Sunday, April 21, 2013

Oddly Relevant Apr-21-2013


State-run railway beats private rivals: intercity line that links London To Edinburgh requires much lower gov. funding than any of the 15 public and private franchises. [Note: but perhaps not so as a whole. Regardless, kudos; the economics have long stated that natural monopolies will be inefficient if privatized]…Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fe46ffea-a7f8-11e2-8e5d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2R9GndJYm

US telcos pave way for more mergers: Many in the industry believe that neither Sprint nor T-Mobile will be able to independently compete with Verizon and AT&T, and will be pressured to merge in the coming years. Established CapEx, Spectrum holdings, and LTE shift that requires more CapEx will likely drive this wave…Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/005cbd86-aa5d-11e2-9a38-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2R9GndJYm

What lessons should investors learn from the Argentine and Greek restructurings? Interestingly, when governments do default, borrowing costs typically return to normal in a couple of years. The Greece crisis suggested that at a time when debt markets are moving towards local issuance (see chart), the moral for lenders seems clear: only foreign-law debt is safe. For Argentina, it suggests that no ruling can make a determined defaulted government to pay…Source: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21576391-what-lessons-should-investors-learn-argentine-and-greek-restructurings

IBM Prepares to Eject Self from World of Internet Servers: (1) as it sees server selling being commoditized  as other big players took the plunge, (2) it wants to focus on big data analytics and mobility--a near-term strategy that can be thought of as next-generation middleware that will tie mobile applications, the underlying mobile (and wireline) networks and the cloud together in ways that will give enterprise customers the sense of accountability they need, and, in the long-term, new memory chip research and new processors that work more like the human brain. [Note: Feels just like the 90s, isn’t this exciting?]…Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/04/19/why-ibm-might-ditch-servers-and-become-intelligent-business-middleware/

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