The private equity company General Atlantic has agreed to purchase 2.5 million shares of the social network Facebook. The price of the deal will lead to market valuation of targets 65 billion dollars for Internet company. The shares will be bought by former employees of the social network and will give General Atlantic share of 0.1 per cent in the capital of the company. At this stage, however, the transaction is not confirmed by either of the two countries. The estimates indicate that the deal increases the market value of Facebook with just 30 percent from January to date. Then the network received funding of $ 500 million, leading to the estimate of 50 billion dollars. This means that Facebook, which has not yet publicly traded company is valued much higher than companies like Yahoo and E-Bay. However, the network is far from the value that have Google and Amazon.

Germany is considering to extend the ban on uncovered short sales of shares of ten banks in the country, so that it applies to all listed shares in Germany, Air Force forward. During the last week, Germany surprised its European partners, such as bans unilaterally uncovered short sales of shares of the ten leading banks in the country, government bonds and swaps related to the protection of non-performing debt for the period ending March 31, 2011. The current proposal from the Treasury is the prohibition to apply for shares and derivatives of all companies. The proposal is likely to be discussed by the country’s Cabinet next week, includes the creation of new “system transparency” for short sales, which include control over some of the financial regulator BaFin. Germany is making high reductions of costs and needs to reduce expenses in case to prevent the strong European economy from the financial and debt crisis. Germany approved high support for Greece last days, which will be returned from the European banks during next years.
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The week started with a sharp drop in share price of air-sector and tour operators. Reason is the continuing chaos in European airspace despite the stated willingness of some airports to start work. Shares in German airline Lufthansa sink by nearly 5.5 per cent in early session today in Frankfurt. The main DAX index does move with a fall of 0.4 per cent to 6 157 points. Shares of Easy Jet lost 3.7 percent of its value and those of Ryanair retreated by 3 per cent. The market capitalization of British Airways does sank 6 percent. Against this background, Britain’s FTSE 100 index lost 0.2 per cent. Among the victims is now the French airline Air France-KLM, and as the shares dropped by 8.3 per cent purposes only minutes after the start of the exchange session. About this time the French CAC 40 index lost 0.6 per cent. One of the few companies that issued its forecast for losses from air-crisis is tour-operator TUI Travel. Calculations show that when the company lost around 20 million pounds (30.6 million dollars). Estimates are that each day during which the crisis continues, the more it will cost about 5-6 million pounds.
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The Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Valery Golubev was elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Belarusian state gas transmission company Beltransgaz “at took place in Minsk, annual general meeting of shareholders it, RIA Novosti reported. In the Supervisory Board of Beltransgaz has already come in four representatives of Gazprom and Belarus, including Deputy Prime Minister, who until now headed the Supervisory Board and the Minister of Energy of Belarus. Representatives of Gazprom already occupy half the seats of the senior management of the Belarusian gas company, as the Russian gas giant recently completed its purchase of 50% of her shares. The contract of sale was signed in 2007, with total assets of Beltransgaz was evaluated by ABN Amro of 5 billion dollars. Under the terms of the agreement Gazprom had to acquire up to May this year, half of the shares of Beltransgaz for 2.5 billion dollars to pay for a period of 4 equal parts.
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Today’s session on Wall Street began timidly with slight increases for the main indexes reached new highs for the past 18 months to the end of yesterday’s stock trading. Shares of extraction and cyclical companies perform best and brought out three U.S. index of positive territory despite news of the decline in sales of homes to their lowest level in nine months in February. Dow Jones IA, which unites 30 largest actively traded stock companies in the U.S., added 0.3 percent to 10 820.88 points and a half hours after the beginning of the session. The broad S & P 500 remained almost unchanged at a level of 1 166 points, having earlier climbed by nearly 0.2 per cent. On the Nasdaq Stock Exchange main index Nasdaq Composite also gravitates around the zero level of 2 393.55 points. All three indexes ended the session in positive territory Monday backed by shares in the health sector due to the adoption of health reform the House of Representatives to the Senate, cited by CNN. Shortly after today’s session it became clear that cold weather and snow storms in the U.S. in February decreased further activity in the property market, resulting in sales of existing homes decreased for the fourth consecutive month. They fell to 5.02 million residential units on an annual basis in February, which was their lowest level in nine months.
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The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian oil company Lukoil Valery Graipher said that the company is considering to buy 10 percent of its shares from its strategic partner – the U.S. ConocoPhillips, if the stake offered for sale. That said newspaper Kommersant stating that ConocoPhillips currently owns 20.6 percent stake in Lukoil. Given the market capitalization of Lukoil, at the moment it 10% of the company’s shares will cost about $ 5 billion, analysts say, indicating that in future this figure may be altered depending on oil prices. Official information about a possible sale of Lukoil shares of ConocoPhillips currently not available. It is believed that this issue can be discussed at the meeting of the Board of Directors of LUKOIL next week. Last fall also had information that the U.S. company intends to sell shares to Lukoil because of the need to cover their own debts, but then rumors were denied by both companies. Nomura Bank analysts suggest that any transaction for the sale of Lukoil shares of ConocoPhillips may be made in several installments over 3 years and is very likely that those shares in the future be used in procedures for mergers and acquisitions. There is no official information about the financial results for 2009, Lukoil recently president of the company and a major owner Cream Alekperov predicted that Lukoil profit for last year will be about $ 7 billion.
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Sovereign wealth fund Dubai World, which again is bound to lead to tensions in financial markets, will propose plans to restructure its debts. The intention of the Fund are to seek warrants for conversion of debt to 22 billion dollars. One option is for every dollar debt fund to return 60 cents, transmit Market Watch, citing sources from the country. This will happen after a period of seven years and within this period will be paid principal and interest. Only interest would be paid in the last year, and the government of Dubai will be the guarantor. The second option, which is expected to be proposed, provides for obligations to creditors to be made in full, but by assets and shares of the division of the Dubai World Nakheel. The company specializes in construction and is the creator of ambitious projects such as palm and The World. “We think that banks would probably accept the first proposal,” it said in a message of Credit Suisse. According to financial institution creditors are expecting such a development and recovery of 50-60% of their loans to the fund. While it seems unattractive for banks that option is better than bankruptcy, indicated by Credit Suisse. The reason for this is that bankruptcy financial institutions will have to classify 100% of its exposure to the fund as a bad loan, as it happens around 40% of the position. From an accounting point of view it is more profitable, think of the bank.
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