgin Islands or Caymans,” she answered as herself.

Smuggler

Tax evasion would have been a minor offense compared with what Italian prosecutors say the couple was really up to. Sgroi’s bag contained the profits of organized crime, including some that probably belonged to a Sicilian Mafia fugitive convicted in Italy and Switzerland of money laundering and drug trafficking, according to the asset seizure request.

Sgroi and his wife landed in Milan with the money, rented a Renault Megane at Linate airport and drove to find a Polish man who’d agreed to ferry the cash across the border to Lugano. Paolo Sgroi and the Pole met in front of a bar on Viale Beatrice d’Este, near Bocconi University.

The man, carrying an apparently empty black briefcase, walked up to Sgroi, according to an account of police surveillance in the seizure request. Sgroi called his wife, who met them at the front door of their Milan apartment. The pair handed over a white plastic bag of cash.

When police pulled over the smuggler’s car heading toward the Swiss border, he was traveling with his wife and their 8- year-old son as decoys. The 450,000 euros was in the white bag in the trunk.

Swiss Bank

The planned destination for the cash was UniCredit Suisse Bank, the Polish man said, according to court documents. Sgroi told investigators the money drop was to evade taxes and that it was his money, not the Mafia’s. The UniCredit bank account Sgroi was aiming for already had 1.7 million euros in it, Scarpinato found.

Prosecutors who seized Sgroi’s estate allege he aided Cosa Nostra and attempted to launder money for the group. Cosa Nostra probably controlled part of his supermarket chain as a shadow investor, the seizure document says. Neither UniCredit nor its employees were charged with any crime.

Sgroi’s estate denies the charges, says Ernesto D’Angelo, a Palermo lawyer representing Sgroi’s family. The supermarkets were his, as was the money he was trying to take to Switzerland to avoid taxes, the lawyer says.

500-Euro Bills

“All of his assets were obtained legally, including what was found abroad,” D’Angelo says of Sgroi. He says Sgroi had been forced to pay extortion money to the mob. “We hope the court recognizes the fact that he was a victim,” D’Angelo says.

The contents of Sgroi’s money bag show how cash plays a role in the Mafia’s new business model. Half the money was in 500-euro bills, a denomination that was first circulated in 2002 with the introduction of the common European currency.

Today, the purple note with its depiction of 20th-century architecture is a symbol of the Italian mob’s increasing reach, the DEA’s Benson says. The bills, worth about $690 each, are hard to spend in shops in Europe. Yet they’re easy to transport. A million dollars in $100 bills weighs about 22 pounds (10 kilograms), while $1 million in 500-euro bills weighs about 3.5 pounds, Benson says.

Those bills are turning up in drug busts in Colombia and Mexico, giving Mafia hunters like Scarpinato another means of tracking the mob’s cash flow.

Scarpinato says this new evidence shows that Italy’s crime syndicates pose a growing threat to the global economy, particularly in its weakened state. He says he worries that once the recession ends, the Mafia will have sunk its hooks into scores of new markets and businesses, magnifying its financial clout.

“The Mafia isn’t part of the past, it’s part of the future,” the prosecutor says. “Organized crime has evolved. It has become the criminal protagonist of the third millennium.”

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Cargill, Bunge Win Most Export Aid Since 1992 as Credit Slows
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By Alan Bjerga

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Cargill Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge Ltd. are benefiting from the most government support for farm exports since 1992 as the U.S. steps up loan guarantees for foreign buyers unable to get credit.

About $4.35 billion was allocated to countries from Jamaica to Turkey through April 6 in the year that started Oct. 1 under the Export Credit Guarantee Program to underwrite loans that foreign banks grant for the purchase of corn, wheat and other U.S. farm products, government records show. That’s 40 percent more than in all of fiscal 2008 and almost triple 2007’s total.

The U.S. is supporting exports after the Department of Agriculture predicted farm shipments will drop 17 percent in the current fiscal year because of falling commodity prices. Profit declined 68 percent at Cargill and 98 percent at ADM in the most recent quarter, as the recession curbed demand for everything from fertilizer to livestock feed. Bunge reported its second straight loss last month.

The export-guarantee program is “the perfect tool for tight credit,” said Erick Erickson, an economist in Washington for the U.S. Grains Council, a trade group. It “allows the U.S. to satisfy some import needs that would otherwise go to other countries.”

The government loan guarantees, in existence since 1981, are helping finance U.S. agricultural exports in the face of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Banks and businesses worldwide have lost $1.47 trillion in writedowns and credit losses in the past 22 months stemming from the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market.

Weaker Economies, Prices

The economy of South Korea, the program’s largest customer, rose 0.1 percent in the first three months of 2009 after declining 5.1 percent in the final quarter of last year, according to government data. Russia’s government is revising its current forecast for a 2.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year as its economic crisis worsens.

Slowing demand helped send U.S. wheat, corn and soybean prices down at least 28 percent from records reached last year. U.S. farm exports, which reached a record $115.5 billion in the year ended Sept. 30, will fall to $95.5 billion this year, according to USDA projections.

The loan-guarantee initiative “facilitates exports, creating and maintaining jobs for exporters, agribusiness in general, and the transportation sector” and helps U.S. banks provide credit to overseas counterparts, said Mark Rowse, director of credit programs for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Cargill

As of April 13, about $2.8 billion of the $4.35 billion allotment had been used for specific sales, according to government records obtained by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act. Cargill, the largest privately held U.S. company, had benefited from $546.1 million in loan guarantees, 67 percent more than in 2007 and on pace to surpass its 2008 total.

The loan program has kept food flowing to developing nations at a time when banks are pulling back on financing trade, Lisa Clemens, a spokeswoman for Minnetonka, Minnesota- based Cargill said in an e-mail.

White Plains, New York-based Bunge has had its exports backed by $293.2 million in loan guarantees, more than nine times last year’s total, government records show. The company announced a quarterly loss of $195 million on April 23. Bunge has plunged 47 percent in the past year in New York trading.

While the program will cover only about 5 percent of this year’s expected shipments, they are useful to help keep importers buying U.S. products, said Deb Seidel, a Bunge spokeswoman.

“It provides importing countries the credit they need to purchase food,” Seidel said.

Archer Daniels

Archer Daniels, the world’s largest grain processor, was helped by $390.5 million in credits as of mid-April, behind the pace of more than $1 billion in guarantees last year. The total already is 16 percent above the company’s total for 2007, the records show. Decatur, Illinois-based ADM has dropped 37 percent in the past year in New York trading.

The loan-guarantee program, also known as GSM-102, was to help buyers of U.S. goods obtain financing that may not be available otherwise. Participating countries receive credit allocations, and then the USDA finds foreign banks that are acceptable risks and underwrites loans extended by U.S. banks or exporters.

The program is used more during times of slower global economic growth and tighter credit, such as during the early 1990s recession or the Asian financial crisis later that decade.

The loan guarantees maintain and expand markets during a slowing economy, with low default risk, said Erickson of the grains council.

South Korea

South Korea this fiscal year has purchased 2.09 million tons of corn and 88,470 tons of soybean meal using the guarantees, according to the U.S. Grains Council. In 2008, the third-largest importer of U.S. corn bought 8.42 million tons, according to USDA statistics.

Korea has switched sales from Brazil to the U.S. twice in the past six months to take advantage of the credits, resulting in $9.3 million of sales to Glencore Grain LLC and $25.5 million for Peter Cremer North America LP, said Byong Ryol Min, the Korea director for U.S. Grains.

Nations close to exhausting their credits as of April 6 include Russia, which had used $321.6 million of its $400 million allocation, and Mexico, which has gone through $99.9 million of its $125 million limit.

WTO Objection

U.S. competitors, including Brazil, have objected to the program. In 2004, the World Trade Organization ruled that the U.S. was providing improper trade assistance with its 1 percent cap on loan-origination fees that lowered the borrowing costs.

While the cap has been removed, Brazil still is concerned about the subsidies, according to Reinhold Stephanes, the country’s agriculture minister.

“Anything that harms our exporters and producers are to be questioned,” Stephanes said in an interview.

The Grains Council’s Erickson said he wants Congress to raise the program’s authorization to more than the $5.5 billion allowed under the 2008 farm bill.

“We believe that if Congress raised the cap it would be used, and it would be used well,” Erickson said.

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長期金利上昇、半年ぶり水準に　10年物国債一時1.500％

　28日の債券市場で、長期金利の指標である新発10年物国債の利回りが一時、1.500％となり、約半年ぶりの水準まで上がった。米国で長期金利が大幅に上昇したことが主因で、前日比では0.030％の上昇（債券価格は下落）となっている。

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小学校に１人１台ＰＣ、英語教育も　インテルと内田洋行が実験

　インテルと内田洋行は都内の小学校でノートパソコンを使った授業の実証実験を9月に始める。インテルが教育用に開発したパソコンを4―6年生に1台ずつ提供し、国語、算数、英語の授業に使ってもらう。約2年間にわたって学習効果などを検証し、教育用パソコンやソフトの開発に役立てる。

　両社はすでに千葉県で同様の実験をしているが、今回は小学校高学年の英語を必修にする新学習指導要領の導入を見越し、英語の学習にも使えるようにした。マイクとイヤホンが一体となったヘッドセットを使い、ネイティブスピーカーをまねて、その発音に近づけていく練習ができるという。

　専用のペンを使えば画面に直接書き込む形で入力できるため、漢字の書き取り練習などもできる。無線ＬＡＮ（構内情報通信網）にも対応しており、教師側の端末で児童それぞれの進み具合などをチェックするといった使い方が可能だ。

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私大、運用で評価損　慶応535億円・上智110億円・早稲田28億円

　有力私立大学の間で資産運用の評価損が膨らんでいる。慶応義塾大学は3月末時点で評価損が535億円、上智大学も110億円程度にのぼる。少子化による収入の先細りを補おうと株式運用などに乗り出す大学が増えているが、昨年秋以降の金融危機で運用環境が一変。リスク管理の難しさが浮き彫りになった。

　慶応大学は1500億円程度の資金を運用。年3―4％の利回りを目標に約8割を株式や投資信託に振り向けてきたが、積極運用が裏目に出た。金融商品の減損損失が膨らみ、2008年度決算は269億円の支出超過（赤字）になった。早稲田大学の3月末の評価損は外国債券中心に28億円。(07:00)

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慶応義塾２６９億円の赤字、金融危機で「含み損」拡大

　学校法人「慶応義塾」（東京都港区）は、２００８年度決算で経営状態を示す消費収支が２６９億円の支出超過になったと、ホームページで公表した。

　慶応義塾は、昨秋以降の世界的な金融危機の影響で保有する有価証券の時価評価が大幅に下落したことが原因だとしている。

　慶応義塾によると、今年３月末現在の株式などの有価証券の評価損と時価と簿価の差額にあたる「含み損」の合計は５３５億円で、このうち金融派生商品（デリバティブ）による損失は３６億円。評価の下落が著しかった１６９億円については、監査法人の指導に従って評価損として計上。含み損は０７年度末の２２５億円の１・６倍にあたる３６５億円だった。

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●更新日　０５／２８●

フジ関係者、ブログに工作カキコでキム･ヨナ擁護？

浅田真央を貶めたとしてネット上で多大な批判を受けたフジテレビ関係者が、またもや反感を買う行動に及んだようだ。

騒動が発生したのは、「コレクシオン」というブログの2009年5月19日の更新「キム・ヨナをキャスティングするフジテレビの不思議」のコメント欄だった。キム・ヨナに批判的な論調に対して、共感する書き込みが続いていた。

26日、「アラサー」と名乗る人物がそこに書き込んだ。「みなさん、ホントに知ったかぶりをしますね。。。同じ意見が集まったからといって、それが正しいとは100%言い切れませんね？同じ意見が集まって満足してるのは当事者だけですね」。

翌日も、この人物の書き込みが続く。「アマチュア選手１人をつかまえて、これだけ多くの人々、いわゆるスケートファンの出入りするブログのほとんどが、ヨナ選手に「一億総説教ジジイ&ババア」化してるような印象がどうしても受けてしまいますね」という。そして、次のように疑問を提起した。

「よくこの場でご意見が一致されてる方々は、口をそろえて「くだらないマスコミ」とおっしゃいます。では、その”くだらない”とは、何を尺度におっしゃっているのしょうか？　(中略)　このように、常にヨナ選手を持ち上げてる日本のバカなＴＶ局・・・という定義を構築しています。果たして本当にそうなんでしょうか？私が恐ろしいと感じるのは、ネット上などで、ある一人の「こうかもしれない・・」という意見に、多数の賛同者が現われた場合、気がつくと「かもしれない・・・」が、いつの間にか「そうに違いない！」そして最後には「絶対間違いない！」と変化してしまうことです」。

すると、IPを調べたところ、当該の書き込みはフジテレビからなされていたことを確認したと、管理人が暴露。「正直・・・驚きましたよ、というか恐ろしいことですね。こんな個人ブログにマスメディアに従事されている方が書き込みをされるなんて。騒動の「火消し」をしているのが当事者である「フジテレビ」の方だったなんて」と記している。

冒頭で触れたように、フジは浅田真央をゲストに呼んだ番組で、彼女が転倒した姿のパネルをスタジオに用意していたという動画がYouTubeにアップされ、話題になった。この件は、陰湿な虐めであると人々に受け止められた。

キム・ヨナ批判を陰湿と論じるフジ関係者は、浅田の件をどのように考えるのか、ぜひ聞いてみたいものだ。

探偵T
http://www.tanteifile.com/newswatch/2009/05/28_01/index.html

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フジテレビ関係者が勤務中に批判書き込みか！ ブログ管理人「恐ろしいこと」

以前、朝日新聞社スタッフが社内から『2ちゃんねる』に意味不明の書き込みをして営業妨害を指摘される騒動があった。今回も、社内からの書き込みによる騒動である。

一般ブロガーが執筆しているブログ『コレクシオン』。そこに韓国のフィギュアスケート選手キム・ヨナさんに対する批判記事を書いたところ、フジテレビの社内から記事の内容に対しての反対意見が書き込みされたことが判明したのだ。ブログの管理人はこのことについて、「あなたは “フジテレビ” の方なんですね」「騒動の “火消し” をしているのが当事者である “フジテレビ” の方だったなんて」と怒りのコメントをしている。

ブログの管理人はなぜ、「騒動の火消しをしている」という言葉を使ったのか？　それは、管理人がフジテレビの番組『グータンヌーボ』にキム・ヨナさんが出演することに対して批判する記事を書いたところ、フジテレビの社内から管理人の意見を否定する書き込みがあったからである（フジテレビ社内からの書き込みのハンドルネームはアラサー）。

管理人は、キム・ヨナさんが今までしてきたとされる日本に対するひどい発言や行動に対して不快感を感じていたことから、キム・ヨナさんや番組にゲストとして招いたフジテレビを否定する記事を書いたようだ。その記事を読んだフジテレビ関係者が反応し、自分の意見としてフジテレビ社内から書き込みしたことになる。つまりカンタンにまとめれば、「日本で嫌われているキム・ヨナを出すなんてフジテレビはおかしいのでは？」という一般人による意見に対して、フジテレビ社内から「おかしくはない」という反対意見が書き込まれたということである。

誰もが自分の意見を持っており、それを表現することは何も悪いことではない。ここで問題なのは、「フジテレビ批判の話題に対して、フジテレビ社内から匿名で反対意見が書き込みされたこと」である。この件に対し、管理人は以下のようにコメントしている。

「2009.05.27 16:32の書き込みのアラサーさん　あなたは “フジテレビ” の方なんですね。申し訳ありませんがもしもの荒らし対策のため、IPドメインSEARCHを使ってチェックさせていただいたのです。正直・・・驚きましたよ、というか恐ろしいことですね。こんな個人ブログにマスメディアに従事されている方が書き込みをされるなんて。騒動の「火消し」をしているのが当事者である “フジテレビ” の方だったなんて。あなたのご意見というか “フジテレビ” のご意見は、もうここでお答えする必要はない様に思います。このブログに “フジテレビ” からの書き込みがあったことは、書き込まれた当事者であられるの “フジテレビ” さんにご報告させていただきます」（ブログより引用して要約）。

また、管理人は新たに「正直私は怖かったです。このようなことは不気味にさえも感じました。一個人のブログに、フジテレビのような巨大メディアからの書き込み、それもマスコミ、つまりフジテレビ自身を擁護するものであったことが。もう一度フジテレビは見つめる必要があるのではないでしょうか？　報道機関のあるべき姿勢を！　それができなければ　結局 “くだらないマスコミ” でしかありません」（ブログより引用して要約）ともコメントしており、悲しみや怒りが混じった感情をあらわにしている。

重ねて言うが問題点は「フジテレビ批判の話題に対して、フジテレビ社内から匿名で反対意見が書き込みされたこと」だ。誰もが持論を持っており、それを表現することは悪いことではない。しかし、誤解を生まないためにも、社内から書き込みするという行動はひかえるべきだったのではないだろうか？　フジテレビ批判に対してフジテレビ関係者がフジテレビ社内から正体を隠して意見を述べたのでは、たとえそれが正論だとしてもそうは見られない。

フジテレビの意見ならば少なくともフジテレビの名を出して書き込みをする、個人ならば誤解を与えぬよう自宅などから書き込みをする必要があったのではないだろうか（このニュースの詳細記事はこちら）。

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

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BEIRUT: Lebanon and Syria re-opened a border crossing Wednesday at the Qmar Bridge in Al-Bqayaa area along the northern borders between the two states.

The crossing was closed by the Syrian authorities in the 1970s. The bridge constitutes the third border crossing in northern Lebanon, in addition to the crossings of Arida and Abboudiyeh.

The opening ceremony was attended by North Lebanon Governor Nassif Qalosh, the Governor of the Syrian city of Homs Mohammad Ghazal and the head of Syrian-Lebanese Higher Council Nasri Khoury. The three officials said the step would improve cooperation between Lebanon and Syria in different sectors. - The Daily Star

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Kurdish exports resume despite Iraq impasse

By Andrew England, Carola Hoyos and Roula Khalaf

Published: May 28 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 28 2009 03:00

For the past two years, foreign oil companies working in Kurdistan have had their hands tied. They have not been able to export their oil and have limited their development in the region. That could be set to change this weekend.

Kurdish oil is expected to start flowing through a pipeline that runs from Iraq through Kurdistan to Turkey and on to wider export markets.

Iraq's oil ministry said yesterday it would start exports from fields in the country's largely autonomous Kurdistan region on Sunday at an initial rate of 10,000 barrels per day.

"The initial amount that will be exported from Tawke and Taq Taq (fields) is 10,000 barrels per day, with a hope to reach 50,000 bpd," deputy oil minister Karim Louaibi, who is in charge of extraction, told Reuters. He gave no further details.

Without access to the pipeline, most of Kurdistan's oil has had to be left untapped, while the Kurdish and Iraqi oil ministries have remained locked in a bitter row about who should control the revenues it could raise. At its heart, the dispute centres around who controls how reserves are developed.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has tried and failed to create a legal framework to manage its vast oil resources - the world's third largest.

In the past two years the divisions between Kurdistan and Baghdad have become entrenched. Unwilling to wait for a national resolution, the Kurdish Regional Government in 2007 passed its own hydrocarbons law and has parcelled out its oil fields to dozens of small foreign oil companies in a move that Baghdad considers illegal.

A deep personal feud between the Iraq and Kurdish oil ministries ensued and left foreign oil companies operating in Kurdistan and Iraq in a legal vacuum.

Now, Kurdish oil is about to start flowing in larger quantities than ever before. But the breakthrough cannot be described as a thaw between Kurdistan and Baghdad and many legal and political wrangles remain.

Kurdistan announced earlier this month that it would begin exporting its oil through the Iraqi pipeline, without consulting Bagdad.

"We never asked for an agreement," said Ashti Hawrami, KRG oil minister. "We have a right. We do not need permission or a nod of approval."

Foreign oil companies operating in Kurdistan had already built a pipeline linking their oil deposits to the main Iraqi national pipeline but have not so far been able to use it.

If all goes according to plan, the oil pumped at the start of June from fields developed by DNO, a Norwegian company, and Addax, of Switzerland, will flow into the Iraq-Turkey pipeline and be sold on the open market. The revenue will be controlled by Baghdad's finance ministry.

DNO and Addax are not the only players that will be affected by how this story pans out. Analysts believe oil exports from the Kurdistan region could quickly jump to 100,000 bpd, rising to 1m b/d as the region is developed.

If exports from Kurdistan grind to a halt, it would mean serious loss of revenue for Iraq and increase the risk of a shortage in world oil supplies just as the global economy begins its recovery.

However, it remains unclear what Baghdad will do with the extra revenue from Kurdistan's oil - about $5m a day - and who will pay the foreign oil companies.

Hussein Shahrestani, Iraq's oil minister, said Baghdad would not be responsible for paying foreign oil companies operating in Kurdistan. He said the companies would have to be paid from the share of revenues that the KRG received, as allocated in the national budget.

"The KRG cannot have its cake and eat it at the same time," he told the FT.

Mr Hawrami insists DNO and Addax will get paid, but cannot say when or for how long he could afford to tap the KRG's budget if an agreement for additional oil revenue with the Iraqi finance ministry remained elusive.

"We have given them [the companies] assurances that they will get paid. How we get the money is up to sensible people," he said.

Ivar Branvold, DNO's chief operating officer, said that the company had not received "any particular instructions" on revenue from the field. But the company appeared to be willing to go ahead with exports anyway.

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Saudi family groups feel the pain

By Andrew England in Abu Dhabi and Abeer Allam in Riyadh

Published: May 28 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 28 2009 03:00

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company is one of the oldest and most respected family-owned conglomerates in Saudi Arabia. It was a group that could borrow on reputation alone, with a son of its founder on Forbes' world rich list.

But since one of its wholly owned subsidiaries, The International Banking Corporation (TIBC), defaulted on financial obligations to other banks this month it has sent jitters across the market.

The Algosaibi group has not responded to several requests for comment. But the fact that one of its subsidiaries defaulted has raised broader questions about the state of the oil-rich Gulf's secretive family-run businesses as they grapple with the downturn. The concern is that some may have overextended during the boom years, which saw Gulf states accumulate huge petrodollar reserves and fuelled rapid expansion, and are beginning to pay the price.

"For foreign counterparties the fact that there has been no public communication [from the Algosaibi group] has raised some questions about transparency, corporate governance and the disclosure of family owned companies in the Gulf," said Emmanuel Volland at Standard & Poor's.

The focus on Algosaibi began this month when Bahrain-based TIBC was downgraded by rating agencies after it defaulted.

At the end of 2008, TIBC had short- and medium-term debt of $2.2bn (€1.58bn, £1.38bn) - most of it short- term inter-bank borrowing, according to rating agencies.

Standard & Poor's said TIBC, which had total assets of $3.8bn, had funds to make payments - including a portfolio of more than $400m in Saudi shares. But the ratings agency has been told that it did not do so because of "a high likelihood" that Algosaibi would implement a group-wide debt restructuring.

Capital Intelligence, which also downgraded TIBC, said it understood from TIBC's management that Algosaibi group had recently been "experiencing liquidity problems exacerbated by the global financial turmoil".

"This rendered the Algosaibi group unable to service its debt culminating in the implementation of a group-wide [including TIBC] debt restructuring," Capital Intelligence said.

This led to a chain reaction, analysts say, with concerned lenders - both local and international - seeking reassurances about their outstanding obligations. The Algosaibi group's obligations to Saudi banks is estimated to be more than $2.5bn, while it owes international banks several hundred million dollars, an analyst with knowledge of the group says.

"There is a state of flux, this is one of the most respected family businesses in Saudi Arabia and they are trying to remain credible," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at SABB Bank. "They have taken decisions that were too risky and have been hit by the global financial crisis and they are paying the price for it."

Algosaibi's website lists SABB Bank among its financial services investments.

Analysts say Saudi banks are in talks with the family group and discussing the possibility of restructuring some of the debt.

Questions are being raised about the exposure banks may have to the company, including leading Saudi banks and institutions in Bahrain, which has a large financial hub that has traditionally served Saudi Arabia.

Experts say some other family companies in the Gulf are struggling and are in talks with their banks over their obligations. Private equity groups, meanwhile, say they are beginning to see opportunities with family businesses that are looking to divest from subsidiaries as they seek to raise cash or refocus on their core businesses.

Many family owned businesses have grown across an increasingly broad range of sectors. Algosaibi, which began trading in the 1940s, lists financial services, manufacturing, real estate, trading, shipping services, travel related services, agriculture and media and exhibitions among its main investments.

Bankers say much depends on how a family business has been run and how power has been delegated - often companies have problems in the second and third generations.

"It boils down to corporate governance, and who is the patriarch and has he devolved too much responsibility to the next people down who have never experienced a downturn," a regional banker says.

"The problem is 75 years of reputation enabled these groups to borrow as much as they wanted during credit free times and of course anybody who borrowed to the limit of their reputation will be struggling now."

But while the boom was seen as a chance for some of the governance issues to be addressed, the downturn is causing some companies to retreat into their shells.

"If this crisis has shown us one thing it is that the worse it gets the less transparent many of these Gulf private sector companies become - and that is the key issue," says Philipp Lotter at Moody's.

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Abu Dhabi tycoon who brokered Man City deal set to buy Pompey

By Michael Kavanagh, Pan Kwan Yuk and Simeon Kerr

Published: May 28 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 28 2009 03:00

Portsmouth is poised to become the latest English football club to have a wealthy Arab owner, it emerged last night.

Sulaiman al-Fahim, an Abu Dhabi-based businessman who stars in an Arab version of The Apprentice television show, struck a provisional deal to buy the club for an undisclosed sum from its Franco-Russian owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, after talks with Peter Storrie, the club's executive chairman, in Rome on Tuesday night.

If concluded, the deal, subject to due diligence, will end months of speculation that Mr Gaydamak was looking to offload "Pompey" after spending more than £30m to acquire control from previous owner Milan Mandaric in 2006.

Mr Fahim also brokered the purchase of Manchester City from Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's former prime minister, for Abu Dhabi's royal family in a £200m deal last September, which also saw the club sign Brazilian star Robinho from Real Madrid in a record-breaking £32.5m transfer fee.

But the club, controlled by Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan and now chaired by Khaldoon al- Mubarak, parted ways with Mr Fahim as the deal to purchase Man City closed.

This left Mr Fahim free to pursue a purchase of Portsmouth, holders of the FA Cup, who disappointed fans by selling top players during the transfer window after the departure of manager Harry Redknapp.

It is understood that the deal will be struck through Mr Fahim's new investment vehicle Al Fahim Asia Associates and structured by specialist international private equity and asset management firm Falcon Group. But his ultimate intention - of whether to hold or sell on the club - remains unclear.

The sale price also remains unknown. But in its annual review of football finance last year, Deloitte estimated Premier League clubs have typically been sold at an enterprise value of 1.5 to two times annual revenue.

On this multiple range, Portsmouth, with turnover of £70.5m for the year to May 2008, would be worth between £105.7m and £141m. But the credit crunch has depressed valuations of Premier League teams. Portsmouth's debts, of £57m last May, would also weigh on its equity value.

The sale agreement came as fellow Premier League club Sunderland confirmed its majority shareholder Ellis Short was taking 100 per cent control.

Mr Short is co-founder of Texas-based US fund management company Lone Star.

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Haier acquires stake in Fisher & Paykel

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing

Published: May 28 2009 02:04 | Last updated: May 28 2009 02:04

Haier, the Chinese electrical appliances maker, has agreed to take a 20 per cent stake in Fisher & Paykel Appliances of New Zealand for between NZ$80m and NZ$82m (US$49m and US$51m), the two companies said on Wednesday.

Through the deal, Haier takes a cautious further step towards global expansion. The company, which has a history of growth by aggressive acquisitions in its home market, has not repeated that performance abroad.

In 2005 Haier was outbid by Whirlpool for a stake in Maytag, the US appliances maker. Earlier this year Haier said it had given up bidding for General Electric’s home appliances unit because it did not consider itself fit for integrating and running a business in a foreign market yet.

Haier’s tie-up with F&P, which has a focus on high-end niche products, allows the Chinese group to expand into higher-priced products in export markets. Haier’s overseas markets have so far been concentrated on the mass market.

For loss-making F&P, the deal is the cornerstone of a recapitalisation package which also includes NZ$575m in new credit lines.

Haier will take two seats on F&P’s board following the investment. The companies said they would also co-operate in product development, sourcing, manufacturing and marketing.

Under the alliance, the companies gain exclusive distribution rights for each other’s products in their respective home markets. They also agreed to use each others’ factories to make the partner’s branded products.

Haier was advised by Morgan Stanley.

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'White van man' suffers decline in social status

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

Published: May 28 2009 03:00 | Last updated: May 28 2009 03:00

Britain's middle earners have lost ground to the -better-off and the rich, seen their relative status in society decline and been let down by politicians, the Trades Union Congress argues in a report today.

Thirty years after Margaret Thatcher first targeted voters in middle England, and 12 years since New Labour made its winning appeal to "middle Britain", the TUC draws a sharp contrast between the fortunes of that group and those of people on comfortable professional incomes.

This richer group has increasingly been seen, by commentators and politicians alike, as "middle Britain".

The result is that successive governments have failed to deliver what true middle-earners want - a dissonance that helps to explain outrage about the MPs' expenses scandal, says the TUC.

The findings may make alarming reading for Labour. The high command is aware it cannot win the next general election without the support of this group of voters - normally termed C1s and C2s by psephologists.

The TUC defines "middle income Britain" as the fifth of the population straddling median income, the level that divides the population in two. Median household income was £377 a week, just under £20,000 a year, in 2007.

Median earners have seen their income rise by less than the average, or mean, income over the past 30 years, the TUC says. The mean is calculated by dividing total incomes by the number of people in the UK.

Since 1979 the income of median earners has risen by 60 per cent, while much bigger increases for the better-off have pushed up mean earnings by 78 per cent, according to the report.

While median income fell behind more sharply under the Conservatives as society became more unequal, the TUC says the gap has grown under Labour. Mean net household income in 2007 stood at £463 a week, 23 per cent higher than the median.

"Middle income Britons" who have jobs are concentrated in white-collar and skilled manual roles, including dispatch clerks, retail managers, information technology workers and teaching assistants.

Their experience of life is likely to be marked by econ-omic insecurity - rather like members of the struggling middle class in the US who have been dubbed "the anxious middle" by economists.

Compared with those just above them on the income scale, median earners are less likely to have had a university education, to enjoy a final salary pension scheme, to hold shares or to have significant savings. They are more likely to have experienced unemployment.

They are frustrated, says a YouGov survey for the report. While they have aspirations for more fulfilling work and better living standards, they feel keenly their inability to fulfil society's rising expectations. Four in 10 people on median incomes believe their job has a lower status than their father's.

Stewart Lansley, the report's author, said one of the big failings of the past 30 years was that the middle income Britain of the 1970s and 1980s had not been transformed into the well-to-do middle Britain of politicians' recent imagination.

"Maybe because of this, middle income Britain holds noticeably different values than those above them in the income hierarchy. They are more pro-state and strongly support government action to tackle in-equality," he said.

The report calls for targets to reduce income and wealth inequalities, a government "Inequality Commission" and an end to the "public school near-monopoly" on top jobs.

Sheila Lawlor, director of Politeia, the conservative think-tank, said she accepted some people were under pressure but the answer lay in a smaller role for the state.

Julian Baggini, author of Welcome to Everytown: a Journey into the English Mind , said he was reluctant to blame politicians for median earners' frustrations.

"I think the deeper failure is that everyone has got complicit in this illusion of rising, limitless aspiration and there are broader social changes as well," he said.