[Futurework] 'It's time to sell'
Report on Business: CanadianREAL ESTATE Reichmann knows property meltdowns: It's time to sell' 30 June 2005The Globe and Mail Philip Reichmann is fighting a major battle to save the $2-billion deal to sell his real estate empire. For several weeks, rumblings have been building from a group of major institutional shareholders who are unhappy with the $15.50 per unit offer made for OY Real Estate Investment Trust by a group led by Brookfield Properties Corp. Now, just a week before shareholders are to vote on the transaction, Mr. Reichmann has taken out newspaper ads and hired a firm to call thousands of small investors and urge them to vote. Mr. Reichmann's message is simple. It's time to sell. I think the euphoria out there and the expectations that it drives is just asking for trouble. said Mr. Reichmann, who at least for the time being heads one of the country's best-known publicly traded real estate companies. I think it is the time for OY REIT holders to get out. It is time to sell this company, he said yesterday in an interview with The Globe and Mail. If all goes as planned, that is exactly what will happen later this summer. Next week, investors of OY Properties Corp. and its related REIT will be asked to give their blessing to the sale of OY's massive office portfolio. The bid is for the holdings of both companies, which together own 25 office towers across the country. But after months of drumming up interest from potential buyers and three weeks of intense negotiations with the winning group of bidders, Mr. Reichmann is now facing the most serious threat yet to his plan to sell it all before the overheated commercial real estate market runs out of steam. Response to the bidding group's $13-a -share offer for parent OY Properties Corp. has been favourable. But sources say a group of six institutional investors with sizable holdings in the underlying REIT have indicated that they don't like the $15.50 offer on the table for the income trust units. They don't like the tax fallout that will come from the sale of the trust. In fact, some have indicated they don't like the idea of selling the real estate holdings at all. Depending on how many unitholders vote, this group of six could have enough clout to kill the deal. Such an outcome, Mr. Reichmann warned yesterday, would be a terrible mistake. It would be a shame, Mr. Reichmann said, if a small group of investors with specific interests made the decision for everyone. Besides, Mr. Reichmann said, he believes that his decision to sell is in the best interests of all shareholders at OY Properties and at the REIT. Office towers are trading at sky-high prices, pumped up by a flood of money looking to invest in real estate and the belief that valuations will continue to rise. It's a belief that Mr. Reichmann, who had a ring-side seat at the last real estate meltdown, described as dangerous. There is too much enthusiasm. You know in the real estate game if you wait a little too long you get killed. I've been there, done that. I don't want to do it again. I want to get out at the right time. Trouble is, the group of institutional investors don't see things the same way. They like the returns OY REIT has brought to their funds. The proposed sale also creates a huge headache for them because it will require them to find a new place to reinvest the money they had in OY. Mr. Reichmann said he understands their situation, but argued that it is impossible for things to continue as they are. OY's parent firm will be sold, he said, either to the Brookfield group or to another bidder if the current offer fails. And he said prices for office properties mean that the REIT could not continue to grow by acquiring new holdings as it had in the past. Under the present conditions, it was bound to disappoint investors, he said. He said this turn of events has put him in a strange situation arguing for the sale of a company that he did not want to sell, but felt he should due to market conditions. This is very awkward for me because here I am, at 47, standing up and saying I want to sell this company because I think it is the right thing.' The truth of the matter is I don't want to sell this company. At 47 years old I do not want to start another career and I am too young to retire. And that golf thing it's just a line. Still, he said, investors who put their money in the REIT because they trusted his judgment must now also trust his decision that it is time to head for the exits, even if he is going against the crowd. It requires faith that I know what I am doing. But I'm not afraid to be out there on my own. I have training that other people don't have from my experience. I know what happens when you hold on for too long. Document GLOB20050630e16u0003p ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Re: [Futurework] Who are the Pro Americans?
I've just spent a few days in Port Angeles, Washington. On the way back to Victoria yesterday I had a long talk with an American, a retired construction worker from Chehailis (Sp?) who had worked all over the US. From what he said, he obviously loved his country. But then we got onto the speech Bush made at a military base the other night. I've never heard such a vituperative condemnation of anyone in my life - Bush is a puppet to the rich few, he started the war in Iraq so that his buddies in the arms industry could make a lot of money, etc. etc. I've thought at times that I was hard on Bush. This guy was something else! The lesson I took out of it was that one has to recognize what one is pro or anti about. It's not really all that simple. Whenever I've travelled to the US, as in the past few days, I've found myself liking many things about the place and its people. The wall of the high school gym in Port Angeles has copies of many of the great documents that the modern US is founded on - The Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Declaration, etc. Some of the great battles of the 20th century were fought in the US - e.g. the civil rights movement. The US has produced some truly outstanding writers and thinkers. Etc. Etc. Like my friend on the ferry, I don't like the Bush administration and the damage it has done to world peace and order. I also abhor some other things, like the kinds of things the religious right is trying to pull. I'm hoping these things are aberrations and that the good sense and decency that are so much a part of America will ultimately prevail. I for one will keep hoping. Ed More on the sociopolitical homefrontÂ…KwC Who Are the Pro-Americans? Commentary by Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, Wednesday, June 29, 2005; A21 So familiar are the numbers, and so often have we heard them analyzed, that the release of a new poll on international anti-Americanism last week caused barely a ripple. Once again the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed that most Frenchmen have a highly unfavorable view of the United States; that the Spanish prefer China to America; and that Canadian opinion of the United States has sunk dramatically. And once again the polls told only half of the story. After all, even the most damning polls always show that some percentage of even the most anti-American countries remains pro-American. According to the new poll, some 43 percent of the French, 41 percent of Germans, 42 percent of Chinese and 42 percent of Lebanese say they like us. Maybe it's time to ask: Who are they? In fact, when pro- and anti-American sentiments are broken down by age, income and education -- I did so recently using polling data from the Program on International Policy Attitudes, supplied by Foreign Policy magazine -- patterns do emerge. It turns out, for example, that in Poland, which is generally pro-American, people between the ages of 30 and 44 are even more likely to support America than their compatriots. This is the group whose lives would have been most directly affected by the experience of the Solidarity movement and martial law -- events that occurred when they were in their teens and twenties -- and who have the clearest memories of American support for the Polish underground. It also turns out that in some more anti-American countries, such as Canada, Britain, Italy and Australia, people older than 60 have far more positive feelings about the United States than their children and grandchildren. This was the generation, of course, that had positive experiences of U.S. cooperation or occupation during World War II. And surely there's a lesson here: Although anti-Americanism is often described as if it were mere fashion, or some sort of contagious virus, America's behavior overseas, whether support for anticommunist movements or allied cooperation, does matter. To put it differently, people feel more positive about the United States when their personal experience is positive. But the polls also make clear that direct political experience is not the only factor that shapes foreigners' perceptions of the United States. Advertising executives understand very well the phenomenon of ordinary women who read magazines filled with photographs of clothes they could never afford: They call such women aspirational. Looking around the world, it is clear there are classes of people who might also be called aspirational. They are upwardly mobile, or would like to be. They tend to be pro-American, too. In Britain, for example, 57.6 percent of those whose income are low believe that the United States has a mainly positive influence in the world, while only 37.1 percent of those whose income are high believe the same. Breaking down the answers by education, a similar pattern emerges. In South Korea, 69.2 percent of those with low education think the United States is a positive influence, while only 45.8 percent of those with a high education agree.
[Futurework] Update in the Nuclear vs Alternatives discussion
Cost of nuclear 'underestimated' The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by a factor of three, according to a British think tank. BBC News, 29 June 2005 The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says existing estimates do not allow for the cost of building novel technologies and expensive time delays in construction. They claim that renewable energy sources like wind and solar should be relied upon instead of nuclear power. However their report has been dismissed as inaccurate by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA). This report is grossly out of kilter with almost all other reports that have been done, said Simon James of the NIA. Escalating costs. According to British Energy and British Nuclear Fuels, the cost of nuclear generation is between 2.2 and 3.0p/kWh. But the NEF says that this figure is probably a severe underestimate, with the real cost being somewhere between 3.4 and 8.3/kWh. The NEF report claims that existing nuclear estimates are based heavily on engineering judgements, which tend to be skewed towards the lower cost limits because they do not take sufficient account of upside risk. In other words, the lower limits of cost are predictable but the upper limits might sky-rocket if things go wrong. And, the NEF says, current cost calculations for nuclear power do not acknowledge the very real risk factor involved in generating new nuclear power. In their report, Mirage and Oasis, the NEF highlights the example of Dungness B, a power station which took 23 years to complete instead of five, costing 400% above the predicted estimates. 'Voodoo economics'. These hidden costs, combined with the risk of terrorism, mean that nuclear should not be promoted as an answer to climate change, the NEF claims. Instead, the report says, renewable energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal could meet the world's energy needs in a way that is environmentally friendly. At a cost of 3.0-4.0p/kWh for offshore and 1.5-2.5/kWh for onshore production, wind is a far cheaper option than nuclear, the NEF claims. But a resurgence of interest in nuclear power, justified by voodoo economics, stands to hinder and potentially derail renewable energy, said Andrew Simms, NEF policy director. However, the Royal Academy of Engineers (RAE), who recently completed their own estimates of the cost of nuclear power, dismissed the report. They are focusing on the worst-case scenario for nuclear power and the best-case scenario for renewables; so it is hardly a balanced view, an RAE spokesman told the BBC News website. Too much of the debate at the moment is either nuclear or wind, when really we should be looking for a holistic approach. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4631737.stm ___ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Re: [Futurework] We've had the speech now3
Karen, The Richard Cohen article is probabl;y the best commentary on the Bush speech that I've read yet. Keith At 07:17 30/06/2005 -0700, you wrote: The most prominent theme from the punditry commentary on Pres. Bushs Tuesday night speech at Ft Bragg, which may forever be remembered as a ill-advised TV commercial produced in campaign mode rather than governing mode, is that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika is not listening: not listening to their generals, not listening to diplomatic experts, not listening to the public. This tone-deaf isolationism has plagued them before, but now appears to have set in as a terminal condition, rather than a temporary one. These two examples from tenured Washington observers, below, are just a small sample of the 1) disappointed or 2) validated responses much of the political corps is expressing. Defending the administration is getting to be more difficult by the week, and those diehards who do should reconsider recent similar references like Baghdad Bob, whose glowing pronouncements on the eve of shock and awewere ridiculed. A practical politician would have made significant changes before now, but the Troika zealously guard their neocon aerie, preferring delusion and rhetorical sleight of handto alternative, workable solutions. KwC Hoaglund: Subtle Shift in Goals. One of the greatest handicaps the administration still confronts is a self-imposed refusal to listen to Iraqis about doing things the Iraqi way. From trying to build a new Iraqi army on U.S. specifications and prejudices to preferring to contract with foreigners rather than employ Iraqis, U.S. officials have often made the perfect the enemy of the good. Iraqi concern on that score could be exacerbated by the president's heavy emphasis Tuesday on fighting terrorists in Iraq so that Americans don't have to fight them on U.S. soil. That may help steady public support here -- no American can argue with that aim -- but it is a shifting of the goal posts from liberating Iraq from tyranny. Bush should have done more Tuesday to show that his anti-terrorism objectives are compatible with Iraqi needs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062902592.html?nav=hcmodule Echoes of Vietnam By Richard Cohen, Washington Post, Thursday, June 30, 2005; A23 About two years ago I sat down with a colleague and explained why Iraq was not going to be Vietnam. Iraq lacked a long-standing nationalist movement and a single charismatic leader like Ho Chi Minh. The insurgents did not have a sanctuary like North Vietnam, which supplied manpower, materiel and leadership, and the rebel cause in Iraq -- just what is it, exactly? -- was not worth dying for. On Tuesday President Bush proved me wrong. Iraq is beginning to look like Vietnam. The similarity is most striking in the language the president used. First came the vast, insulting oversimplifications. The war in Iraq was tied over and over again to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, although that link was nonexistent. The Sept. 11 commission said in plain English that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Even a line such as we must defeat them abroad before they attack us at home had a musty, Vietnam-era sound to it. Whether it's true or not, it is an updated version of the domino theory: if not Saigon then San Francisco. Second, just as Lyndon Johnson and others referred to communism as if it were a worldwide monolith, so Bush talks about terrorists. He mentioned terrorists 23 times, and while he also occasionally employed the word insurgents, his emphasis was on the wanton murders of the former and not the political aims of the latter. He even cited the terrorist leader and al Qaeda associate Zarqawi by name, saying the United States would never abandon the Iraqi people to men like him -- strongly suggesting that he was the problem in Iraq. Abu Musab Zarqawi, though, is only part of the problem. Bush sounded downright Johnsonian in talking about progress in Iraq. He cited rebuilt roads and schools and health clinics, not to mention improvements in sanitation, electricity and water. This, too, had a familiar ring. We got the same sort of statistics in Vietnam. Some of them were simply concocted, but most, I think, were sort of true. Roads were paved, schools were opened and village councils were elected -- and yet, somehow, it never mattered. The newly elected village council could meet in the newly opened school and get there on a newly paved road -- and spend the night planning an attack on U.S. forces. It is all so depressing. In Vietnam, it took the United States forever to recognize that it was fighting not international communism but a durable and vibrant nationalist movement led by communists. Something similar may be happening in Iraq. Yes, foreign terrorists are flocking to the country. But the Sunni insurgency is a different thing. The Sunnis may work with foreign terrorists and gladly use their
Re: [Futurework] 'It's time to sell'
Arthur, This isn't the same Reichmann who lost a fortune in the 1990 property crash, but his son. The father, Paul Reichmann, was silly enough to build a vast edifice at Canary Wharf, London, without ensuring that there was a convenient transport system to get office workers there. It cost the Reichmann family a quarter of its fortune. His son, Philip, is now being just as silly -- if not sillier -- by trumpeting the possibility of a another property collapse when he's got heaps of it to sell! Keith At 09:22 30/06/2005 -0400, you wrote: Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=_=_NextPart_001_01C57D76.CE17BC70 Report on Business: Canadian REAL ESTATE Reichmann knows property meltdowns: It's time to sell' 30 June 2005 The Globe and Mail Philip Reichmann is fighting a major battle to save the $2-billion deal to sell his real estate empire. For several weeks, rumblings have been building from a group of major institutional shareholders who are unhappy with the $15.50 per unit offer made for OY Real Estate Investment Trust by a group led by Brookfield Properties Corp. Now, just a week before shareholders are to vote on the transaction, Mr. Reichmann has taken out newspaper ads and hired a firm to call thousands of small investors and urge them to vote. Mr. Reichmann's message is simple. It's time to sell. I think the euphoria out there and the expectations that it drives is just asking for trouble.said Mr. Reichmann, who at least for the time being heads one of the country's best-known publicly traded real estate companies. I think it is the time for OY REIT holders to get out. It is time to sell this company,he said yesterday in an interview with The Globe and Mail. If all goes as planned, that is exactly what will happen later this summer. Next week, investors of OY Properties Corp. and its related REIT will be asked to give their blessing to the sale of OY's massive office portfolio. The bid is for the holdings of both companies, which together own 25 office towers across the country. But after months of drumming up interest from potential buyers and three weeks of intense negotiations with the winning group of bidders, Mr. Reichmann is now facing the most serious threat yet to his plan to sell it all before the overheated commercial real estate market runs out of steam. Response to the bidding group's $13-a -share offer for parent OY Properties Corp. has been favourable. But sources say a group of six institutional investors with sizable holdings in the underlying REIT have indicated that they don't like the $15.50 offer on the table for the income trust units. They don't like the tax fallout that will come from the sale of the trust. In fact, some have indicated they don't like the idea of selling the real estate holdings at all. Depending on how many unitholders vote, this group of six could have enough clout to kill the deal. Such an outcome, Mr. Reichmann warned yesterday, would be a terrible mistake. It would be a shame, Mr. Reichmann said, if a small group of investors with specific interests made the decision for everyone. Besides, Mr. Reichmann said, he believes that his decision to sell is in the best interests of all shareholders at OY Properties and at the REIT. Office towers are trading at sky-high prices, pumped up by a flood of money looking to invest in real estate and the belief that valuations will continue to rise. It's a belief that Mr. Reichmann, who had a ring-side seat at the last real estate meltdown, described as dangerous. There is too much enthusiasm. You know in the real estate game if you wait a little too long you get killed. I've been there, done that. I don't want to do it again. I want to get out at the right time. Trouble is, the group of institutional investors don't see things the same way. They like the returns OY REIT has brought to their funds. The proposed sale also creates a huge headache for them because it will require them to find a new place to reinvest the money they had in OY. Mr. Reichmann said he understands their situation, but argued that it is impossible for things to continue as they are. OY's parent firm will be sold, he said, either to the Brookfield group or to another bidder if the current offer fails. And he said prices for office properties mean that the REIT could not continue to grow by acquiring new holdings as it had in the past. Under the present conditions, it was bound to disappoint investors, he said. He said this turn of events has put him in a strange situation arguing for the sale of a company that he did not want to sell, but felt he should due to market conditions. This is very awkward for me because here I am, at 47, standing up and saying I want to sell this company because I think it is the right thing.' The truth of the matter is I don't want to sell this company. At 47 years old I do not want to start another career and I am too young to retire. And that
[Futurework] Bush's Hangover Continues
No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in CongressWant Bi-Partisan Solutions Published on Thursday, June 30, 2005 by the Zogby Poll President Bushs televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq. The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points. Just one week ago, President Bushs job approval stood at a previous low of 44%but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the Presidents address, and the results show no discernible bump in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling. Where voters live has some impact on their perceptions. The Presidents job rating remains relatively strong in the South, with 51% rating his performance favorably; in all other regions, those disapproving his performance are in the majority. In a more significant sign of the weakness of the Presidents numbers, more Red State votersthat is, voters living in the states that cast their ballots for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004now rate his job performance unfavorably, with 50% holding a negative impression of the Presidents handling of his duties, and 48% holding a favorable view. The President also gets negative marks from one-in-four (25%) Republicansas well as 86% of Democrats and 58% of independents. (Bush nets favorable marks from 75% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 40% of independents.) Impeachment Question Shows Bitterness of Divide In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country. Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor. Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red Statesjust 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the Blue States that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed. A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bushs fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed. Americans Tiring of Partisan Division on Capital Hill The same survey finds that a 55% majority of voters believe the two parties are too focused on their respective bases, and as a result, compromiseand resultshave become impossible in Washington. Just 36% in the poll rejected that notion, saying the parties organization provides as broad a base as possible, and that compromise is occurring. A follow-up question found that seven-in-ten (70%) voters believe the parties should be broad-based, and should pursue compromisewhile less than one-in-four (23%) favored putting base issues first, even if it means nothing is accomplished. These views are held by members of both major political parties, as well as independents, although Republicans, whose party controls both houses of Congress, are more likely to favor the parties focusing on the desires of their base than are Democrats and independents, with 31% of Republicans favoring this approachmore than the 20% of Democrats and 17% of independents who hold that view. Pollster John Zogby: The nation continues to be split down the middle but there appears to be a deep and growing concern about how polarized we are. The President tried to address the situation on the ground in Iraq and hoped to allay the fears of the nation. It looks like that did not happen.
