LAZ will back to $25 next week From my TA analyst, the support point is 23.8, I added more under that price. Will see back to its IPO in the next severl weeks. LAZ's next earning will be fantastic. LAZARD EURO Business Berlusconi, Financiers Mull An Italian Turnaround Fund 07-28-05 12:21 PM EST MILAN -(Dow Jones)- Silvio Berlusconi and some of Italy's wealthiest men, including the Italian premier's business rival Carlo De Benedetti, are considering financing a turnaround fund aimed at reviving medium-sized Italian companies. CDB Web Tech Investments SpA (CDB.MI) said Thursday its board had commissioned its founder and Chairman Carlo De Benedetti to conduct a feasibility study on the idea. The listed venture capital fund said it expects the proposal to be finalized in September and that it would finance the initiative with a EUR500 million capital increase. CDB Web Tech said it would also transfer its current businesses, excluding EUR50 million in cash, to a new company to be listed on the stock exchange. Major investors have shown interest in the turnaround fund, CDB Web said in a statement, saying that Berlusconi's Fininvest SpA (FNV.YY) holding company was among them. Other interested parties include Diego Della Valle, whose family controls Tod's SpA (TOD.MI), Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, chairman of Fiat SpA (FIA) and Ferrari SpA as well as the head of the Charme private equity group, CDB Web Tech said. Another prospective investor is Sopaf SpA, an investment fund run by Giorgio Magnoni, whose brother Ruggero runs Lehman Brothers Holding Inc.'s (LEH) operations in Italy. Mediobanca SpA (MB.MI), Lazard Ltd (LAZ) and Lehman Brothers, who are advising the proposed deal, will help promote the rights issue, CDB Web said.
LAZ to Announce 2Q on 08/10. First Call Estimate: Q2 $0.38, P/E Ratio: 15.53 First Call Forecast: Mean $26.67 # of Price Targets 3 LAZ's Q2 will go on to be good due to global M&A booming. We can tell this from the merge & acquisition news everyday this year. Current price level still very low, $2 from the market mean target. Especially LAZ expand its business in China due to huge chinese merge market. This is a very solid company and definately a good investment. I predict LAZ will jump $1-2 high on the earning day, just like last quareter.
Lazard To Step Up M&A Advisory Service In Japan 148 words 3 August 2005 Nikkei Report English ?Copyright 2005. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. All rights reserved. TOKYO (Nikkei)--Lazard Ltd. plans to double the staff offering advisory services on mergers and acquisitions to about 55 at its Japanese unit. The major U.S. investment bank believes that more M&A deals will be struck in Japan now that the government is setting clearer rules for them, including regulations to govern hostile takeover attempts. Lazard will assign to the local unit Yasushi Hatakeyama, a managing director who has been advising corporate clients about hostile takeovers in the U.S. The Japanese unit will also step up its advisory service regarding corporate restructuring as well as its asset management operations. Lazard's push into M&A services is expected to intensify competition among U.S. investment banks, which are active in that business segment in Japan. (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Wednesday morning edition)
Accenture and The Dow Chemical Company Sign Multi-Year Business Services Agreement; Accenture to Expand Its Relationship as a Strategic Services Supplier 609 words 4 August 2005 03:05 pm OsterDowJones Commodity Wire English Copyright 2005, Comtex News Network. All Rights Reserved. Standard Attribution Statement: News Provided by COMTEX. NEW YORK--, Aug 04, 2005 (ODC via Comtex) -- Aug. 4, 2005--Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), the leading global chemical company, have signed a multi-year agreement under which Accenture will continue as a strategic services supplier and will provide a broad range of business application development, implementation and support services to Dow, extending to 2011. As part of the new agreement, Accenture will help Dow identify value-added opportunities, develop and implement initiatives and support and improve Dow's organization. Dow will leverage Accenture's knowledge of industry practices, Dow's organization and work processes to deliver results. The new agreement expands on an already successful long-term relationship between the two companies during which Accenture helped Dow improve IT development and support productivity by more than 45 percent and supported the implementation of key strategic initiatives over the past ten years. As a key enabling element of its business growth agenda, Dow is developing a shared services center in Shanghai, China leveraging leadership, capabilities, resources and processes developed with Accenture. Accenture has been in Greater China since 1993 and will deliver innovative services to support Dow's growth strategy in China. "Accenture has been instrumental in improving Dow Information Systems processes and productivity and our new multi-year agreement will build on our previous success and broaden the scope of our relationship to include shared services work process, project and support service improvements," said David Kepler, Dow's Corporate Vice President of Shared Services and Chief Information Officer. "Accenture's proven ability to effectively team and integrate culturally with an industry leader like Dow has enabled both companies to deliver measurable results for many years," said Steven Gratto, a global lead partner in Accenture's Chemicals industry group. "We are confident that under this new agreement Accenture and Dow will be able to take this long-term and successful relationship to the next level by leveraging broader global services to support Dow's business." About The Dow Chemical Company Dow is a leader in science and technology, providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services to many essential consumer markets. With annual sales of $40 billion, Dow serves customers in 175 countries and a wide range of markets that are vital to human progress: food, transportation, health and medicine, personal and home care, and building and construction, among others. Committed to the principles of sustainable development, Dow and its 43,000 employees seek to balance economic, environmental and social responsibilities. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted.
http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_17/b3930066_mz011.htm Lazard's IPO May Be Hazardous But the prospectus is so mind-bending, it's hard for investors to tell Years of embarrassing controversies over convoluted financial reports should have taught companies and their legions of advisers to keep their messages to investors simple. Instead, some seem determined to make shareholders' lives complicated. Like Lazard.
Kyocera closes Tijuana plant, contracts Flextronics for Americas supply 190 words 4 August 2005 Business News Americas English (c) 2005 Business News Americas (BNamericas.com) US CDMA handset manufacturer Kyocera Wireless (KWC) has closed a manufacturing plant in Tijuana, Mexico and outsourced production for the Americas market to Flextronics, Kyocera M¨¦xico's director Enrique Pacheco was reported as saying by local press. KWC set up in Mexico in 2001 and supplies the country's third and fourth placed mobile operators Iusacell and Unefon, which concentrate 30% of its Latin American sales. "Last year we carried out a study on manufacturing production costs and opted to close the [plant], and contract a third party for manufacturing equipment," Pacheco was reported as saying. Flextronics was selected because its Mexico plant is close to the US border, he added. This year Kyocera plans to launch five new models, international marketing director Natasha Marvin was quoted as saying. In June, Kyocera said it expects flat sales growth in Latin America this year with a reduction in sales in Colombia compensated by greater sales in Venezuela and Brazil. KWC resulted from Kyocera's acquisition of a cell phone unit run by CDMA technology developer Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM). http://www.bnamericas.com
LAZ Q2 this Wednesday before Open. MM been bashing it in the last two weeks in order to absorb it low. From I-watch data, it shows that 99% of the trade are done by institution. I trace the institution action these days, it seems that they start to buy their shares back. Analyst estimate is .33 per share, my financial service shows me a better number than that. Will beat the market consensus again. Watch it Wednesday. $1-2 jump is possible.
ACN has very strong cash flow and growing potential. Still a good buy at $25. Target $40-60 for 12 month.
ACN, FLEX, RHAT, VRX, MOT, LAZ strong buy at this point. ACN hold firmly at $25, my target >$30. FLEX overreaction on the earning and insider sell 100,000 shares recently, but still hold my target $16. RHAT due to correction after jump on the earning, now it is a good time to entry little by little. VRX recently bought a license, there is a momentuem after this news, my model show me a $22-23 target. MOT upgraded by valueline and hold a 4 stars by MorningStar. LAZ earning tomorrow before the market, 0.33 is the estimate, I believe they will go on doing good thanks to the global M&A businesses.