| 'Green' vehicle technology to get financing from Ontario
The Ontario government plans to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the auto industry to help it become a leader in producing more environmentally friendly cars and maintain the province's pre-eminence in the crucial sector. The government plans to create a fund similar in size to the Ontario Automotive Investment Strategy, a $500-million program set up in 2004 that led to investments totalling $7-billion in the auto sector, a government source said. The plan is to build on that success by making sure the next generation of cars -- those that are lighter and produce fewer emissions but are not necessarily smaller -- are researched and produced in Ontario. The new fund will be part of Premier Dalton McGuinty's goal to position his government as a leader on the environment by attempting to link the province's economic fortunes to the formidable challenges of climate change.
Ontario NDP demanding details of $50m Magna deal
Ontario's NDP is demanding more details of a $50-million government investment in a new research-and-development centre proposed by Aurora, Ont.- based Magna International Inc. Greg Sorbara, the Finance Minister, announced the investment in his provincial budget speech on Thursday, but there was no mention of the contribution in the budget papers. "The finalization of support of that facility was not reached until after the budget went to press but I thought that it was such an important milestone and consistent with other themes in the budget that I decided to put it in my written text," Mr. Sorbara told reporters yesterday. .
Retooling Automotive Welding
Auto manufacturers are streamlining their build processes from traditional assembly lines set up specifically for each vehicle, to lines that produce families of vehicles. DaimlerChrysler recently invested $278 million to put a version of this concept into production at its Sterling Heights, Mich., assembly plant, for the production of its 2008 Dodge Avenger. The plant was shut down for less than seven weeks while its assembly line was converted. The multi-tasked weld cells DaimlerChrysler's Flexible Manufacturing Strategy – its version of a lean manufacturing program – takes an alternate approach to the application of automation on production lines. Rather than having multiple lines of robots welding the same locations on each model that passes them, the corporation's new strategy is to run multiple vehicle architectures from the same "family" of vehicles through a single line of robots.
Barclays, ABN Amro Know Most, Pay the Least for Takeover Advice
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ask Barclays Plc and ABN Amro Holding NV how much takeover advice is worth and they'll prove it's a lot less than what companies in any other industry pay banks for arranging acquisitions. Bankers hired for the proposed merger of Barclays and ABN Amro may share about $100 million for what would be the biggest marriage in financial services based on comparable fees from previous deals. That's about one-third less than advisers charged last year for AT&T Inc.'s $73 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp., estimates compiled by New York-based Freeman & Co. show. ``Financial institutions understand particularly well the fee world because they live in it,'' said Frederick Lane, a founding partner and chairman of Boston-based investment bank Lane, Berry & Co.
MOVES-Barclays, Ptarmigan, Citigroup, ThinkEquity
NEW YORK, April 9 (Reuters) - The following financial service industry appointments were announced on Thursday. To inform us of other job changes, please e-mail moves@reuters.com. THINKEQUITY ThinkEquity Partners LLC said on Monday that Michael Philipps, previously head of institutional brokerage and Ladenburg Thalmann, has joined as a senior sales trader and partner in the institutional brokerage group. PTARMIGAN CAPITAL The alternative asset manager named Arvind Bajaj as a princiapl. Bajaj previously worked at Credit Suisse in positions including head of European commercial mortgage-backed security origination, and head of Middle East real estate. Bajaj will focus on Ptarmigan's global real estate products, including investments in southern India.
Laws of interest
Many players in the Islamic finance industry are now discussing whether 2007 will be the year that it is no longer seen as a niche market but a mainstream industry. With the recent proposals in the 2007 Budget, the UK may soon become the location of choice for Islamic finance and not just the "gateway" mooted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in June 2006. With progressive legislation in the Finance Acts of 2003, 2005, 2006 and planned in 2007, the UK now has some of the most sophisticated tax laws on Islamic finance. The most significant development will be the equalisation of tax treatment for Sukuk – sometimes referred to as Islamic bonds – and the removal of tax barriers to the effective securitisation of Shariah-compliant financing such as Islamic mortgages. Islamic mortgages have been employed in the UK for almost a decade, but to date there have not been any securitisation of such portfolios.
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