Wednesday 18 January 2012

KSE vaults to one-and-a-half month high

KARACHI: Energy stocks such as Oil and Gas Development Co Ltd (OGDCL) on Wednesday pushed the benchmark 100-Index to a one-and-a-half month high, ending up more than 2 percent.

The trading frenzy followed comments by a senior US official who said Washington wanted to promote investment in Pakistan.

"The American government is active in promoting US investment," said U.S. Consul General William Martin while visiting the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE), "particularly in the energy sector."

The Karachi Stock Exchange's benchmark 100-share index ended 2.15 percent, or 242.55 points, higher at 11,547.71, its highest close since Dec. 1.

Volume rose to 83.73 million shares, compared with 53.11
million shares traded on Tuesday. 

OGDCL, the most heavily weighted company on the KSE-index, ended higher at its trading limit of 5 percent, at 151.65 rupees. The index halts trade on stocks if they rise or drop 5 percent. (Reuters)

Martial arts - Bollywood spoiling for a fight


 After bankrolling glamorous cricket and motor sports leagues in India, Bollywood has turned its attention to the world of mixed martial arts with a series of events featuring local fighters squaring off against international opponents.
Actor Sanjay Dutt and entrepreneur Raj Kundra have launched the Super Fight League with events scheduled for Mumbai, Chandigarh and New Delhi.
The first event in Mumbai on March 11 will be headlined by veteran kickboxer and mixed martial artist Bob 'The Beast' Sapp and English fighter James Thompson.
Kundra, who with his actress wife Shilpa Shetty owns the Rajasthan Royals franchise in cricket's Indian Premier League, said the SFL was signing up established MMA fighters from across the world to take on local talent.
"I am very passionate about all sports. I enjoy football, cricket and I have been watching mixed martial arts for the last five years," Kundra told Reuters in an interview. "It is coming for the first time to India and I am confident it will be big."
Kundra accepted that initially it would be difficult to realise financial gains from the full contact combat sport in India but he believed its growing global popularity made it a good long-term investment.
After struggling to gain mainstream acceptance, MMA has become one of the world's fastest growing sports with sponsorship and media revenue starting to pour in.
The U.S.-based Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world's biggest MMA promotion, signed a seven-year multi-media deal with TV network Fox in August that will net a reported $90-100 million in rights annually.
Asian promotion ONE Fighting Championship, which has hefty financial backing from Middle East investors, is also capitalising on MMA's growing popularity and tied up lucrative deals with sponsors and broadcasters across the region.
"Honestly, I am really not doing this because of business since it is not like cricket where you can go, sell and make your money back," Kundra said.
"This is going to be a long-term view and I don't think I am going to really recover anything in the next few years.
"This is more of setting up the brand and then we will go into valuation afterwards."
SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
League revenues will come from advertising and sponsors while deals with websites and broadcasters were being worked out, Kundra said. The idea was lucrative enough for established fighters to sign on the dotted line, he added.
"Each fighter has a different deal. The fighters that are contracted to us get X amount of dollars per fight to turn up and next to win," he said.
"The big international fighters could charge anything between $20,000 to $1 million to turn up and fight."
The Indian Premier League dazzled fans with the exciting Twenty20 format, player auctions, post-game parties and heavy advertising.
Celebrity owners play a large part in pumping up the IPL's image and include Reliance Industrieschief Mukesh Ambani, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, as well as spirits and airline magnate Vijay Mallya.
Shah Rukh also became the co-owner of the Mumbai franchise in a recently launched motorsport league.
Kundra, whose business ventures and investments range from mining to real estate and renewable energy to entertainment and hospitality, said the SFL would be similar to the cricket league in terms of being an attractive mix of sports and entertainment.
"I own a cricket team and I own this league as well. The biggest difference between the two is that cricket happens over two months and my league will be once a month," he quipped.
"There are 10, 20, 30 movies that get released every month end. So mine let's just say this is another movie that comes out once a month."
(Reuters) -

Yahoo co-founder Yang resigns


Yahoo Inc co-founder Jerry Yang has quit the company he started in 1995, appeasing shareholders who had blasted the Internet pioneer for pursuing an ineffective personal vision and impeding investment deals that could have transformed the struggling company.
Yang's abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, with a mandate to return the once-leading Internet portal to the heights it enjoyed in the 1990s.
Wall Street views the exit of "Chief Yahoo" Yang as smoothing the way for a major infusion of cash from private equity, or a deal to sell off much of its 40 percent slice of China's Alibaba, unlocking value for shareholders.
Shares of Yahoo gained 3 percent in after-hours trade.
"Everyone is going to assume this means a deal is more likely with the Asia counterparts," Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter said. "The perception among shareholders was Jerry was more focused on trying to rebuild Yahoo than necessarily on maximizing near-term shareholder value.
"It certainly seems things are coming to a head as far as realizing the value of these assets."
Yang, who is severing all formal ties with the company by resigning all positions including his seat on the board of directors, has come under fire for his handling of company affairs dating back to an aborted sale to Microsoft in 2008.
Yang's exit comes roughly a month before dissident shareholders can nominate rival directors to Yahoo's board.
The remaining nine members of Yahoo's board, which includes Hewlett-Packard executive Vyomesh Joshi and private investor Gary Wilson, are all up for reelection this year.
Yang's departure could be part of a broader board shakeup, said Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investment officer of Jacob Funds, which owns Yahoo shares.
"If they don't move quickly on these things, they run the risk of a proxy battle and they are doing everything they can to avoid that."
The company did not say where Yang was headed or why he had suddenly resigned. CEO Thompson offered few clues in a memo to employees obtained by Reuters following the announcement.
"I am grateful for the support and warm welcome Jerry provided me in my early days here. His insights and perspective were invaluable, helping me to dig deeper, more quickly than I could have on my own, into some of the key elements of the company and how it operates.
Yang and co-founder David Filo, both of whom carried the official title "Chief Yahoo," own sizable stakes in the company. Yang owns 3.69 percent of Yahoo's outstanding shares, while Filo owns 6 percent as of April and May 2011.
CHIEF YAHOO NO LONGER
In a letter to Yahoo's chairman of the board, Yang said he was leaving to pursue "other interests outside of Yahoo" and was "enthusiastic" about Thompson as the choice to helm the company.
Yang, 43, is also resigning from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group Holdings.
Respected in the industry as one of the founding figures of the Web, Yang has come under fire over the years from investors and to some extent within the company's internal ranks.
"Lots of people think he holds up innovation there with old ideas and (is) slow to decide and that he's not an innovator himself for being at such a high level," said one former Yahoo employee.
"People have very high expectations for founders. Everyone wants a Steve Jobs," the employee said, referring to Apple's co-founder who brought the company back from near death and transformed it into the world's most valuable tech company.
Some analysts say the Yahoo board's indecision stems in part from Yang's sway in the company. Disillusioned by the company's flip-flopping, they warn that the rest of the board remained much the same as the one that rejected Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid when Yang was CEO.
"Jerry Yang was certainly an impediment toward anything happening," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer. "This is a company that's been mired by a bunch of competing interests going in different directions. It was never clear what this board's direction has been."
Microsoft's bid was worth about $44 billion. Its share price was subsequently pummeled by the global financial crisis and its current market value stands at about $20 billion.
More recently, Yang and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock have incurred the wrath of some major Yahoo shareholders for their handling of the "strategic review" the company was pursuing, in which discussions have included the possibility of being sold, taken private or broken up.
Yang's efforts to seek a minority investment in Yahoo from private equity firms enraged several large shareholders, including hedge fund Third Point, which accused Yang of pursuing a deal that was in "his best personal interests" but not aligned with shareholders' interests.
Yahoo has also been exploring a deal to unload most of its prized Asian assets in a complex deal involving Alibaba, valued at roughly $17 billion, sources told Reuters last month.
Alibaba Group's founder, Jack Ma, whose personal relationship with Yang led to Yahoo buying a 40 percent stake in Alibaba in 2005, said he looked forward to continuing a "constructive relationship" with Yahoo.
Susquehanna analyst Herman Leung said: "I had thought that Jerry Yang was a lifer at Yahoo.
"Without him on the board, this could smooth a potential transaction. What that transaction is, is any of our guesses right now."
(Reuters) - 

Lindsay Lohan "doing it well" on probation


Actress Lindsay Lohan, who is on probation after being convicted for drunk driving and theft, has made good on completing her court-ordered community service and therapy on time, pleasing a judge at a progress hearing on Tuesday.
"Just keep doing what you're doing, and you appear to be doing it well," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner told Lohan at the hearing.
The "Mean Girls" actress, 25, was dressed conservatively in a pale blue cardigan and dark trousers during her the progress report of her second month of a five-month community service sentence at the Los Angeles County morgue, along with taking therapy sessions.
Lohan's next hearing is scheduled for February 22, before which she is required to complete 15 days of community service and five therapy sessions.
If she stays on track, the actress is likely to complete her DUI-related probation by March, and her theft violation will be downgraded to summary, non-supervised probation.
Lohan rose to fame as a likable child star of Disney movies such as "The Parent Trap," but since 2007, she has spent time in rehab and jail after being convicted on drunk driving and drug possession charges.
The actress pleaded no contest, which is the equivalent of guilty, to stealing a gold necklace from a jewelry story in 2011, and was sentenced to 480 hours community service at a L.A. women's detention center and the county morgue.
Lohan's failure to adequately perform that sentence led Sautner to angrily revoke her probation in October and send her to jail. The actress served just over four hours behind bars in November due to overcrowding and was assigned to community service at the county morgue and psychological counseling for the rest of her sentence.
(Reuters) - 

Tomb of woman singer found in Egypt's Valley of Kings


In a rare find, Egyptian and Swiss archaeologists have unearthed a roughly 2,900 year old tomb of a female singer in the Valley of the Kings, an antiquities official said Sunday. It is the only tomb of a woman not related to the ancient Egyptian royal families ever found in the Valley of the Kings, said Mansour Boraiq, the top government official for the Antiquities' Ministry in the city of Luxor.


The Valley of the Kings in Luxor is a major tourist attraction. In 1922, archaeologists there unearthed the gold funerary mask of Tutankhamun and other stunning items in the tomb of the king who ruled more than 3,000 years ago.


Boraiq told The Associated Press that the coffin of the female singer is remarkably intact.


He said that when the coffin is opened this week, archaeologists will likely find a mummy and a cartonnage mask molded to her face and made from layers of linen and plaster.


The singer's name, Nehmes Bastet, means she was believed to be protected by the feline deity Bastet.


The tomb was found by accident, according to Elena Pauline-Grothe, field director for excavation at the Valley of the Kings with Switzerland's University of Basel.


"We were not looking for new tombs. It was close to another tomb that was discovered 100 years ago," Pauline-Grothe said.


Pauline-Grothe said the tomb was not originally built for the female singer, but was reused for her 400 years after the original one, based on artifacts found inside. Archaeologists do not know whom the tomb was originally intended for.


The coffin of the singer belonged to the daughter of a high priest during the 22nd Dynasty (945-712 B.C.).


Archaeologists concluded from artifacts that she sang in Karnak Temple, one of the most famous and largest open-air sites from the Pharaonic era.


At the time of her death, Egypt was ruled by Libyan kings, but the high priests who ruled Thebes, which is now within the city of Luxor, were independent. Their authority enabled them to use the royal cemetery for family members, according to Boraiq.


The unearthing marks the 64th tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings.


(Source: Msn)



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