UPS to buy TNT for $6.85 billion

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - United Parcel Service will pay $6.85 billion for Dutch peer TNT Express in a deal making the world's largest package delivery company the market leader in Europe.

UPS will also get access to TNT's stronger networks in the fast-growing Asian and Latin American markets, bringing the U.S. company's global sales up to over 45 billion euros.

The deal has raised concerns that smaller companies will find it harder to compete. Germany's Deutsche Post DHL, the closest rival in Europe, said the European Commission should examine the proposed takeover thoroughly.

TNT said on Monday its executive and supervisory boards unanimously supported UPS's offer of 9.50 euros per share, a premium of nearly 54 percent, up from an initial 9 euros per share last month.

TNT's biggest shareholder PostNL, which owns 29.8 percent, also said it backed the offer, which UPS said it would finance through a combination of $3 billion in available cash and new debt.

"It's a difficult day and a great day. Difficult because TNT is a proud company and it is difficult to agree to be acquired," said TNT Express head Marie-Christine Lombard.

"It's a great day because the combination of the two companies...will be enhanced and really deliver the global leader that will be unequalled."

TNT Express shares rose 1.5 percent to 9.48 euros.

The offer ends years of speculation about the future of the Dutch delivery company, which was split from the Dutch mail company PostNL and listed last year.

With falling profit and a poor outlook for 2012, TNT's management had come under intense pressure from activist shareholders, including Jana Partners and Alberta Investment Management Corp., to seek a buyer.

DIVESTMENTS

UPS has long looked at TNT as a way to help it expand in Europe, especially Britain, France and Germany. It said it was confident the European antitrust watchdog would clear the offer without going into a prolonged investigation.

But analysts said divestments might be needed to ensure the deal won the stamp of approval.

"We expect some divestments will be needed for the competition clearances," DZ Bank analyst Robert Czerwensky said.

A spokesman for Germany's Deutsche Post DHL, said the acquisition would further strengthen the power of a significant player in a market with limited participants.

"The European logistics market is very fragmented and diverse, it's not a single market", said a spokesperson for UPS, adding it was too early to comment on potential remedies including asset disposals that could be required to ease a phase 1 clearance.

Trade unions said UPS had agreed to continue collective labor agreements had not heard of any plans to make job cuts. "We are early in the process. Way too early to talk about redundancies. We will look through the organization and figure out how to best put the network together," said UPS CEO Scott Davis.

FOREIGN SALES BOOST

UPS said the acquisition will accelerate its global growth strategy by increasing foreign revenue from 26 percent to 36 percent of the group total.

The deal will bring annual cost synergies of approximately 400 to 550 million euros per year in four years, UPS said. It will first spend a pre-tax, 1.3 billion euros on "implementation costs" to achieve those synergies, it said.

UPS said that the $6.77 billion acquisition will be financed with an equal mix of cash and banking borrowings and would enhance its earnings per share in the first year after the deal.

If a third party makes a binding counter offer exceeding the UPS bid by eight percent, TNT or UPS can terminate the transaction, the companies said in a statement. That leaves the door open for another rival, such as FedEX, to bid, but analysts have said that is unlikely.

A person familiar with UPS said that a TNT deal would not have benefited Fedex in the same way as it helped UPS because Fedex's much smaller European presence would have brought less synergies.

About two-thirds of TNT's revenue is from European customers, but it also has been steadily growing in China, India, as well as Brazil where it has struggled to integrate its acquisitions.

UPS is in the midst of a $200 million expansion of its Cologne hub, and has recently grown through acquisitions but the TNT deal is the largest by far.

Earlier in February, UPS announced the purchase of Brussels-based Kiala in a bid to boost European e-commerce capabilities. Other purchases on the continent include the 2005 acquisition of parcel carrier Lynx Express Ltd in Britain and messenger service Stolica in Poland.

Europe is UPS's largest market outside the United States, accounting for $6 billion or half of the company's annual international revenue. Total revenue for UPS last year was $53 billion, while that of TNT was around $7 billion.

UPS carries about $11 billion in debt on its balance sheet and could tap credit lines for $12 billion in additional debt. The company has $4.1 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in marketable securities.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch, Matthias Inverardi, Roberta Cowan; editing by Anna Willard)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tnt-express-agrees-upss-5-2-billion-euro-064910221.html

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Fitness Equipment and Fitness Exercise Relationship in ...

Article by Ryan Levesque Campbell

Working with the fitness equipment you have, and not against it in your fitness exercise routine is the aim. You are getting to know the workings of the machine and how your mind and body communicates with it. You want to be speaking the same fitness exercise language at the same pace, intensity and stability, with the right resistance. Sometimes you fallout with the fitness equipment because you are not in harmony at that time. The fitness exercise relationship is in trouble and in need of counselling. Is it me or the exercise equipment you ask yourself? Does the fitness equipment need maintenance, replacing, or was it part of my preparation that was not quite right. Do I have the calories to burn, is my mind on the exercise equipment or somewhere else, do I remember why I?m doing this in the first place, is my motivation a problem, if so why? Is it just a bad day where I can sort myself out and get back to it later or tomorrow.

At least you know you fitness equipment will be one waiting for you unconditionally and without retribution, waiting to get back on the fitness exercise tracks. No apologies needed, no cold stares, just raring to go and aiming to please with a little respect and measured handling. Having had the small timeout period, re-fuelling with vigorous optimum sports nutrition and food for the brain and body, the mind regenerating the impulses and regaining the stored fitness exercise patterns with the positive holistic associations. After the short warm-up period the compatibility is starting to be re-established and the exercise equipment is beginning to speak fitness exercise language again with clarity and finesse as the positive endorphins remind you that the togetherness his back on track. You wonder what all the fuss was about and why you even contemplated a temporary separation from the fitness equipment! Fitness exercise was the adjoining thread of the feelings of wellness and rhythmic alliance. The exercise equipment is the stalwart friend who gives more than it takes and never lets you down in times of trouble, stress, transition and maladjustment; in fact, this is where it comes into its own.

I suppose you have to go through difficult times to realise what you have and what is precious to you. The Fitness Equipment you have, or are intending to get, does not have to be the biggest or the best, the fitness exercise you perform does not have to be to Olympic standards. Sometimes you will inevitably fallout with your exercise equipment but always remember which one is the worse off when you part company, your body may show you and your mind may tell you the answer very soon.

Compare prices on home Fitness Equipment, Treadmills, Rowing Machines, Exercise Bikes, Cross Trainers, Weights, Gym Equipment and much more.

Source: http://exerciseforhealthandfitness.inetwyoming.com/fitness-equipment-and-fitness-exercise-relationship-in-togtherness

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Photographer Hacks an Almost 100-Year-Old Lens Onto His Canon 5D Mark II [Past Perfect]

If you needed any further proof that you don't need the most cutting-edge camera equipment to take beautiful photos, check out these shots by Jason Bognacki who attached a 1919 Piccolette Contessa-Nettel folding camera to his 5D Mark II. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ObuDflndEiw/

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What Matters For Commercial Real Estate: Supply And Demand ...

supply vs demandRecently Sam Zell, legendary investor and chairman of Equity Group Investments, was interviewed on CNBC in an hour-long segment. During this interview Zell gave his opinions on the overall health and future of commercial real estate.

It?s all about supply and demand

Zell: ?Real estate is all about supply and demand. We have built nothing since July of 2007. That?s the good news. So we?ve had no additional supply. The bad news is that we?ve also had less job growth and less demand. So literally, the existing facilities are getting filled up, but at rates that don?t reflect new cost. So I think (commercial) real estate still has another couple years to get its act together.?

Zell is correct. The supply and demand levers are like the hot and cold spigots on a bathtub and the volume of these levers are controlled by factors such as unemployment, consumer confidence and technology, among others.

supply vs demandThe graph to the right provides supply (annual construction in dark blue) and demand (absorption in light blue) trends, as well as vacancy rate patterns (red line), for the apartment, office and retail sectors. Click on the graph to?enlarge.

This supply and demand model is best explained by Victor Calanog, Ph.D., Chief Economist with Reis, Inc.:

?It is indeed about supply and demand, but specific sectors have to live with different mixes of these two key drivers. For the apartment sector you had moderate supply growth through 2008, which dropped off severely from 2009 to 2011. Combine that with surging demand from renter households that are postponing decisions to buy homes because of the flagging for-sale sector, and you?ve got a great combination. That?s why vacancy rates dipped by 280 basis points in 2010 and 2011, ending at 5.2%, the lowest vacancy rate in more than a decade.

For office properties it?s a little less ideal. Anemic job growth means less demand for office space, but supply growth was halved from 2004 to 2008, compared to 1998 to 2003. As a result, office properties have less of a glut to deal with.? That?s why vacancy rates have begun to climb downwards, from a peak of 17.6% in end-2010 to 17.3% by the end of 2011.

Retail properties have it worst. There was little slowdown in building of retail across the nation until 2008, although the spigot was turned off abruptly in 2009. But with the large amount of overhang, and lackluster demand for retail space from tenants who are still rationalizing their need for physical space given competition from online sales, you?ve got vacancies moored at 20-year highs.?

According to research provided by Jones Lang LaSalle, new construction and development is limited and there will not be much new activity over the next three years. The most active development markets include New York, Washington DC, Boston, and San Francisco. These densely populated ?gateway? markets are much more attractive as they have recovered quicker.

Excerpt from the article written by Brad Thomas, Contributor to Forbes.com. Click here to view the original article in its entirety.

Source: http://blog.josephbernard.net/?p=672

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Afghan Atrocity: Can Stress and Head Trauma Cause a Soldier to `Snap'?

The lawyer for a 38-year-old U.S. serviceman accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians has disputed a number of theories floated to explain the actions of the staff sergeant, who was being flown to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on Friday to stand trial. Efforts to characterize the unidentified soldier?s alleged crimes on March 11 include a New York Times article indicating that he simply ?snapped? prior to the shooting due to the stresses of combat, marital problems or drinking too much alcohol.

The soldier?who enlisted in the military a week after the September 11, 2001, attacks and had served three tours in Iraq?has suffered several combat-related injuries, including a concussion sustained by a roadside bomb and the loss of part of a foot, his attorney John Henry Browne acknowledged. The lawyer did not speculate as to whether his client might have psychological or mental health problems. But Browne did tell CNN that during a brief phone conversation with the soldier, ?he seemed to be unaware of some of the facts I talked to him about, which makes me concerned about his state of mind.?

Even if the soldier?s state of mind is unknown at this time, the nature of his previous injuries may provide some insight into the forces at work on him. Blunt-force trauma, which can be caused by concussion-inducing trauma, damages the brain by bruising it, stretching or tearing nerve cells, or triggering electrical misfiring, Scientific American Mind reported in its December 2008 issue. In addition, an incident strong enough to cause traumatic brain injury can also be powerful enough to produce emotional trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A combination of mild traumatic brain injury and PTSD is considered the signature injury of the Iraq War.

A 2010 study of more than 18,000 U.S. Army soldiers returning from combat in Iraq found up to 31 percent reported symptoms of PTSD or depression as long as a year after returning from the battlefield. About half of soldiers who had PTSD or depression also reported aggressive behavior or misuse of alcohol. PTSD diagnoses themselves have become controversial, however, with critics pointing out that criteria for assessing PTSD are based on a ?faulty, outdated construct that has been badly overstretched? and that many soldiers are misdiagnosed as having the disorder.

As to whether the soldier accused of the recent massacre in Afghanistan?s Kandahar Province simply lost cognitive control?or snapped?following one or a series of stressful situations, researchers note that individuals respond to stresses in different ways. A variety of issues can lead a person to a lose their ability to ?exercise cognitive control in a healthy manner,? Marco Iacoboni, a University of California, Los Angeles, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and director of the school?s Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Laboratory, told Scientific American last year after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.

In such cases, the person?s self-control mechanisms are redirected toward goals and activities that are violent in a very specific way. ?The violence is channeled in a very specific plan, with a very specific target?generally fed by the media through some sort of rhetoric, political or otherwise?with very specific tools,? Iacoboni said.

For the Army sergeant at the center of the shootings, that plan allegedly included hiking more than a mile to a rural Afghan village and going on a shooting spree that left nine children dead. It may be a long time, if ever, before we truly understand the shooter?s state of mind.

Image of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan courtesy of Craig DeBourbon, via iStockPhoto.com

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=527de28515363fc4f00a1de667738a2d

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Business Advertising With Rubber Wristbands | Smart Visuals

Benefits of silicone bracelets custom, wristbands silicone, custom silicon bracelets and silicone bracelet

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The message can be around the front, around the back, and on the inside as well. Previously, the women sell the bracelets to a traditional western friend, aid worker or missionary that then from the goodness of the heart sells them from some charity event and donates the cash back to the maker. After its very first appearance, silicone bracelets started spreading such as wildfire featuring a variety of styles, slogans, mottos, logos and messages.

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Send your own logo towards the company making the rings so they can combine it with the bracelet design.

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Source: http://smart-visuals.com/business-advertising-with-rubber-wristbands/

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Skydiver aims to jump from 23 miles, go supersonic

"Fearless Felix" Baumgartner has jumped 2,500 times from planes and helicopters, as well as some of the highest landmarks and skyscrapers on the planet ? the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, the Millau Viaduct in southern France, the 101-story Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

He's also leapt face-first into a pitch-dark, 620-foot-deep cave in Croatia ? his most dangerous feat yet, he says, but soon to be outdone.

This summer, Baumgartner hopes to hurtle toward Earth at supersonic speed from a record 23 miles up, breaking the sound barrier with only his body.

He made it more than halfway there during a critical dress rehearsal Thursday, ascending from the New Mexico desert in a helium balloon and jumping from more than 13 miles up. He is believed to be only the third person to leap from such a high altitude and free fall to a safe landing ? and the first to do so in 50 years. The record is Air Force test pilot Joe Kittinger's jump from 102,800 feet ? 19.5 miles ? in 1960.

"I'm now a member of a pretty small club," Baumgartner said in remarks provided by representatives.

Baumgartner tested the same pressurized capsule and full-pressure suit that he will use in a few months for a record-setting free fall from 120,000 feet. The extra protection is needed because there's virtually no atmosphere at such heights.

That's nowhere near space, but high enough to grab NASA's attention.

Engineers working on astronaut escape systems for future spacecraft have their eyes on this Austrian skydiver, former military parachutist, extreme athlete and, yes, daredevil known as "Fearless Felix."

"I like to challenge myself," Baumgartner, 42, explained in a recent interview, "and this is the ultimate skydive. I think there's nothing bigger than that."

Thursday's test run provided the boost Baumgartner was hoping for.

"That was the momentum we needed for the whole team. Now we are ready for the 90,000 jump," Baumgartner said, referring to the next trial run.

"I could not really feel my hands in free fall as it was so cold. We have to work on this," he added.

Baumgartner's 100-foot helium balloon and pressurized capsule lifted off from Roswell, N.M., on Thursday morning. He jumped at 71,581 feet ? 13.6 miles ? and landed safely eight minutes and eight seconds later, according to spokeswoman Trish Medalen. He reached speeds of up to 364.4 mph and was in free fall for three minutes and 43 seconds, before pulling his parachute cords, Medalen said.

"The view is amazing, way better than I thought," Baumgartner said after the practice jump.

(Commercial jets generally cruise at just over 30,000 feet.)

After one more trial run, he'll attempt 120,000 feet, or 22.8 miles. The launch window opens in July and extends until the beginning of October; it's based on optimal weather at the Roswell site.

"Keep in mind that at 120,000 feet ... there is no atmosphere to sustain human life," said Dustin Gohmert, manager of NASA's crew survival engineering office at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "To the body, it's no different than being in deep space, save from possibly more radiation shielding from the little atmosphere you have. You need the full protection of the pressure suit."

The record-holder Kittinger was in free fall for four minutes, 36 seconds, and accelerated to 614 mph, equivalent to Mach 0.9, just shy of the sound barrier. For his grand finale, Baumgartner expects to be in free fall for five minutes, 35 seconds, and achieve Mach 1, or 690 mph. All told, the descent should take 15 to 20 minutes.

Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon who heads Baumgartner's medical team, puts the chance of survival as "very high." Injury is possible.

"Sure, I fear" for Baumgartner's life, said Clark, whose astronaut wife, Laurel, died aboard space shuttle Columbia in 2003. "I mean, this is high-risk stuff."

Baumgartner is a perfectionist with a test pilot's personality and drive, according to Clark, and definitely not a flamboyant risk taker. He's survived as a BASE jumper, Clark noted, referring to the sport of jumping off fixed structures and using parachutes to break the fall. "They don't live long if they're not good."

The project, called Red Bull Stratos, is sponsored by the energy drink maker. (Stratos refers to the stratosphere.) The project costs have not been disclosed.

Kittinger's Excelsior mission was Air Force; he was a test pilot when he made his record-setting jump from an open, unpressurized gondola, long before anyone had rocketed into space.

Now 83, Kittinger lives near Orlando, Fla., and has been working with Baumgartner for three years. He took part in Thursday's test, as did Clark.

Kittinger is amazed no one has broken his free-falling record, after so many decades.

"In the 52 years since I did it, there have been a lot of improvements in pressure suits, in communications and life-support systems. But the only thing that really has not changed is how hostile it is at that altitude," Kittinger said. "It's almost a complete vacuum."

That's why NASA is so interested, even though space officially begins considerably higher at an even 100 kilometers, 328,084 feet or 62 miles.

In the nine years since the Columbia tragedy, emergency escape has been a top priority for NASA. The seven astronauts were killed during re-entry at just over 200,000 feet, nearly double Baumgartner's targeted altitude.

Granted, NASA's retired space shuttles will never fly again. But with so many different types of spacecraft in development by so many different companies, NASA wants to keep astronauts as safe as possible and provide a means for escape in the decades ahead.

Baumgartner's experience is sure to provide important lessons, Gohmert said.

Indeed, Baumgartner considers himself a pioneer ? and a cautious one. He's following Kittinger's example of jumping in incrementally higher stages.

Kittinger nearly died trying on his own first dress rehearsal.

While jumping from 76,400 feet in 1959, Kittinger's small, stabilizing parachute opened too soon and got tangled around his neck. He went into a downward spin and blacked out. He was saved only by the automatic deployment of his emergency chute.

"I had confidence in myself and my equipment and my team. That never varied," Kittinger said. "Felix has to have the same thing."

Baumgartner insists he won't take any chances. Plus he's spent the past five years surrounding himself with "the right people," most notably Kittinger, a retired Air Force colonel and former Vietnam POW. A lawsuit, claiming theft by Red Bull of the idea, held things up; it was settled out of court last year.

Baumgartner ? a lean but muscular 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds ? said he minimizes risk through preparation.

"We're not going from zero to hero," Baumgartner said last month.

Like NASA, he's put together a big what-if list: What if this goes wrong? What if that does?

What scares him most, Baumgartner said, sounding like so many astronauts, are the things he hasn't thought of yet.

Simply put, the unknown unknown.

___

Online:

Red Bull Stratos: www.redbullstratos.com

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: http://tinyurl.com/2dsnn6

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skydiver-aims-jump-23-miles-supersonic-072642093--spt.html

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Bank of America's stock soars after passing stress test

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp shares on Wednesday hit their highest level in seven months after a Federal Reserve stress test affirmed one of the more troubled U.S. banks had made progress in improving its capital levels.

The second-largest U.S. bank had been expected to pass the review, but its conservative capital plan allowed it to contrast with other banks, notably Citigroup Inc , that had their proposals for dividend increases and share buybacks denied by the Fed.

Last year, the Fed rejected a modest dividend increase the bank had requested, embarrassing Chief Executive Brian Moynihan. This year, Bank of America said it wasn't asking to hike its penny-per-quarter payout or to buy back shares. Instead, it would continue to build capital as it works to absorb mortgage-related losses and meet new international standards.

Bank of America's performance in the stress test was "adequate" and without the drama of last year, said Gary Townsend, chief executive of Hill-Townsend Capital in Maryland, which invests in bank stocks.

"For once, they read the body language of regulators and didn't push the envelope as Moynihan did last year," Townsend said.

The move gave the bank better capital ratios under the stress test than nine of 19 banks when counting proposed dividend increases and share buybacks. But it also left the bank out of another round of improved payouts to shareholders.

"Higher quality" banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co , Wells Fargo & Co and U.S. Bancorp began to differentiate themselves from other banks with higher dividend yields and share repurchase plans, said Guggenheim Partners analyst Marty Mosby. JPMorgan, for example, on Tuesday got approval to boost its quarterly dividend to 30 cents per share from 25 cents, compared to Bank of America's 1 cent.

Still, Mosby noted conservative capital plans such as Bank of America's were better received by the Fed than more aggressive ones. Citigroup and SunTrust Banks Inc did not stay above the minimum capital threshold when including their plans for dividends and buybacks. Details of those rejected plans were not disclosed.

After showing it was able to pass the stress test, Bank of America could be in a position to ask for a modest dividend increase next year but no share buybacks, Mosby said. The bank needs to keep accumulating capital to meet so-called Basel III capital standards, which will start being phased in next year, he noted.

While banks have until 2019 to meet the new requirements, "it's better to show they can get there pretty soon," he said.

Bank of America's shares climbed 4.1 percent to close at $8.84, while the KBW Bank Index rose 1.3 percent. For the year, the bank's shares are up about 59 percent, after falling 58 percent last year on concerns about the bank's capital.

Some of the numbers released by the Fed detail the challenges that still await Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America. Of the 19 banks, the Fed expected Bank of America to lose the most before income taxes from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter of 2013 under the stress scenario: $51.3 billion. Citigroup fared the second worst, with a projected loss of $50.3 billion.

The Fed emphasized that its estimates were not forecasts of expected losses and that the hypothetical stress scenario, which included U.S. unemployment of 13 percent, was more adverse than expected.

Under the scenario, Bank of America was expected to experience loan losses equal to 8.3 percent of its average balances, compared to the average of 8.1 percent for the 19 banks. Its home-equity portfolio would experience losses of 15 percent, compared to 13.2 percent for all of the banks.

Bank of America showed progress in improving its capital levels, even though additional capital it built in the fourth quarter of 2011 was not counted. But the stress tests also highlighted its other major challenge: revenue.

Under the stress scenario, the Fed said Bank of America would have net revenue before loan-loss provisions of $40.1 billion, trailing JPMorgan ($59.3 billion), Wells Fargo ($53.3 billion) and Citigroup ($41.2 billion). The revenue figure, which also covers the fourth quarter of 2011 through the fourth quarter of 2013, includes expenses from investor requests to buy back soured mortgage loans and foreclosure costs, one of Bank of America's biggest troubles.

(Reporting By Rick Rothacker; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Bernard Orr)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-americas-stock-soars-passing-stress-test-224550467.html

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