Leica Camera owner sells 44% stake to Blackstone investment funds

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Oct 19, 11:09*am, Bruce wrote:
Press release posted without comment:

Leica Camera gains strategic investor in Blackstone

ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH will remain the majority shareholder

London, Solms: The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and ACM
Projektentwicklung GmbH today announced they have agreed a strategic
partnership whereby investment funds advised by Blackstone will
acquire, indirectly through a holding company, a 44% minority stake in
Leica Camera AG (“Leica”), to support Leica’s international growth
plans. ACM and Blackstone have agreed that the value of the
transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction is subject to
regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q4/2011.


God, these F------- income trusts are a pox on America and Europe.
Most of them buy companies, strip them to the bone for profit, sell
them and pocket the difference and the company usually ends up in
worse shape. Initially, you get a huge cash infusion but that's just
at the beginning before the culling starts.

Blackstone are a lot more than what you call 'an income trust'. See
http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xc...om/hs/Home.htm

They are tough though.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:29:33 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:

On Oct 19, 3:11*pm, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT), RichA
wrote:









On Oct 19, 11:09*am, Bruce wrote:
Press release posted without comment:

Leica Camera gains strategic investor in Blackstone

ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH will remain the majority shareholder

London, Solms: The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and ACM
Projektentwicklung GmbH today announced they have agreed a strategic
partnership whereby investment funds advised by Blackstone will
acquire, indirectly through a holding company, a 44% minority stake in
Leica Camera AG (“Leica”), to support Leica’s international growth
plans. ACM and Blackstone have agreed that the value of the
transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction is subject to
regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q4/2011.

God, these F------- income trusts are a pox on America and Europe.
Most of them buy companies, strip them to the bone for profit, sell
them and pocket the difference and the company usually ends up in
worse shape. *Initially, you get a huge cash infusion but that's just
at the beginning before the culling starts.

Blackstone are a lot more than what you call 'an income trust'. Seehttp://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/Home.htm

They are tough though.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

"Private equity firm" They are like the witch in Hansel and Gretel,
fattening up the children. They infuse the companies with cash, "buy"
business at whatever rate is needed in order to make them attractive
as sales items. I've seen it many times. In some cases, taking
losses in order to make the companies appear healthier than they
really are.
I read about a case that happened in Canada with a telephone directory
firm called "SuperPages." They were owned by Telus, who sold them to
Verizon for $700M, who sold them three years later to a private equity
firm in Boston for $1.8B, who bought them a new $20M Toronto office
complex and poured money in (to make them look much more robust than
they were), then flipped them to Yellowpages 7 months later for
$2.5B. Needless to say, Yellowpages never got their money back by
what amounted to eliminating a much smaller competitor. But, the
roundabout way in which this was done allowed them to avoid anti-
competition legislation and concentrate 90% of the phone directory
market in Canada under one roof.

"I read about a case in Canada .... "

Why don't you devote some of your time to reading about Capstone and
discovering what they actually do?

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 10/20/2011 9:29 AM, RichA wrote:
On Oct 19, 3:11 pm, Eric wrote:
On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:









On Oct 19, 11:09 am, wrote:
Press release posted without comment:

Leica Camera gains strategic investor in Blackstone

ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH will remain the majority shareholder

London, Solms: The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and ACM
Projektentwicklung GmbH today announced they have agreed a strategic
partnership whereby investment funds advised by Blackstone will
acquire, indirectly through a holding company, a 44% minority stake in
Leica Camera AG (“Leica”), to support Leica’s international growth
plans. ACM and Blackstone have agreed that the value of the
transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction is subject to
regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q4/2011.

God, these F------- income trusts are a pox on America and Europe.
Most of them buy companies, strip them to the bone for profit, sell
them and pocket the difference and the company usually ends up in
worse shape. Initially, you get a huge cash infusion but that's just
at the beginning before the culling starts.

Blackstone are a lot more than what you call 'an income trust'. Seehttp://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/Home.htm

They are tough though.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

"Private equity firm" They are like the witch in Hansel and Gretel,
fattening up the children. They infuse the companies with cash, "buy"
business at whatever rate is needed in order to make them attractive
as sales items. I've seen it many times. In some cases, taking
losses in order to make the companies appear healthier than they
really are.
I read about a case that happened in Canada with a telephone directory
firm called "SuperPages." They were owned by Telus, who sold them to
Verizon for $700M, who sold them three years later to a private equity
firm in Boston for $1.8B, who bought them a new $20M Toronto office
complex and poured money in (to make them look much more robust than
they were), then flipped them to Yellowpages 7 months later for
$2.5B. Needless to say, Yellowpages never got their money back by
what amounted to eliminating a much smaller competitor. But, the
roundabout way in which this was done allowed them to avoid anti-
competition legislation and concentrate 90% of the phone directory
market in Canada under one roof.

Yellow page advertising has become obsolete. But, don't let the facts
bother you.

--
Peter

PeterN wrote in
:

On 10/20/2011 9:29 AM, RichA wrote:
On Oct 19, 3:11 pm, Eric wrote:
On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:









On Oct 19, 11:09 am, wrote:
Press release posted without comment:

Leica Camera gains strategic investor in Blackstone

ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH will remain the majority shareholder

London, Solms: The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and ACM
Projektentwicklung GmbH today announced they have agreed a
strategic partnership whereby investment funds advised by
Blackstone will acquire, indirectly through a holding company, a
44% minority stake in Leica Camera AG (“Leica”), to support
Leica’s international growth plans. ACM and Blackstone have agreed
that the value of the transaction will not be disclosed. The
transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to
close in Q4/2011.

God, these F------- income trusts are a pox on America and Europe.
Most of them buy companies, strip them to the bone for profit, sell
them and pocket the difference and the company usually ends up in
worse shape. Initially, you get a huge cash infusion but that's
just at the beginning before the culling starts.

Blackstone are a lot more than what you call 'an income trust'.
Seehttp://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/Home.htm

They are tough though.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

"Private equity firm" They are like the witch in Hansel and Gretel,
fattening up the children. They infuse the companies with cash,
"buy" business at whatever rate is needed in order to make them
attractive as sales items. I've seen it many times. In some cases,
taking losses in order to make the companies appear healthier than
they really are.
I read about a case that happened in Canada with a telephone
directory firm called "SuperPages." They were owned by Telus, who
sold them to Verizon for $700M, who sold them three years later to a
private equity firm in Boston for $1.8B, who bought them a new $20M
Toronto office complex and poured money in (to make them look much
more robust than they were), then flipped them to Yellowpages 7
months later for $2.5B. Needless to say, Yellowpages never got their
money back by what amounted to eliminating a much smaller competitor.
But, the roundabout way in which this was done allowed them to avoid
anti- competition legislation and concentrate 90% of the phone
directory market in Canada under one roof.

Yellow page advertising has become obsolete. But, don't let the facts
bother you.


That happened long after the fact.

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

Yellow page advertising has become obsolete. But, don't let the facts
bother you.

Obsolete? You have an odd concept of what "obsolete" means. We
depend on the Yellow Pages less now than we did a decade ago, but it's
far from an obsolete method of locating information about businesses
that provide a service we're looking for.

it's obsolete.

most people look up phone numbers on line, usually from a google
search, or they might use yellowpages.com or similar. smartphone users
have yellow & white pages apps, or they can just ask the phone to find
a number.

i just did a google search for the word 'pizza' and it gave me a list
of nearby pizza places. that's *way* more useful and efficient than
looking in a phone book. prefer a different city? easy enough to
specify which city if the one you're in isn't where you want to look.
can't do that with a phone book unless you have phone books from every
city.

not only that, but there are links to the various pizza place websites
with menus, prices, hours of operation, etc. and there are links with
reviews so you know if it's even worth going to. need directions on how
to get there? that's easy too with google maps.

so yes, it's obsolete.

On 10/22/11 PDT 10:38 PM, nospam wrote:
In , tony cooper
wrote:

Obsolete? You have an odd concept of what "obsolete" means. We
depend on the Yellow Pages less now than we did a decade ago, but it's
far from an obsolete method of locating information about businesses
that provide a service we're looking for.

it's obsolete.

most people look up phone numbers on line, usually from a google
search, or they might use yellowpages.com or similar. smartphone users
have yellow& white pages apps, or they can just ask the phone to find
a number.

Most people, eh? Most people on this froup, yeah, maybe even most people
- more than 50%- online. But not most people.

Obsolete? To you, yes, but not as a generality.

To many, proper grammar Including the use of capitalization is not
obsolete.

On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 08:46:20 -0700, John McWilliams wrote:
: On 10/22/11 PDT 10:38 PM, nospam wrote:
: In , tony cooper
: wrote:
:
: Obsolete? You have an odd concept of what "obsolete" means. We
: depend on the Yellow Pages less now than we did a decade ago, but it's
: far from an obsolete method of locating information about businesses
: that provide a service we're looking for.
:
: it's obsolete.
:
: most people look up phone numbers on line, usually from a google
: search, or they might use yellowpages.com or similar. smartphone users
: have yellow& white pages apps, or they can just ask the phone to find
: a number.
:
: Most people, eh? Most people on this froup, yeah, maybe even most people
: - more than 50%- online. But not most people.
:
: Obsolete? To you, yes, but not as a generality.
:
: To many, proper grammar Including the use of capitalization is not
: obsolete.

But not, I assume, to people on this froup. Because in your statement,
"Including" should not be capitalized. (You also need commas after "grammar"
and "capitalization".)

Bob

Bruce wrote:
John McWilliams wrote:
On 10/22/11 PDT 10:38 PM, nospam wrote:
In , tony cooper
wrote:

Obsolete? You have an odd concept of what "obsolete" means. We
depend on the Yellow Pages less now than we did a decade ago, but it's
far from an obsolete method of locating information about businesses
that provide a service we're looking for.

it's obsolete.

most people look up phone numbers on line, usually from a google
search, or they might use yellowpages.com or similar. smartphone users
have yellow& white pages apps, or they can just ask the phone to find
a number.

Most people, eh? Most people on this froup, yeah, maybe even most people
- more than 50%- online. But not most people.

Obsolete? To you, yes, but not as a generality.

For me, Yellow Pages will be obsolete only when the company stops
delivering a free annual copy to my door. They delivered my latest
copy about a month ago.

Quite so. I never use them, because using the Web via computer or
smartphone is so much easier and better. But my wife won't touch
anything with a screen or a keyboard, and uses Yellow Pages a lot.

Seems the word "obsolescent" might have become obsolete amongst the
computerate :-)

--
Chris Malcolm

In article , Bruce
wrote:

For me, Yellow Pages will be obsolete only when the company stops
delivering a free annual copy to my door. They delivered my latest
copy about a month ago.

there is an opt-out number to call to cancel deliveries.

On 10/22/2011 11:41 PM, tony cooper wrote:
On Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:50:03 -0400, PeterN
wrote:

On 10/20/2011 9:29 AM, RichA wrote:
On Oct 19, 3:11 pm, Eric wrote:
On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:









On Oct 19, 11:09 am, wrote:
Press release posted without comment:

Leica Camera gains strategic investor in Blackstone

ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH will remain the majority shareholder

London, Solms: The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) and ACM
Projektentwicklung GmbH today announced they have agreed a strategic
partnership whereby investment funds advised by Blackstone will
acquire, indirectly through a holding company, a 44% minority stake in
Leica Camera AG (“Leica”), to support Leica’s international growth
plans. ACM and Blackstone have agreed that the value of the
transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction is subject to
regulatory approval and is expected to close in Q4/2011.

God, these F------- income trusts are a pox on America and Europe.
Most of them buy companies, strip them to the bone for profit, sell
them and pocket the difference and the company usually ends up in
worse shape. Initially, you get a huge cash infusion but that's just
at the beginning before the culling starts.

Blackstone are a lot more than what you call 'an income trust'. Seehttp://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/Home.htm

They are tough though.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

"Private equity firm" They are like the witch in Hansel and Gretel,
fattening up the children. They infuse the companies with cash, "buy"
business at whatever rate is needed in order to make them attractive
as sales items. I've seen it many times. In some cases, taking
losses in order to make the companies appear healthier than they
really are.
I read about a case that happened in Canada with a telephone directory
firm called "SuperPages." They were owned by Telus, who sold them to
Verizon for $700M, who sold them three years later to a private equity
firm in Boston for $1.8B, who bought them a new $20M Toronto office
complex and poured money in (to make them look much more robust than
they were), then flipped them to Yellowpages 7 months later for
$2.5B. Needless to say, Yellowpages never got their money back by
what amounted to eliminating a much smaller competitor. But, the
roundabout way in which this was done allowed them to avoid anti-
competition legislation and concentrate 90% of the phone directory
market in Canada under one roof.

Yellow page advertising has become obsolete. But, don't let the facts
bother you.

Obsolete? You have an odd concept of what "obsolete" means. We
depend on the Yellow Pages less now than we did a decade ago, but it's
far from an obsolete method of locating information about businesses
that provide a service we're looking for.



I don't know what you use it for, but most I know use the Internet for
that type of research.

--
Peter