DLD 2012 has started today in Munich and runs until Jan. 24th. In it, people as diverse as Sheryl Sandberg, Arianna Huffington, the Dyson family and Hiroshi Mikitani share their views on what matters to them. The themes are varied and the program is packed with interesting talks and panels. In the age of multi-disciplinary events, this is one of the best.
We’re at the Rio Investors Day event and so far the attendance has been rather good for an event that was put together quickly. We’re not “live-blogging” experts nor do we intend to emphasize short-term messages and official company management speech – it’s a matter of coincidence that two interesting events were held so close to each other. And yet, attending these events is both necessary and interesting once one escapes the “soundbite trap” and filters some signal from the noise – be it behavioral or analytical (in 99.9% of the cases, one can’t find informational edge in these events).
It’s rare to see such candid evaluations of a company’s problems, even in internal communications. In a memo sent in early February 2011, Stephen Elop doesn’t really hold anything back and tells Nokia employees the harsh truth: the company has fallen behind in innovation, accountability, product line and most other factors. In fact, he puts it in much harsher fashion… We’d like to thank the reader who sent us this letter. Keep the suggestions coming!
Interesting way to improve funding costs, while also pleasing the banks involved. Oi, the Brazilian telecom giant, also happens to own a lot of real estate – for instance the spots in which they have antennas. It’s transferring 263 properties to an SPC, for which Oi will pay rent. At the same time the SPC raises money to pay for the property by selling these rent receivables as CRIs, the portuguese acronym for “certificates of real-estate receivables”. The flip side for banks is that they get to invest their savings accounts regulatory requirements in a “better-quality” CRI. For Oi, through the cost of this debt and the tax benefit of paying rent, they get to secure a lower cost of funding than that achieved in their recent (May ’10) bonds issue.
