Globaldata Share Discussion Threads

[littleredrooster] 23/5/2018 15:23

Present exchange rate 1 Bitcoin = 7,914.72 US Dollar



Bitcoin price analysis: BTC/USD dives under $8,000; Vanguard economist believes it will go to zero

Tanya Abrosimova
FXStreet

May 23, 03:30 GMT

•Joe Davis devalues Bitcoin as a currency and a store of value.
•BTC/USD needs to recover above $8,000 as soon as possible to mitigate downside pressure.

Bitcoin's price action is to the downside today. Digital currency No. 1 lost about 5% of its value in the recent 24 hours, retracing from $8,400 on Tuesday to trade at $7,912. at the time of writing. The coin has been sliding for the third day in a row; its market value dropped to $135B, the lowest since April 18.

Meanwhile, Joe Davis, a senior economist of the Vanguard Group, is another institutional guy who doesn't believe in Bitcoin as a currency or investment tool. He says that Bitcoin lacks the features of a currency as a means of payment, while high volatility makes it a bad store of value.

“Over the past few months, I’ve gotten this question more than any other,” he wrote. “As for bitcoin the currency? I see a decent probability that its price goes to zero.”

Bitcoin's technical picture

Looking more broadly on a daily chart BTC/USD stays firmly below 50-DMA that coisides with 38.2% Fibo at $8,425. This bearish signal is intensified by the price diving under $8,000. Once the breakthrough is confirmed, the focus will shift to the next support seen at $7,683 (23.6% Fibo) and at $7,042 (the upside trendline). On the upside, a sustainable move above $8,420/50 might attract more buying interest with the next target at $8,855 (100-DMA)

[littleredrooster] 03/5/2018 15:39

I'm quite relieved that I don't have $130.8bn to spend.



I've got way too much cash, thinks Jeff Bezos. Hmmm, pay more tax? Pay staff more? Nah, let's just go into space

The world needs fewer men like Amazon's CEO

By Iain Thomson in San Francisco 3 May 2018 at 07:01

"The Amazon chief executive has complained he has so much money, the only thing he can think to blow it on is his Blue Origin space tourism project.

Bezos was in Germany last month to pick up the Axel Springer Award for being such an innovative person, and gave an extensive interview to the German publisher outlining his philosophy. In it he was asked, as the world's richest man with a net worth of $130.8bn, what money meant to him now.

"The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it," Bezos said.

"I am very lucky that I feel like I have a mission-driven purpose with Blue Origin that is, I think, incredibly important for civilization long term. And I am going to use my financial lottery winnings from Amazon to fund that."

So desperate is Bezos to blast off into orbit and beyond, he's forgotten one thing. Earth. As in, the people on it right now. Specifically, the people who work for him, who made him rich, and the cities in which they live. They are being left behind in more ways than one as the internet baron prepares to lift off into the heavens."

73 comments

[littleredrooster] 27/4/2018 01:47

The cloud business, called Azure, jumped 93% in the fiscal third quarter



Cloud Business Boosts Microsoft's Earnings -- 2nd Update

26/04/2018 11:29pm
Dow Jones News

By Jay Greene

Microsoft Corp. extended its streak of wins in the latest quarter as the software giant moves into an era where its venerable Windows franchise plays a supporting role to its burgeoning cloud-computing operations.

The cloud business, called Azure, jumped 93% in the fiscal third quarter, Microsoft reported Thursday. The business has never grown slower than 90% since the company began reporting the metric in October 2015. The other big piece of the company's cloud operations, the commercial version of its Office 365 online-productivity service, grew 42%.

Microsoft doesn't disclose revenue for either business, but in the preceding second quarter it said Azure jumped 98% and commercial Office 365 grew 41%.

The two businesses combined accounted for $6 billion in revenue, up 58% on what Microsoft financial chief Amy Hood said was "better-than-expected demand."

Ms. Hood pointed to 20% growth in Microsoft's server-products and cloud-services revenue as a reflection of its focus on the so-called hybrid cloud, in which customers mix cloud services with software running on servers in their own data centers.

Microsoft has capitalized on its legacy as a seller of server software to win over its longtime customers who choose to gradually move their operations to the cloud.

That growth has propelled Microsoft into the role of chief cloud rival to Amazon.com Inc., which pioneered the business of renting out computing power and storage a decade ago.

"Two years ago, there was a clear No. 1 with no clear No. 2," said Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Brad Reback. "There is no doubt that Microsoft has put significant distance between themselves and all of the other" Amazon rivals.

The surging cloud business led Microsoft to post a profit increase of 35% to $7.42 billion, or 95 cents a share. Revenue rose 16% to $26.82 billion. Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence expected Microsoft to report per-share earnings of 85 cents on revenue of $25.78 billion.

Microsoft no longer reports adjusted figures, reflecting accounting changes it adopted at the start of the fiscal year. The year-ago figure reflects that change.

Microsoft's stock was down 0.3% in after-hours trading, after finishing the day at $94.27, up 2.1%. Last month, Microsoft shares hit an all-time high of $96.77, a gain of nearly 40% over the past year. The company has jostled with Alphabet Inc. and Amazon for the No. 2 spot behind Apple Inc. as the world's most valuable company as measured by market capitalization.

Microsoft's Azure business is part of its Intelligent Cloud segment. Revenue from that unit rose 17% to $7.9 billion. The Office franchise is part of Microsoft's Productivity and Business Processes segment, where revenue climbed 17% to $9.01 billion.

The company continues to dole out huge sums building massive data centers around the globe to battle Amazon and others. In the quarter, Microsoft had $3.5 billion in capital expenses, with much of that money going toward its data-center expansion. A year ago, Microsoft had $2.1 billion in capital expenditures

Microsoft doesn't break out revenue for its Windows business. Earlier this month, International Data Corp. reported world-wide PC shipments showed no growth in the most recent quarter.

Revenue in Microsoft's More Personal Computing segment, which includes the company's slow-growing Windows franchise as well as the mobile-phone and Xbox gaming businesses, gained 13% to $9.92 billion.

A month ago, Microsoft split the engineering group that develops products under the Windows banner among two separate divisions. It was a recognition that the product that had been synonymous with Microsoft for most of its 43 years will now play a supporting role to the company's cloud-computing efforts.

Even as Microsoft has shifted its focus away from Windows, the operating system showed surprising resiliency. Revenue in the version of Windows that Microsoft generally sells to corporate customers, known as OEM Pro, grew 11%. And revenue from Microsoft's Surface line of computers jumped 32% to $1.10 billion.

LinkedIn, the professional social network Microsoft bought for $27 billion more than a year ago, grew rapidly, with revenue climbing 37% to $1.34 billion.

[littleredrooster] 20/4/2018 10:37

hxxp://variety.com/2018/digital/news/amazon-prime-100-million-subscribers-jeff-bezos-1202757832/

April 18, 2018 2:31PM PT

Amazon Has More Than 100 Million Prime Subscribers, Jeff Bezos Discloses

By Todd Spangler

Amazon’s Prime membership program has now topped 100 million paying members worldwide, CEO Jeff Bezos said in his annual letter to shareholders.

It’s the first time Amazon has revealed a specific number for Prime. But Bezos stayed opaque on numbers for its video and music businesses. He wrote in the April 18 letter that “Prime Video continues to drive Prime member adoption and retention.” Amazon Music “continues to grow fast and now has tens of millions of paid customers,” he said. Amazon Music Unlimited, the on-demand, ad-free offering, expanded to more than 30 new countries in 2017, and membership has more than doubled over the past six months, according to Bezos.

Overall in 2017, Amazon shipped more than 5 billion items via Prime, its program that offers unlimited free two-day shipping on over 100 million different items in the U.S. along with other perks (including access to the original and licensed TV shows and movies on Prime Video). Prime costs $99 per year in the United States, where it first launched 13 years ago. The company last year expanded Prime to Mexico, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg last year, in addition to the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, India, Japan, Italy, Spain and France.

According to Bezos’s letter, more new members joined Prime in 2017 than in any previous year, both worldwide and in the U.S. Amazon didn’t break out the number of Prime customers by region.

With Amazon playing close to the vest, analysts have produced estimates for the size of the Prime base. Those have varied widely: Cowen & Co. put the number of U.S. Prime households at about 60 million as of the end of 2017, while research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners pegged U.S. Prime members at around 90 million as of last September.

Prime Video’s highlights last year included award-winning comedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which won two Critics’ Choice Awards and two Golden Globes, and Oscar-nominated movie “The Big Sick,” Bezos wrote.

Amazon also expanded its slate of programming across the globe, with new seasons of “Bosch” and “Sneaky Pete” from the U.S., “The Grand Tour” from the U.K. — hosted by the former team from BBC’s “Top Gear” — and “You Are Wanted” from Germany.

Bezos also rattled up several upcoming Amazon Studios original series: Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” starring John Krasinski; “King Lear,” starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson; “The Romanoffs,” executive produced by Matt Weiner; “Carnival Row” starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne; “Good Omens” starring Jon Hamm; and “Homecoming,” executive produced by Sam Esmail (“Mr. Robot”) and starring Julia Roberts in her first TV series.

“We acquired the global television rights for a multi-season production of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ as well as ‘Cortés,’ a miniseries based on the epic saga of Hernán Cortés from executive producer Steven Spielberg, starring Javier Bardem, and we look forward to beginning work on those shows this year,” Bezos said in the letter.

In addition, Amazon expanded its Prime Channels offerings, adding CBS All Access in the U.S. and launching channels in the U.K. and Germany. Bezos also pointed to Prime Video’s streaming of NFL “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video worldwide, which drew more than 18 million total viewers over 11 games.

Meanwhile, Bezos called out Amazon’s Prime Video Direct self-publishing program. Through that, Amazon obtained subscription VOD rights for more than 3,000 feature films and “committed over $18 million in royalties to independent filmmakers and other rights holders,” the CEO wrote.

Bezos has issued the annual letter to shareholders since 1997.

[littleredrooster] 19/4/2018 12:29

hxxps://www.blackbird.video/archive/thought-leadership/nab-2018-highlights-intelligent-cloud-ai-machine-learning-with-cognitive-services/

NAB 2018 highlights : Intelligent cloud, AI & machine learning with cognitive services

Apr 19, 2018 | Thought Leadership

Huw Dymond, Product Manager

"The team returned from NAB after a jam-packed week of Blackbird meetings with end users, service providers, technology partners and distributors across the news, media and entertainment (NME) sector – from news and broadcast to online and major sports organisations (as well as everything in between).

From the very start, (pre-show set up) where an owner of a traditional storage provider, asked “Has the rest of the world caught up with you yet?” – the scene was set. Like our fellow exhibitor, we understand business models are evolving and this was reflected in the interests of those attending Blackbird meetings and demos.

Every year NAB becomes a hub of discussion for trending topics in the industry, and this year Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) emerged as solutions to a problem that many haven’t recognised. Cloud is no longer a ‘maybe’ but a ‘given’ and conversations are shifting towards discussions of seamless migration. Companies are seeking new ways of minimising the spend and complexity inherent in delivering additional content to more platforms than ever before.

Cognitive services emerged as a key topic, but the joined principles of ML and AI were recognised for their huge potential benefit to the industry. Cognitive services have the ability to assist automating the remaining manual workflow stages where a subjective opinion or a decision based on new, incomplete information is required. In media and entertainment, these principles are applied to gain the results of quality analysis and content analysis. In one particular meeting, the discussion highlighted huge fragmentation in the AI/ML market with over 7,000 technology providers and 10,000+ engines, up from 1,000 engines in the last 12 months. There is no doubt, many services are embedded offerings from a smaller number of core AI technologies, but the numbers are certainly not conducive to anyone wanting to carefully select a partner right now. There were also many, many demonstrations of intelligent and automated content indexing and metadata creation, yet few managed to clearly articulate the value of the service. Do we really need to know if a newsreader is wearing a purple shirt or a blue one?

At Blackbird, we see great value in data and its ability to enhance or augment existing workflows. We understand that today’s workflows require progress in order to reach absolute efficiency and that the immediate challenge of AI/ML is awareness of the commercial benefits. A key driver could be captioning workflows which involve large amounts of manual and time-consuming data entry. This workflow covers traditional broadcast workflow and is crucial for online engagement. Captioning is widely used across social media platforms where a large number of consumers access feed content on mobile devices without any audio. Speech-to-text isn’t new, but when combined with AI and ML abilities to learn and continuously train – its high accuracy meets the point of realistic automation. Ensuring continual efficiency in production and delivery of meaningful content to consumers, maximises monetisation. We believe the value proposition for cognitive technologies will only increase over time and that the use of data to optimise workflows will be a key driver for the next generation of content creation and distribution."

[littleredrooster] 19/4/2018 11:58

global space services market is worth US$350 billion

hxxp://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/19/russia_hints_at_satellite_launch_exit/

Soyuz later! Russia might exit satellite launch business

Is it worth competing with SpaceX prices?

By Richard Chirgwin 19 Apr 2018 at 05:02

Russia has dropped a broad hint that it might leave the space launch business to private operators.

Space launches have become a relative commodity: SpaceX publishes a price list offering a Falcon 9 trip to geosynchronous transfer orbit for US$62 million, or $90 million for Falcon Heavy.

Russia's official newsagency TASS carried a report suggesting the country might let the new generation of private launch vehicles have the business to themselves rather than try to build a platform that can compete with SpaceX.

TASS reports Deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, whose role puts him at the top of the country's defense industry, said in a television interview: “The share of launch vehicles is as small as four per cent of the overall market of space services”.

Rogozin added that the global space services market is worth US$350 billion and that Russia could do better as a payload-builder than a launcher-for-hire.

“The four per cent stake isn’t worth the effort to try to elbow Musk and China aside," he said.

El Reg notes that India is also shaping up as a launch competitor, with its ultra-low-cost Mars orbiter and its PSLV vehicle proven since 1994 demonstrating capability and cost-competitiveness.

There's a bit of realpolitik to consider here, too, because tension between the USA and Russia means the former nation isn't very keen on sending business Moscow's way.

SpaceX, meanwhile, staged another boring, successful, nothing-blew-up launch earlier today, with its Falcon 9 carrying the much-anticipated NASA TESS planet-hunting satellite to orbit.

10 Comments

[littleredrooster] 19/4/2018 00:57

Amazon Prime Has More Than 100 Million Members -- Update

18/04/2018 11:35pm
Dow Jones News

By Austen Hufford

More than 100 million people globally are now paying for Amazon Prime, a sign of how Amazon.com Inc. has used the service to evolve from an online marketplace that struggled with profitability into an internet-commerce powerhouse.

Amazon, which has never disclosed the number of Prime members before, revealed the figure Wednesday in Chief Executive Jeff Bezos's closely followed annual letter to shareholders.

Amazon also said a majority of goods sold on its platform are from third-party sellers.

[littleredrooster] 17/4/2018 13:57

a minor breakthrough in a major market

Is that better than a major breakthrough in a minor market?



RNS Number : 0933L
Forbidden Technologies PLC
17 April 2018

Forbidden Technologies launches Blackbird® Forte into Japan with Tier 1 telecommunications operator

Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT), the developer and seller of cloud video platform technology using its patented Blackbird technology is pleased to announce a preliminary collaboration with a leading Japanese telecommunications operator through its partnership with Dragon Touch Systems Inc.

Blackbird will be utilised in a specific part of the telco infrastructure to allow its B2B customers to edit and version content in the cloud. The proxy is continually uploaded to the Blackbird cloud and presented as growing files, where it is accessible to reviewers and a team of editors for daily collaboration. The team has the added advantage of speed, providing viewing and remote capabilities, which Blackbird offers without the bandwidth constraints.

This proxy-based cloud workflow offers enormous benefits of time management, collaboration efficiencies and flexibility to producers and broadcasters in the region.

Daisuke Matsuo, CEO at Dragon Touch Systems said, "Our customer required a powerful cloud video platform solution to process high resolution videos, and Forte's ability to support multiple languages including Japanese, made it the perfect choice. I believe Blackbird Forte will serve as a catalyst for change in a traditional Japanese broadcast landscape".

Forbidden CEO Ian McDonough says, "We're delighted to announce this new deal through our partner, Dragon Touch Systems in Kanagawa, Japan. It represents a minor breakthrough in a major market. The customer has recognised the power of the platform and the ability to have a highly responsive workstation experience while working in the cloud, thanks to the Blackbird codec".

[littleredrooster] 13/4/2018 09:49

the creation of internally generated intellectual property which can be sold across multiple geographies and in multiple formats .. enhance the Group's potential to become the world's leading source of data and analytics for corporates

A couple of nice phrases.



GlobalData PLC

Proposed Acquisition
RNS Number : 3282J
GlobalData PLC
29 March 2018

"Rationale for the Acquisition

The Independent Directors believe that the Acquisition will further advance the Group's transformation into a global data and analytics business with a truly differentiated multi-industry offering, significantly increasing its addressable markets and enhancing the Company's long term growth opportunities. The Acquisition adds the energy industry to the Group, and significantly bolsters the recently formed construction business, following the Group's recent acquisition of MEED Media FZ LLC. It will provide complementary intelligence assets and capabilities relevant to existing healthcare, consumer and financial services industries and is consistent with the Group's strategy.

Research Views Group's business will be integrated into the Group's global platform and infrastructure and will operate under the GlobalData brand, strengthening and expanding the markets and geographies the Group serves. With 23 offices located across North and South America, the United Kingdom, Asia Pacific and the Middle East, the Independent Directors believe that the Group's global infrastructure will, when combined with that of the Research Views Group, provide the opportunity for commercial and operational synergies. In particular, the Acquisition will consolidate the Group's expansion of its sales and management infrastructure across Asia Pacific, providing stronger regional capability and expertise for the Group to address the increasing growth in the global data and analytics market.

Following Completion, the Independent Directors anticipate that the Group's increased subscription revenues will improve visibility of forward earnings. Furthermore, following Completion and the subsequent integration, the Independent Directors anticipate being able to leverage economies of scale from its enlarged operations and, in particular, in the creation of internally generated intellectual property which can be sold across multiple geographies and in multiple formats.

The Independent Directors believe the Acquisition will rapidly strengthen and expand the Group's industry coverage for its core corporate clients and enhance the Group's potential to become the world's leading source of data and analytics for corporates."

[littleredrooster] 04/4/2018 15:35

FBT market value presently £10.38m.



Award winning UK producer selects Blackbird Edit, cloud editing platform for documentary TV series

London – April 3, 2018 — Forbidden Technologies plc announced today a leading factual, features and entertainment television producer selects Blackbird for a BAFTA and Emmy award winning documentary television programme.

The production company selected Blackbird to replace an existing EVS system to log and edit footage. The crew will use Blackbird to quickly log media from a gallery quad split of over 50+camera feeds, over an 18-week period.

This project is the first time Blackbird is used in a complete end to end fixed rig production and post production cycle. Blackbird increases the value of post production workflows by introducing a single logging toolset that moves seamlessly from location to edit suite. This enables producers and edit producers to review and search media across the entire production using rich logging metadata.

Ian McDonough, the CEO at Forbidden Technologies said, “I am delighted our incredible Blackbird software is extending into a new area of production. The fact we are an end to end solution on a fixed rig show dramatically extends our reach within the industry. We are bringing all the advantages of cloud as well as speed, collaboration and cost efficiencies to the customer which is quite an irresistible combination.”

Blackbird technology allows full visibility of multi-location digital content, improves time to market for live content such as video clips and highlights for social media distribution, and results in much more effective monetisation.

Forbidden develops, markets and licenses a powerful cloud video platform using patented Blackbird® technology. The technology underpins multiple applications which are used by rights holders, broadcasters, sports and news video specialists, post-production houses, other mass market digital video channels and corporations.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a revolutionary cloud video platform which changes the way people work with digital video, maximising the value of video assets, and increasing monetisation in an evolving broadcast and digital landscape. Blackbird is the cloud-native provider of production and delivery tools, bringing workstation responsiveness and richness together with all the advantages of the cloud. Video professionals and teams working with live/non-live or high-volume video collaborate through hyper-accelerated accessibility, editing, distribution and delivery of video more efficiently, across the world.

[littleredrooster] 29/3/2018 15:23

Josh White WebFG News
29 Mar, 2018 14:50

GlobalData agrees to buy Research Views in £90m deal

GlobalData announced on Thursday that it has conditionally agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of Research Views, a company controlled by Michael Danson and Wayne Lloyd and other minority shareholders.

The AIM-traded firm said that, under the terms of the acquisition, 15,957,447 new ordinary shares would be issued to the vendors of Research Views, which equates to £90m based on the volume weighted average price of an existing ordinary share of 564p over the 30 days prior to the announcement of the possible acquisition.

In addition, net debt of £9.8m would be assumed by the company on completion, which included shareholder debt of £8.4m.

The company would procure that the shareholder debt would be repaid by the Research Views Group to Michael Danson and his associated companies on completion, with such repayment to be funded by the company's existing banking facilities.

Completion was expected to occur following the general meeting on 24 April.

“This transaction consolidates the group's transformation into a global data and analytics business with a truly differentiated multi-industry offering,” said GlobalData independent committee chairman Bernard Cragg.

“It is consistent with our focusing on data and analytics by strengthening our existing industry offerings and expanding the industries we cover.

“The market outlook for data and analytics is encouraging with real and achievable opportunities for profitable growth.”

[littleredrooster] 19/3/2018 16:01

Interesting to see a GlobalData clothing retail analyst being interviewed on the BBC One lunchtime news today.

hxxps://www.globaldata.com/store/report/vr0121sr--the-uk-clothing-market-2017-2022/

hxxps://www.globaldata.com/clothing-footwear-drive-uk-e-retail-spend-68-8-billion-2022/

[littleredrooster] 08/3/2018 21:40

an anti-democratic clique of bureaucrats wielding power without accountability



Date: 08/03/2018 @ 20:59

Source: Dow Jones News

A Sudden Promotion Sparks an Uproar in Europe

By Valentina Pop and Laurence Norman

An episode of palace intrigue inside the European Union's top institution has reinforced criticism of the bloc among those who see it as the plaything of unelected bureaucrats or the tool of Germany.

The sudden promotion of the chief of staff of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to the job of the institution's most powerful civil servant has Brussels in turmoil, and the complaints are reverberating more widely.

From the EU's perspective the timing could hardly have been worse. The weekend's Italian election was only the latest to show growing anti-EU sentiment in Europe. If the commission needed to refute the popular critique of Brussels as an anti-democratic clique of bureaucrats wielding power without accountability, instead the appointment reinforced the caricature.

What happened? On Feb. 21, the EU's 28 commissioners approved Mr. Juncker's recommendation that Martin Selmayr, a German national who has been the president's powerful right-hand man, should become the EU executive's secretary-general.

The 47-year-old will head the permanent Brussels bureaucratic machine which stays in place as the president and commissioners and their cabinets come and go.

The promotion means that Mr. Selmayr, a key architect of the Juncker commission, is positioned to remain in an influential position after the former Luxembourg prime minister's term ends next year.

Mr. Juncker didn't reveal his nomination before Feb. 21. The appointment was made in a single meeting of EU commissioners in a two-step move that saw Mr. Selmayr first appointed as deputy secretary-general, then immediately promoted to the top job.

"It was a surprise," Belgian commissioner Marianne Thyssen, in charge of social policy, said at a Politico event on Tuesday, though she said she supported the appointment.

A national diplomat in Brussels said no government was aware that the previous secretary-general, the Netherlands' Alexander Italianer, was planning to quit, even though Mr. Juncker said after Mr. Selmayr's appointment that he had known for a couple of years.

"This was a coup. No one confronted Juncker as no one had been prepared for what happened," said a person who attended the commissioners' meeting.

After the meeting, commission officials indicated that Mr. Selmayr faced internal competition for the job -- but the commission later acknowledged that there was in fact no other candidate when the decision was made.

Most EU capitals still seem relatively unconcerned, but a backlash is gathering force. The European Parliament is debating the appointment on Monday, after a majority in the body requested clarification from the commission. The Dutch parliament will also discuss it next week. That will create more political ruckus, even if the two bodies can't do much about it.

French media, led by Brussels journalist Jean Quatremer from the left-leaning La Libération, is abuzz with fresh information and allegations.

There have been several objections to the decision. First, Mr. Selmayr made enemies in Central and Eastern Europe during Europe's migration crisis, when he devised a system to decide how many migrants each country should take in -- and didn't back down when Hungary, Poland and others balked.

He also became a lightning rod for criticism from the U.K. when Theresa May accused EU officials of leaking embarrassing accounts of Brexit talks to interfere with the U.K. election last May. He said he wasn't behind any leaks.

Mr. Selmayr also hasn't shied away from entering political debates, though he has a nominally back-seat role. "G7 2017 with Trump, Le Pen, Boris Johnson, Beppe Grillo? A horror scenario that shows well why it is worth fighting populism," he wrote in one widely noticed tweet in mid-2016.

In addition, the haste of the decision and the lack of debate has been seen as breaching the commission's aim of encouraging transparency and ensuring scrutiny.

The commission said it followed its rules "religiously," as Mr. Juncker's chief spokesman put it. It said the secretary-general job was never widely advertised in advance in the past and that the commission president has always been understood as having discretion over the choice.

Some are also complaining that the promotion of a German undermines the geographical balance of which country holds which posts in Brussels. German officials also hold the top administrative jobs at the European Parliament and EU foreign-service administration and head the bloc's bailout fund and its investment bank.

Mr. Juncker dismissed that objection, noting that in Berlin Mr. Selmayr is seen very much as a Brussels man. "He's not an undercover agent for German politics," Mr. Juncker said.

The EU is trying to revamp its legitimacy and hopes to assume command of a bigger budget and broader powers. It has set itself up, in fights with Poland and Hungary, as a champion of rule-of-law and democratic norms.

"In the light of the recent developments in the household of the commission, we see that preaching about the rule of law is not authentic when it comes to the commission," Hungarian government spokesman Laszlo Kovacs said Wednesday.

The handling of Mr. Selmayr's elevation may not, in the end, concern voters, and Mr. Selmayr may prove good at his job. Nonetheless, it is a gift to Brussels' many critics.

--Bojan Pancevski contributed to this article.

[anusol] 26/2/2018 14:56

You're a lone voice in here Rooster.I'm a long term holder and happy to sit quietly in the background for steady long term play.

[littleredrooster] 26/2/2018 10:57

GlobalData PLC

26 February 2018

Possible Acquisition

The board of directors ("Board" or "Directors") of GlobalData Plc (AIM:DATA) ("GlobaData", the "Company" and, together with its subsidiary undertakings, the "Group") announces that the Company is in advanced discussions concerning the possible acquisition of Energy, Construction and Financial Services data and analytics companies, Research Views Limited, Progressive Ventures Limited, Progressive Media Ventures Limited and their respective subsidiaries (together the "Target Group"), private companies owned by Mike Danson (CEO, GlobalData) and a number of other minority shareholders including Wayne Lloyd (Managing Director, GlobalData US) (the "Vendors") (the "Acquisition"). It is envisaged that the Target Group will be re-organised prior to completion of the Acquisition to form a single group owned by Research Views Limited.

It is currently expected that the consideration for the Acquisition is to be satisfied through the issue of approximately 18 million new ordinary shares in the Company to the Vendors, representing approximately 17.6% of the Company's current issued share capital. The Board intends that appropriate lock-in and orderly market arrangements will be put in place.

In the year to 31 December 2017, the Target Group generated pro forma revenues of approximately £27.0m.

The Directors believe the Acquisition will further advance the Company's transformation into a global data and analytics company with a truly differentiated multi-industry offering, significantly increasing its addressable market. It will add the Energy industry and strengthen the recently acquired Construction business. It will provide complementary intelligence assets and capabilities relevant to existing Healthcare and Financial Services industries.

The Acquisition is commercially aligned to the Group's primarily subscription based model and is operationally complementary especially in the context of the Group's existing analyst and client service operations. Following the Acquisition the Group addresses at least 8 major global industries with a global expert community operating in 23 offices worldwide.

The Acquisition is expected to be earnings accretive in the first full year of ownership.

If final terms are agreed between the respective parties together with satisfactory due-diligence, the Acquisition will require the approval of GlobalData's shareholders at a general meeting.

In addition, the Acquisition would constitute a related party transaction for the purposes of Rule 13 of the AIM Rules for Companies, and the Company's independent directors would, amongst other things, be required to confirm that the terms of the proposals are fair and reasonable insofar as GlobalData's shareholders are concerned.

The Acquisition remains subject to binding legal agreements and there can be no certainty that these discussions will lead to a transaction.

Further announcements will be made at the appropriate time.