Globaldata Share Discussion Threads

[littleredrooster] 17/6/2017 18:45

a final ruling could take years

Good news for the lawyers.



Google Faces EU Antitrust Fine -- WSJ

17/06/2017 8:02am
Dow Jones News

By Natalia Drozdiak

BRUSSELS -- European Union regulators in the coming weeks are set to hit Alphabet Inc.'s Google with a record fine for manipulating its search results to favor its own comparison-shopping service, according to people familiar with the matter.

The antitrust penalty against Google is expected to top the EU's previous record fine levied on a company for allegedly abusing its market position: EUR1.06 billion (about $1.2 billion) against Intel Corp. in 2009.

Under EU rules, the fine could reach as high as 10% of the company's annual revenue, which was $90.27 billion last year.

Google faces additional, and perhaps more painful, consequences from the European Commission's action, including possible changes not only to its handling of its shopping service but other services as well. The antitrust watchdog's decision could also embolden private litigants to seek compensation for damages at national courts.

The EU is likely to instruct Google to put its comparison shopping service on equal footing with those of its competitors, such as Foundem.co.uk and Kelkoo.com Ltd. Such companies rely on traffic coming to their site from search engines like Google's, and the equal-treatment requirement could lead to greater visibility for rival services on the tech giant's platform.

The EU has been in talks with some of the complainants about how Google should change its search results, though the precise remedy would likely be hammered out only after a decision is announced.

Google general counsel Kent Walker has previously argued that forcing the company to place competitors' product ads in its search results "would just subsidize sites that have become less useful for consumers."

The regulators' move would come as welcome relief to a range of web companies -- large and small, European and American -- that have been urging the EU for years to take antitrust action against Google. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has formally complained to the EU about Google's handling of news articles on its search service.

The EU watchdog opened its investigation into Google's practices in 2010. The former competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, subsequently drafted various settlements with Google over more than two years of talks, but the steps offered by Google were rejected in 2014 following criticism from competitors, as well as from politicians in Germany and France.

That led the way for Mr. Almunia's successor, current EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, to file formal accusations against Google -- the first regulator in the world to do so -- by issuing a so-called statement of objections in the comparison shopping case in April 2015.

An EU decision against Google would set the regulator apart from authorities in the U.S.; they closed their own investigation into Google's search practices in 2013 after the company agreed to voluntary changes. The divergence could reflect in part Google's greater presence in search on the continent, where it holds about 90% of the market.

Google can appeal any decision by the European Commission in the shopping case to the bloc's top courts in Luxembourg, dragging out the legal battle as a final ruling could take years.

A decision in the case could set precedents for how the U.S. technology company operates in other domains, including with its local and travel services -- areas the EU has also been investigating. Meanwhile, EU antitrust cases against Google over its Android mobile-operating service and its advertising service Adsense remain open.

[littleredrooster] 26/5/2017 15:39

I must admit that I rather liked the juxtaposition of "Current market value £11m" next to "Google has invested $29 billion for cloud infrastructure".

For those new to Forbidden Technologies, Forscene was used by Google/YouTube and NBC for the coverage of the London Olympics. The last I heard was that the dedicated cable still exists.

[littleredrooster] 26/5/2017 12:55

Forscene is the first and most feature-rich cloud video platform for editing and distribution

hxxp://www.forscene.com/blog/cost-effective-storage-editing-long-term-film-projects

Cost effective storage and editing for long-term film projects

Jovana

Posted On May 26, 2017

RDF Television uses Forscene for convenient storage, remote access and editing of its media throughout long-term reality film projects.

The company produces over 100 hours of network factual television every year for principal broadcasters, filming contributors from all across the country.

Unnecessary investment

RDF needed a solution to support a three-year ongoing project with sporadic filming throughout its duration. For this, they needed to consistently access and log their media with the option to edit whenever required – without any major investment in storage or edit suites.

Keeping all of their media on Avid storage throughout the duration of the project would have proved too expensive. Hardware-based storage at the office would only allow them to view the media without editing.

Video editing on demand in the cloud

* On-site ingest: Film rushes are sent to RDF West in Bristol where they are ingested and uploaded via the Forscene Edge server

* Cost-effective cloud storage: RDF have access to all of their content in the Forscene cloud without associated storage costs. With scalable pricing, they only pay for what they use

* Professional NLE: Forscene’s complete palette covers video editing for all media industries

* Remote access and collaboration: The production team in London have concurrent remote access to the media stored in Forscene. They can collaborate via Forscene’s live chat while working on the video content simultaneously

* Integrating with the Avid workflow: Edit metadata from Forscene can be exported via AAF to continue the edit in the Avid

Get in touch

Forscene provides RDF with a convenient cloud platform for their post-production workflow without unnecessary investment in expensive editing suites.

To find out how Forscene can benefit your broadcast production, get in touch today.

hxxp://www.forscene.com/about-us

Powerful cloud technology

Forscene is the first and most feature-rich cloud video platform for editing and distribution. We work with the largest broadcasters, digital rights owners and media companies to help them reach wider audiences and increase revenue.

hxxp://www.forscene.com/blog/

Warning

Forbidden Technologies has a long history of disappointing investors. Current market value £11m.

[littleredrooster] 25/5/2017 15:14

Google has invested $29 billion for cloud infrastructure in the last three years

hxxp://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Google-Cloud-Goes-After-Media--Entertainment-Customers-118254.aspx

Google Cloud Goes After Media & Entertainment Customers

Google Cloud is now responsible for 20-25% of all internet traffic and powers Snapchat, engineering director Leonidas Kontothanassis tells Content Delivery Summit attendees

By Nadine Krefetz

Posted on May 16, 2017

Google is going up against Amazon, Microsoft and IBM to make its cloud services the platform media companies should look to for their needs. It has built the largest private network in the world, which is now available for external customers. "Google thinks media is a very important vertical and deserves special attention," said Leonidas Kontothanassis, engineering director for Google at his Content Delivery Summit keynote in New York on Monday.

Approximately half of Google's engineers are working on the various components of Google Cloud Platform—the largest engineering group at Google by a factor of three, said Kontothanassis. Google Services provides an entire platform, powering media customers like Snapchat, which runs on Google Cloud.

Google has invested $29 billion for cloud infrastructure in the last three years. "We are serving a billion unique IP's every day. We bring the highest reliability in the industry," says Kontothanassis. Google Services for the platform include APIs for machine learning, specific custom services providing up to 5,000 cache points, SSL delivery at no additional cost, and a range of other services.

Media Services
Services they are providing for media include rendering, processing, intelligence, monetization, and the playback platform. The promise: Google Cloud can provide faster time to market and greater costs savings for media production, plus help customers avoid congestion and security problems of the public internet.

Kontothanassis outlined a couple of Google use cases. A live two-hour sports event can now be done for $4,000 for virtual live linear delivery with no hardware costs. Spotify can now process data in 15 minutes that previously took 96 hours, enabling them to provide customized personalize live linear music streaming. "Personalization by far is the most interesting development and most ripe for disruption," he said.

Video Supply Chain
Machine learning is another area Google is providing access to with API's. Live streaming can take advantage of real time closed caption creation in 80 languages. Image recognition can automatically identify logos and objects within video content which can be paired with customized ad insertion based on content or other monetization options like dynamic links to ecommerce sites. Intelligent playback can allow viewers to create customizable user defined clips (where a viewer can request highlights for a specific athlete and specific game for example). AI can be used to do analysis of video compression to allocate optimum file sizes based on traffic and delivery data. Any combination of these services provide huge opportunities for media innovation.

Capacity
Google provides for demand, capacity and congestion changes in real time. "Our workload is 20–25% of all internet traffic, depending on the country," says Kontothanassis, and 90% of this traffic is YouTube. "One of the most difficult things to do is how do you decide which users get assigned to which section." Every client gets mapped individually. Google's content mapping system provide individual optimized delivery, and can remap the client if they decide they need to move traffic.

hxxp://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Amazon-Netflix-and-More-Go-Global-With-the-Cloud-118024.aspx

hxxp://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Microsoft-Debuts-AI-Cloud-Service-for-Video-at-Build-Conference-118153.aspx

[littleredrooster] 23/5/2017 17:15

My estimate is that an early investment in IBG has significantly outperformed Google

Those who doubt this may wish to consider two facts:

1) IBG may have been valued at less than £1m when I bought my shares

2) GlobalData today has a market value of £500m

[littleredrooster] 23/5/2017 16:23

My estimate is that an early investment in IBG has significantly outperformed Google but the real star has been Amazon, and I would expect that I have benefitted from the rise in the Amazon share price via my investment in a global technology fund (and probably other such collective investments).



Amazon at 20: some shareholders have gained 49,000pc, others lost 94pc

James Connington

20 May 2017 • 7:23am

Investors who stuck with Amazon over the past two decades would have enjoyed a return of nearly 49,000pc, despite a 94pc collapse in its shares when the tech bubble burst at the turn of the millennium.

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the online retail giant’s public listing.

The stock has been “split” multiple times over its lifespan. Share splits involve investors being given, for example, 10 shares for each they already own. This dilutes the value of each share but prevents them becoming prohibitively expensive.

Adjusting for share splits, Amazon closed its first day of trading on May 15 1997 at $1.96 a share, after a 30.5pc rise that day. Today the stock trades at $959.

However, the ascent of Amazon's share price has not been smooth. During the 1999 tech bubble it hit a high of around $107 before collapsing to $6 by late 2001 - a 94pc loss.

Many retail investors own Amazon through funds, as it has become a perennial favourite of professional investors who target growth.

Of the 3,636 funds included in the classification system of the Investment Association, the trade body, 113 have Amazon as a top-10 holding, according to data service FE.

A constant cause of concern for many investors is the company's valuation, and whether it can be justified.

On a price to earnings (p/e) basis, it has repeatedly looked untenable. The p/e ratio measures share price relative to annual earnings per share. At times Amazon's p/e has registered in the thousands, and its average since 1997 is 236.

Today it sits at 182 according to data service Bloomberg, compared with 23 for the wider US market.

These valuations have not prevented the share price from rising, and many investors see Amazon as unique and almost impossible to imitate.

The business is notoriously guarded in terms of explaining its investments - even to fund managers - but many investors believe in its ability to innovate and disrupt existing sectors to continue to deliver growth.

hxxp://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/082715/if-you-had-invested-right-after-amazons-ipo.asp

If You Had Invested Right After Amazon's IPO

By Investopedia | Updated May 15, 2017 — 11:09 AM EDT

"Today — May 15, 2017 — is the 20th anniversary of Amazon.com Inc.'s (Nasdaq: AMZN) initial public offering (IPO). Those in the investment industry know that Amazon has been a hot stock for quite some time. However, this was not always the case. When Amazon first went public in 1997, its stock was priced at just $18 per share.

From that modest beginning, the online retail giant has seen its stock skyrocket, despite a rocky period during the dot-com crash. In fact, if you had invested just $100 in Amazon's IPO, that investment would have been worth $63,990 by close last Friday.

On the 20th anniversary of its IPO, the stock price opened at $958.68, slightly under the all time high the previous week at $962.

Hidden Growth
It is clear from the figures above that even a modest investment in the company in 1997 would have turned into a healthy contribution to anyone's retirement savings. In fact, the stock has multiplied almost 491 times, using the split-adjusted close of $1.96."

[geheimnis2] 18/5/2017 21:13

Good grief!!!!

I have stumbled across lrr!

We were genuinely worried about you over on the Fbt thread. Glad to see you are ok even though we had our differences.

Have you ditched Fbt??

[littleredrooster] 18/5/2017 21:07

the average UK worker will still earn less in 2021 than they did in 2008

Well, it was Labour who bust the economy.



UK real wages drop for first time in three years

This decade set to be worst in more than 200 years for pay packets, economists warn

May 17, 2017 by: Sarah O’Connor, Employment Correspondent

"Wages in Britain have dropped in real terms for the first time in almost three years as employers remain reluctant to offer bigger pay rises in spite of the acceleration of inflation.

The jobs market was otherwise robust with record employment rates and the lowest unemployment since 1975, official data showed.

But the renewed squeeze on Britons’ living standards marks a turning point for the UK economy: real wages fell sharply after the financial crisis but had been recovering slowly in recent years.

“Coming so soon after the big post-crisis pay squeeze, this new phase of falling pay means that this decade is set to be the worst in over 200 years for pay packets,” said Stephen Clarke, an economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation think-tank.

The latest official forecasts suggest the average UK worker will still earn less in 2021 than they did in 2008. Inequality is also expected to increase in the next few years because the benefits that top up the incomes of low-paid workers have been frozen in cash terms."

[littleredrooster] 01/5/2017 18:20

Apple’s Cash Hoard Set to Top $250 Billion

Tripp Mickle

The Wall Street Journal May 1, 2017

"Apple Inc. is expected to report Tuesday that its stockpile of cash has topped a quarter of a trillion dollars, an unrivaled corporate hoard that is greater than the market value of both Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. and exceeds the combined foreign-currency reserves held by the U.K. and Canada combined.

The money, more than 90% of which is stockpiled outside of the U.S., ​has drawn fresh attention as President Donald Trump has proposed slashing business taxes and a one-time tax holiday on corporate cash brought home. That could ratchet up pressure on the tech giant to make splashy acquisitions or dole out more money to shareholders.

Apple’s quarterly results will show the company has doubled its cash pile in just over 4½ years. In the last three months of 2016, it racked up new cash at a rate of about $3.6 million an hour.

As of December, the company had $246.09 billion total cash, cash equivalents, and securities. Apple, like many big American companies, parks most of that cash offshore rather than paying U.S. taxes on its overseas profits."

"When Apple had its 1990s bankruptcy scare, then CEO Steve Jobs arranged a cash infusion from Microsoft, setting his resolve to keep reserves for future emergencies. Mr. Jobs also believed Apple could better boost its stock price by using its money to develop new products than through buybacks or dividends.

His biggest product, the iPhone, has only supercharged the cash machine. Apple has sold more than 1 billion of the devices in the decade since it was introduced, and today claims 91% of all the profits in the smartphone sector."

[littleredrooster] 01/5/2017 11:04

Qumulo was started in the cloud era, so it takes a fundamentally different approach to solving customers’ problems

hxxps://www.geekwire.com/2016/former-isilon-executive-bill-richter-named-ceo-qumulo-says-new-job-no-brainer/

Former Isilon executive Bill Richter named CEO of Qumulo, says new job was a ‘no brainer’

by John Cook on November 29, 2016

"Peter Godman and Bill Richter have known each other for 10 years, dating back to the time when the two tech executives worked together at Seattle-based Isilon Systems. That data storage company ended up selling to EMC for a whopping $2.25 billion in 2010, one of the biggest acquisitions in Seattle tech history.

Now, Godman and Richter are reuniting around another hot startup, one which they think holds as much, if not more, promise than Isilon. Today, Godman is handing the CEO reins of Qumulo — a 4-year-old cloud-based data storage upstart — to Richter."

"“When the opportunity came along to join as CEO, for me it was just a no brainer,” said Richter, who will still retain his venture partner title at Madrona. “Qumulo has taken a problem that’s defined as an $8 billion market, and that market is just dominated by legacy vendors whose software code is 15, 20, almost 25 years old.”

Richter said that Qumulo was started in the cloud era, so it takes a fundamentally different approach to solving customers’ problems. Existing file storage players such as NetApp, IBM, Dell and HP loom as competition, certainly some formidable rivals. But the 42-year-old Richter, who previously served as president of the Isilon Storage Division of EMC, sees an opening.

“(Qumulo) has the advantage of taking a blank sheet of paper and saying: ‘for the modern era, for the cloud era, how would you go about solving this problem,'” said Richter, who helped grow Isilon’s revenue to $1.5 billion in 2014.

The appointment of Richter as CEO marks a significant milestone for Qumulo, which is embarking on an aggressive sales and marketing effort to get its product into the hands of even more customers. To date, about 100 companies are using Qumulo’s storage technology, including some of the largest entertainment, automotive and life sciences companies. Godman says the Qumulo technology is designed to help companies “organize billions of digital assets.”

Qumulo has raised $100 million in venture capital, including $32.5 million in June from Allen & Company, Top Tier Capital Partners, Tyche Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Madrona, Highland Capital Partners, and Valhalla Partners.

It now employs about 140 people, and while Richter did not provide an estimate for employee growth in the coming year, he did say they plan to significantly grow the sales and marketing team “at a very rapid pace.”"

[littleredrooster] 29/4/2017 15:25

This is an insanely innovative company that is going to change the world of storage as we know it

Well, I suppose he is the company’s VP of marketing ;-)

hxxps://www.geekwire.com/2017/tech-moves-qumulo-adds-former-aws-chef-exec-shiftboard-adds-leadership-team/

Tech moves: Qumulo adds former AWS and Chef exec; Shiftboard adds to leadership team; and more

by Clare McGrane on February 6, 2017

"It’s been a busy year at Qumulo: the data storage and data informatics company announced a new CEO in November, and capped $100 million in funding last summer.

Now the company has made another change with the addition of tech vet Jay Wampold as the company’s VP of marketing. Wampold comes to the position after a year as the director of product marketing for Amazon Web Services, and had previously served as Chef’s VP of marketing for five years.

He has also left his mark on companies like Isilon Systems, where he led marketing and communications for four years, and RealNetworks, where he worked as director of communications in the company’s early years.

“Joining Qumulo was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” Wampold said in a press release. “This is an insanely innovative company that is going to change the world of storage as we know it. Based on the growth of the company and calibre of the executive team, Qumulo is heading into a significant market opportunity, and I am beyond thrilled to be a part of such a forward thinking company as it matures.”"

[littleredrooster] 27/4/2017 19:48

market for infrastructure clouds like AWS will nearly triple over the next four years

hxxp://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-set-for-hiring-spree-new-report-shows-5600-open-positions/

Amazon Web Services set for hiring spree — new report shows 5,600 open positions

by Tom Krazit on April 24, 2017 at 9:17 am

Amazon Web Services enjoys a healthy lead in the market for public cloud services, and it plans to hire thousands of people across engineering, sales, and support to prepare for even more growth in the future.

CB Insights released a deep-dive summary of Amazon’s overall business last week, and one stat popped out at us: there are more than 5,600 open positions for AWS roles, which represents nearly one third of all open positions across Amazon’s entire business. A sizable chunk of those jobs are in artificial intelligence research, a discipline Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos identified as a key area of investment in his annual letter to shareholders.

In February, Gartner predicted that the market for infrastructure clouds like AWS will nearly triple over the next four years, and it seems like Amazon agrees with that trajectory. CB Insights expects that AWS will continue to add new services to its public cloud like AWS Lambda and the new features discussed last week in San Francisco, identifying security investment as a particularly hot area for the company in 2017.

Here’s a graphic CB Insights put together illustrating the range of open positions at Amazon:

hxxps://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/JobsV3-1228x1260.png

[littleredrooster] 27/4/2017 15:31

Worth more than £15m?



Forscene

Say hi to Matt, the new member of TeamForscene - our new motor advancing Forscene’s growth in North America

pic.twitter.com/gW9Az9tibo

8:45 am - 26 Apr 2017

FBT

RE: NAB 2017 Sun 12:47

Our Forscene team will be 6-strong in Vegas at the NAB Show 2017 this month!

Find us at Imagine Communications booth SL1516 and Qumulo, Inc., booth SL6605

Qumulo NAB17

RE: nab Tue 09:01

Live video encoding with Elemental, Forscene, and Qumulo
See live video from the show floor as it is captured and processed by an Elemental encoder and stored on Qumulo for editing. Forscene then takes these media files from the Qumulo cluster and replicates them to the cloud, for collaborative local/remote editing. Media files are then served from the cloud to social media and YouTube.

hxxp://www.geekwire.com/2017/data-storage-startup-qumulo-raises-another-30m-total-funding-130m/

Data storage and analytics startup Qumulo raises another $30M, total funding up to $130M

by Taylor Soper on April 4, 2017 at 4:30 am April 5, 2017 at 8:23 am

"Qumulo has spent the past five years building out its cloud-based platform that helps companies store and manage their data usage. Now the company is ready to attract enterprise customers from around the world and become a globally-recognized brand.

The Seattle startup today announced a $30 million investment round led by new investor Northern Light Venture Capital, with participation from previous investors like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Madrona Venture Group, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Tyche Partners.

This follows a separate $32.5 million investment in June of last year. Total funding in the 5-year-old company is now $130 million.

Qumulo helps clients in a variety of industries like film production, oil and gas, life sciences, and more not only store data, but also monitor it with real-time analytics."

"Richter said some companies can rewrite their applications and try to leverage public cloud solutions like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure — Qumulo views them as “strategic partners” — but that most don’t have the time, money, or expertise to do so.

Qumulo employs 150 people and recently made a few key hires. In November it brought on tech industry vet Eric Scollard as its vice president of worldwide sales, and in February it hired Amazon and Chef veteran Jay Wampold as its vice president of marketing."

[littleredrooster] 25/4/2017 15:20

25 April 2017

GlobalData Plc

Annual General Meeting ("AGM") Statement

GlobalData announces that at its AGM today the following statements will be made by the Chairman:-

New Banking Facilities

As announced on 19 April 2017, we have negotiated new banking facilities with The Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Bank of Ireland. A new five year facility replaces the Group's current arrangements which were due to expire in July 2019. The new £75 million committed multi-currency facility includes a £30 million term loan, a £30 million acquisition revolving credit facility, a £15 million working capital revolving credit facility and a £25 million uncommitted accordion facility.

The new banking arrangements provide significant available liquidity for both general working capital requirements and where appropriate, the financing of further acquisitions.

We are very pleased to have received such strong support from both our existing bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and our new lenders.

Capital Markets Day

We will be holding a Capital Markets Day on 23 May 2017 at our offices for analysts and accredited institutional investors. In a series of presentations, GlobalData will focus on its sales and marketing strategy and will provide live demonstrations of its product offering. For the avoidance of doubt, no new material trading or financial information will be disclosed.

Kelsey van Musschenbroek and Mark Freebairn

I should also like to express my thanks to Kelsey van Musschenbroek and Mark Freebairn, who are stepping down today, for their help and hard work and for their years of service. I also welcome our recently appointed non-executive directors Annette Barnes and Andrew Day.



25 April 2017

Result of Annual General Meeting ("AGM")

GlobalData announces that, at the AGM of the Company held earlier today, all resolutions put to shareholders were duly passed.

[littleredrooster] 23/4/2017 13:17

What Is Tesla Really Worth?--Heard on the Street

16/04/2017 7:26pm

Dow Jones News

By Charley Grant

Tesla Inc. is valued as though it will soon conquer the U.S. auto market. Now, it has the small task of actually doing so.

Tesla shares have been unstoppable ahead of the Model 3 launch, having gained 40% this year. The upstart auto maker is more valuable than Ford and slightly less valuable than General Motors on a market cap basis. The crux of the excitement is the all-electric Model 3 sedan that Tesla says will start at $35,000. Production is scheduled to begin this summer.

Tesla now trades at 271 times projected 2018 adjusted earnings, according to FactSet. Ford and GM, in contrast, trade at less than seven and six times the 2018 estimate, respectively. Tesla gets that valuation because it is expected to upend the auto industry, while earning big profits that would bring down the multiple.

But to actually earn enough profits to reduce Tesla's multiple to something in the realm of reasonable would require almost heroic assumptions. First, the basics: Say Tesla's valuation should be 10 times higher than GM and Ford's, and say Tesla's share price stays constant at about $300. That means Tesla would need to earn $4.29 a share in 2018, which equals $700 million in total net income, assuming the current share count doesn't change.

For perspective, Tesla sold about 76,000 cars in 2016 and lost $675 million on sales of $7 billion.

Now the assumptions: CEO Elon Musk forecasts Tesla can produce 500,000 cars in 2018, while analysts, a bullish lot, peg the number of deliveries at 302,000. Let's say the delivery number is 380,000. Pencil in an average selling price of $50,000 -- Tesla will still be selling high-priced Model S and Model X vehicles along with the Model 3. That scenario yields just under $21 billion in automotive revenue. Add another $2 billion in sales from its residential solar and energy businesses.

Tesla has never generated a positive operating margin for a full year, but assume it gets savings on battery costs and realizes economies of scale. If Tesla gets the same 5.4% operating margin that GM and Ford averaged last year, it would generate operating income of $1.1 billion. Subtract $200 million for interest expense and tax the remainder at 25%: The result is $700 million in net income, giving Tesla a multiple roughly 10 times bigger than GM and Ford.

To get there, the company would have to quintuple the number of cars it sells, earn margins equivalent to those of its highly efficient competitors and not sell new shares. Tweak any of these variables -- lower sales, lower margin, lower selling price -- and Tesla doesn't come close to earning enough to get to 10 times the multiple of its bigger rivals by the end of 2018.

Valuation has never mattered before for Tesla's investors and it may not matter at the end of next year. Shareholders may be willing to wait five years instead of two for Tesla to generate big profits, or they may continue to figure that valuation doesn't matter for a game-changer like Tesla.

Tesla's cars have always outshone its financials. That needs to change soon for its valuation to make sense.

[littleredrooster] 23/4/2017 13:11

UK is capital of Europe for fintech unicorns

James Titcomb

19 April 2017 • 7:00pm

The UK dominates the European financial technology industry, with figures showing it boasts more billion-dollar fintech companies than the rest of the continent put together.

Britain houses four fintech “unicorns” - companies valued at $1bn (£780m) or more - with a combined valuation of $18.5bn, according to a report by the technology investment bank GP Bullhound.

This compares to two in the rest of Europe, which are worth $4.6bn between them. London has emerged as Europe’s fintech capital in recent years, with a swell of high-profile start-ups attempting to shake up the financial sector.

However, the report showed that both Europe and the US are lagging behind China as a hub for fintech. Funding to Asian fintech companies surged to $7.1bn last year, more than in the US and Europe between them. Investors put $4.6bn into American fintech firms against $1.4bn in Europe.

Globally, fintech investment grew slightly to $13.6bn, although there was a decrease in the number of investments from 942 to 840.

China, which is more underserved by the traditional financial system and has looser regulations than in Europe and the US, counts 13 fintech unicorns with a combined value of $112.3bn.

They include Ant Financial, a spin-off from the Chinese retail giant Alibaba, which is valued at around $60bn, and Lufax, the giant peer-to-peer lender.

“What’s driving them is a huge underserved market for consumers and small businesses with only very limited access to traditional financial services,” said GP Bullhound’s Carl Wessberg. “China has a slightly more open-market driven approach [to fintech], it’s slightly less regulated.”

British fintech companies mentioned by GP Bullhound include Markit, the financial information company, the money transfer firm Transferwise and peer-to-peer lender Funding Circle.

Last week, Mark Carney warned fintech firms that the Bank of England may have to step in with regulations if they threaten to disrupt the financial system.

“The challenge for policymakers is to ensure that fintech develops in a way that maximises the opportunities and minimises the risks for society,” the Bank’s Governor said.

[littleredrooster] 23/4/2017 13:05

The Group derives around 61% of revenues in currencies other than Sterling



Final Results For The Year Ended 31 December 2016

27 February 2017

5. Foreign exchange impact on revenues

The Group derives around 61% of revenues in currencies other than Sterling, which since 23 June 2016 has depreciated against all the Group's major trading currencies and in particular the US Dollar and Euro. The impact of exchange rate movements on our revenues for 2016 was somewhat muted as the Group derives a significant proportion of its revenues from annual subscription contracts whereby revenues are crystallised and amortised at the exchange rate at date of invoice. Consequently a significant proportion of our reported revenues were booked at rates prevailing prior to the 23 June 2016. The benefit of exchange rate movements to reported revenues for 2016 was £2.2m, which accounts for 3.7% of our year on year growth.

6. Foreign exchange impact on costs and Adjusted EBITDA

In Sterling terms, circa 57% of our costs are denominated in currencies other than Sterling. Costs are translated as they are incurred at the prevailing exchange rate. Thus, adverse movements in exchange rates have an immediate impact on our earnings. The effect of exchange rate movements on our cost base was to increase our operating costs for 2016 by 5.1% or £2.5m.

The net effect (revenue benefit less cost impact) on Adjusted EBITDA was a decrease of £0.3m.

[littleredrooster] 19/4/2017 14:40

liquidity to fund potential future acquisitions



19 April 2017

GlobalData Plc

New Banking Facilities

GlobalData (the "Group") is pleased to announce a new £75.0 million, 5 year, committed banking facility. The committed facility consists of a £30.0 million term loan to replace the existing facilities held with The Royal Bank of Scotland, plus a revolving credit facility of £45.0 million. In addition to the committed £75.0 million, the Group will also have available a £25.0 million accordion facility providing significant additional funding capability for future investment.

The banking arrangements provide the Group with significant available liquidity to fund potential future acquisitions. The facilities have been provided by The Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Bank of Ireland.

Commenting on the new facilities, Bernard Cragg, Executive Chairman said:

"The new facilities provide the Group with enhanced liquidity which gives us greater flexibility to look at potential acquisitions in the future. We are very pleased to have received such strong support from both our existing bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and our new lenders."

[littleredrooster] 12/4/2017 10:40

hxxp://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/11/autonation-ceo-tesla-might-be-one-great-ponzi-schemes-all-time.html

AutoNation CEO: Tesla Might be 'One of the Great Ponzi Schemes of All Time'

By Mike Spector and Christina Rogers

Published April 11, 2017

"The head of the U.S.'s largest car-dealership chain called Tesla Inc.'s market value "inexplicable," a day after investors pushed the Silicon Valley auto maker ahead of General Motors Co.

Tesla "is either one of the great Ponzi schemes of all time" or will eventually work out for investors, said AutoNation Inc. Chief Executive Mike Jackson during an interview at a New York automotive event held by J.D. Power and the National Automobile Dealers Association on Tuesday.

Mr. Jackson, among the auto industry's more outspoken executives, called Tesla overvalued and GM undervalued at roughly $33 a share, arguing the former will continue to struggle to make money selling electric vehicles despite a loyal following.

Competition would eventually lead to a correction to the Palo Alto, Calif., company's market value, he said. GM and other auto makers are investing billions of dollars in electric vehicles that are set to hit showrooms in coming years.

A Tesla spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request to comment.

Tesla briefly leapfrogged GM as the most valuable auto maker in the U.S. on Monday when the company's stock price surged to $313.73, valuing it at $51.17 billion. Tesla last week also surpassed Ford Motor Co. in market value."

[littleredrooster] 08/4/2017 14:25

Mass uptake of electric vehicles is set to happen in China first

hxxp://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=5028&mn=76308&pt=msg&mid=17044255

Ford Plans Electric Vehicles In China

Moss, Trefor. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]07 Apr 2017: B.1.

SHANGHAI -- Ford Motor Co. said it would start building electric cars in China to tap into a state-sponsored boom in green-energy vehicles.

In doing so, the Detroit-based company signaled that it had swallowed industry concerns about bringing proprietary electric-car technology to China, despite misgivings among foreign auto makers about intellectual-property protection in the world's largest auto market.

"It's manifest destiny" for foreign car makers to get past those fears and start building electric cars in China, said Bill Russo, managing director of Gao Feng Advisory, a Shanghai consulting firm.

Mass uptake of electric vehicles is set to happen in China first, he said, "and none of those companies can afford not to be relevant to the future of their industry."

Ford's local joint venture, Changan Ford Automobile Co., will start building the Mondeo Energi plug-in hybrid vehicle in China next year, with a new all-electric sport-utility vehicle set to follow within five years, the company said Thursday.

Electric powertrains will be manufactured in China by 2020, and by 2025 all of Changan Ford's vehicles will come in electrified versions, it said.

"The time is right for Ford to expand our EV lineup and investments in China," said Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields.

China is already the world's largest market for electric vehicles, with over half a million electric or hybrid cars sold there last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The government is encouraging them by heavily subsidizing electric cars.

Local authorities have also set ambitious targets for electrifying bus and taxi fleets over the next few years, and for the rollout of electric-vehicle charging facilities.

There could be as many as 32 million new-energy vehicles in China by 2025, according to Gao Feng Advisory, a total that is likely to be a substantial share of the global fleet, with the increase in electric vehicles in the U.S. and Europe happening more slowly.

While most gasoline-powered cars sold in China are built by foreign auto makers operating through joint ventures, almost all of the electric cars sold in China last year were made by Chinese companies operating without foreign involvement.