Mystery Company Buying Up U.S. Gun Manufacturers

New York Times
December 4, 2011

Lined up in a gun rack beneath mounted deer heads is a Bushmaster Carbon 15, a matte-black semiautomatic rifle that looks as if it belongs to a SWAT team. On another rack rests a Teflon-coated Prairie Panther from DPMS Firearms, a supplier to the U.S. Border Patrol and security agencies in Iraq. On a third is a Remington 750 Woodsmaster, a popular hunting rifle.

The variety of rifles and shotguns on sale here at Cabela's, the national sporting goods chain, is a testament to America's enduring gun culture. But, to a surprising degree, it is also a testament to something else: Wall Street deal-making.

In recent years, many top-selling brands - including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics - have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group - and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the U.S. commercial gun industry today.

Never heard of it?

You're not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy theories. In the realm of consumer rifles and shotguns - long guns, in the trade - it is unrivaled in its size and reach. By its own count, the Freedom Group sold 1.2 million long guns and 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the 12 months ended March 2010, the most recent year for which figures are publicly available.

Behind this giant is Cerberus Capital Management, the private investment company that first came to widespread attention when it acquired Chrysler in 2007. (Chrysler later had to be rescued by taxpayers). With far less fanfare, Cerberus, through the Freedom Group, has been buying big names in guns and ammo.

From its headquarters in Manhattan, Cerberus has assembled a remarkable arsenal. It began with Bushmaster, which until recently was based here in Maine. Unlike military counterparts like automatic M-16s, rifles like those from Bushmaster don't spray bullets with one trigger pull. But, with gas-powered mechanisms, semiautomatics can fire rapid follow-up shots as fast as the trigger can be squeezed. They are often called "black guns" because of their color. The police tied a Bushmaster XM15 rifle to shootings in the Washington sniper case in 2002.

After Bushmaster, the Freedom Group moved in on Remington, which traces its history to the days of flintlocks and today is supplying M24 sniper rifles to the government of Afghanistan and making handguns for the first time in decades. The group has also acquired Marlin Firearms, which turned out a special model for Annie Oakley, as well as Dakota Arms, a maker of high-end big-game rifles. It has bought DPMS Firearms, another maker of semiautomatic, military-style rifles, as well as manufacturers of ammunition and tactical clothing.

"We believe our scale and product breadth are unmatched within the industry," the Freedom Group said in a filing last year with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Some gun enthusiasts have claimed that the power behind the company is actually George Soros, the hedge-fund billionaire and liberal activist. Soros, these people have warned, is buying U.S. gun companies so he can dismantle the industry, Second Amendment be damned.

The chatter grew so loud that the National Rifle Association issued a statement in October denying the rumors.

"NRA has had contact with officials from Cerberus and Freedom Group for some time," the NRA assured its members. "The owners and investors involved are strong supporters of the Second Amendment and are avid hunters and shooters."

Soros isn't behind the Freedom Group, but, ultimately, another financier is: Stephen Feinberg, the chief executive of Cerberus.

Cerberus is part of one of the signature Wall Street businesses of the past decade: private equity. Buyout kings like Feinberg, 51, try to acquire undervalued companies, often with borrowed money, fix them up and either take them public or sell at a profit to someone else.

Before the financial crisis of 2008, scores of well-known U.S. companies, from Chrysler down, passed into the hands of private-equity firms. For the financiers, the rewards were often enormous. But some companies that they acquired later ran into trouble, in part because they were burdened with debt from the takeovers.

Feinberg, a Princeton graduate who began his Wall Street career at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the junk bond powerhouse of Michael Milken fame, got into private equity in 1992. That year, he and William Richter founded Cerberus, which takes its name from the three-headed dog in Greek mythology that guards the gates of Hades.

Today, Feinberg presides over a private empire that rivals some of the mightiest public companies in the land. Cerberus manages more than $20 billion in capital. Together, the companies it owns generate annual revenue of about $40 billion - more than either Amazon or Coca-Cola last year.

Why Cerberus went after gun companies isn't clear. Many private investment firms shy away from such industries to avoid scaring off big investors like pension funds.

Yet, in many ways, the move is classic Cerberus. Feinberg has a history of investing in companies that other people may not want, but that Cerberus believes it can turn around. When Cerberus embarked on its acquisition spree in guns, it essentially had the field to itself.

"There's much less competition for buying these companies," says Steven N. Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a private equity expert. "They must have decided there is an opportunity to make money by investing in the firearms industry and trying to build a big company."

Whatever the reason, Cerberus, through the Freedom Group, is now a major player.

It has sold weapons to the governments of Afghanistan, Thailand, Mexico and Malaysia, among others, and obtained new business from the U.S. Army, including a contract worth up to $28.2 million to upgrade the M24 sniper weapon system.

Cerberus brings connections to the table. The longtime chairman of its global investments group is Dan Quayle, the former vice president. The Freedom Group, meantime, has added two retired generals to its board. One is George Joulwan, who retired from the Army after serving as Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. The other is Michael Hagee, formerly commandant of the Marine Corps.

Jessica Kallam, a spokeswoman at the Freedom Group, said executives there declined to comment for this article. Timothy Price, a managing director of Cerberus, also declined to comment.Bushmaster was among the first to sell ordinary people on weapons that look and feel like the ones carried by soldiers. Today many gunmakers have embraced military-style weapons, a major but controversial source of growth for the commercial gun market, says Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a research group that backs gun control.

[...]

"It's clear that the militarized stuff is the stuff that sells and is defining the industry," says Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a research group that backs gun control.

Richard Dyke, former the principal owner and chairman of Bushmaster, says he's not sure why Bushmaster caught the eye of Cerberus. Whatever the case, when Cerberus came calling, Dyke, then past 70, was ready to sell. At the time, Bushmaster had $85 million in annual sales and several million dollars in debt, he says. In April 2006, he sold the company to Cerberus for about $76 million, he says, and Cerberus rented the Bushmaster plant here for five years.

The next year, Cerberus formed the Freedom Group.

Now Bushmaster is gone from Maine. Earlier this year, Dyke says, the Freedom Group notified him it was closing Bushmaster's operation in the state and moving it to a bigger plant owned by Remington, a typical consolidation play for a private investment firm looking to cut costs and increase efficiency. Remington, for its part, announced earlier this year that it was expanding its manufacturing capacity and hiring new employees to make Bushmasters.

Several months ago, Dyke started a new company, Windham Weaponry, at the old Bushmaster site and has rehired most of his former employees. But he's not planning to go head-to-head with the Freedom Group.

"It's the big gorilla in the room," he says, adding: "We don't have to do $100 million. We'd have hopes of doing $20 million."

Remington has been producing guns since 1816, when, according to lore, a young man named Eliphalet Remington made a flintlock rifle in his father's forge in Ilion Gulch, in upstate New York. By the 1870s, the brand was so popular that the company diversified into typewriters. In 2007, the Freedom Group swooped in and bought Remington for $370 million, including $252 million in assumed debt. In one stroke, the Freedom Group gained one of the most famous names in U.S. firearms, the largest domestic maker of shotguns and rifles and a major manufacturer of ammunition.

"That caused a lot of stir in the industry," says Dean J. Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst at Forecast International, a market research firm.

Next, the Freedom Group in rapid succession went after other firearms companies: DPMS; Marlin Firearms, a classic maker that came with two niche shotgun brands, Harrington & Richardson and L.C. Smith; and Dakota Arms. The Freedom Group also bought S&K industries, which supplies wood and laminate for gun stocks, as well as the Advanced Armament Corp., which makes silencers. It acquired Barnes Bullets, which makes copper-jacketed bullets popular with precision shooters and police departments.

The more the company diversifies its portfolio, analysts say, the more it has to offer to firearms distributors and leading retailers like Wal-Mart and Cabela's.

Corporate Seizure of Public Property at Bargain Prices is the Goal of Austerity Programs

Each and every day, people around the world are realizing that the one-world government is based upon a hybrid Socialism-Communism economics system — a system of corporate governance and ownership of natural resources, land, water, and complete control of human beings. It is a system based upon the marriage of corporations, science and politics. It is a system that is funded by us, the world’s people. But what do knowing people do? We can’t fight manufactured super viruses, HAARP and psychotronic weapons; and we certainly cannot fight global nuclear arsenals. But we can, however, refuse to think and participate in the global economics systems, which were set up to literally enslave humankind. - Nancy Levant, Get Off the Globalization Grid, Part 1, NewsWithViews.com, August 23, 2005

What’s Behind the Global Bankers’ Austerity Programs: Seizure of Public Property for Corporations

Wayne Madsen Report
June 15, 2011

What lies in store for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and, in short order, the United States, is the wholesale sell-off of public property to private corporations at bargain basement prices.

What the despots who gather in their secretive lairs at Davos, Cernobbio, Bilderberg, and G8/G20 are bringing about is a world where no property is owned by the state, which by default means the people. Total corporate control over every facet of life equals extreme fascism.

What is occurring in Greece is a bellwether for what will befall other nations in Europe, as well as the United States, if the bankers get their way. And in Greece, the people know how generations of investments by the taxpayers are being turned over to vampire capitalists who have the full backing of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and the European Central Bank.

The European and global bankers have demanded that the Greek government sell off entirely or assume a minority stake in a number of state enterprises and utilities.

For example, this year global capitalists are slated to acquire 84 percent of OTE, the Greek telecommunications provider. In addition, private bankers will assume 66 percent ownership of the Greek Postal Savings Bank; 51 percent of the National Lottery; 60 percent of the Salonika Water Authority; 68 percent of DEPA, the natural gas utility; and 25 percent ownership of the ports of Piraeus and Salonika.

Next year, the capitalist grab for public property increases in intensity with Athens International Airport coming under 79 percent private ownership. The global capitalists will also obtain 100 percent ownership of the Egniata toll motorway; 60 percent of Hellenic Post; 66 percent of OPAP, the state-run video-lotto and online sports betting firm; 73 percent of the Athens Water Authority; 83 percent of DEI, the Greek Electric Authority; and 51 percent of the Greek Regional Airports Authority.

The Greek Communist Party has vowed to fight against the acquisition of public property by the private sector. In fact, it is the Communist parties of Europe that have been the most vocal against the power grab by the bankers but their opposition to the privatization moves receives very little attention by the corporate-controlled media.

Massive sell-off lists of public property are now being drawn up by the governments of Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. In the United States, there are calls for the privatization of the US Postal Service, Social Security, and Medicare.

One Libyan government official this reporter spoke to in Tripoli, during an intensive NATO bombing assault, opined that the same fate is in store for the Libyan Socialist Jamahiriyah. With the highest standard of living in Africa, Libyans could witness the U.S.- and NATO-backed rebel government begin to sell off Libyan government assets to global capitalists.

The Libyan official said, “These people [global bankers] would sell the air if they could get away with it.”

Private Operators Are Taking Over Roads and Increasing Tolls, Which Are No Different Than Tax Increases on the People

Ohio Turnpike Lease Plans Bring Toll Hike Fears

The Associated Press
July 3, 2011

Leasing Ohio's busy toll road that links the East Coast with the Midwest has the potential to bring billions of dollars to the cash-strapped state. It also could bring higher tolls and drive more traffic onto routes that meander through small towns, opponents say.

The governor wants to lease the Ohio Turnpike to a private operator, following the lead of a handful of states and cities that have pocketed cash for their toll roads in recent years.

Governments strapped by the Great Recession also are turning to selling off and leasing office towers, warehouses and prisons.

"We can get a big chunk of money that can be used to improve our infrastructure in the state," Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday during a news conference. "Indiana did it. Indiana made a lot of progress."

Neighboring Indiana last week marked the five-year anniversary of its $3.8 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road to foreign investors. The state has spent much of the money on highway projects and put $500 million into an investment fund for future road construction.

Chicago leased an 8-mile highway for nearly $2 billion five years ago, and an Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia. But a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike fell through in recent years, in part because of fierce opposition from state and federal lawmakers.

Ohio's new budget allows the state to lease nearly all of Interstate 80, which carries about 50 million vehicles each year across northern Ohio from Pennsylvania to Indiana. It also gives the state's legislature some control over any potential deals after concerns were raised about whether a new owner would take care of the highway.

Much of the resistance is being led by officials from Ohio counties along the 241-mile turnpike, which is funded through tolls and the sale of gas and food at rest stops.

"It's a terribly unfair deal for northern Ohioans who have largely paid for the turnpike over the years," said Tim Brown, a commissioner in Wood County, just south of Toledo. "It's no different than a tax increase for us."

Among the main concerns is that tolls are almost certain to go up if a private operator takes over.

Tolls have nearly doubled since investors took over the Indiana Toll Road. A 10 percent increase took effect on Friday, bringing the price to cross the northern half of the state to $9 for most cars.

County officials in Ohio want to make sure there would be limits on future toll increases if the state's toll road is leased. It's now $15 for cars making a full trip. The turnpike collected a record $236 million from motorists last year. By comparison, Pennsylvania charges $32 to travel all 357 miles on its turnpike.

Kasich, a Republican, views the Ohio Turnpike as an asset that has potential to bring more revenue at a time when the state just completed a series of spending cuts to fill an estimated $6 billion budget hole.

He thinks the state could get at least $2.5 billion in leasing it and has said the money would pay for work on roads, bridges and harbors without raising taxes.

No deals are in the works yet. Kasich officials have said they envision a 30-year lease with an initial payment and a piece of annual toll revenues.

Still, there are many more details to work out.

A five-county planning body in northeast Ohio wants most of the money to go toward projects in northern Ohio, where the turnpike money is generated. It also wants to make sure there are guarantees that a private operator will keep up with highway maintenance.

The concern is that if the road becomes too costly or goes downhill, businesses that rely on the route might relocate or it will be tougher to attract new companies.

"There's a cost to the communities that are along the turnpike," said Stephen Hambley, a Medina County commissioner who heads the planning body in northeast Ohio. "We've been paying for it since the '50s. We feel we're a majority stockholder."

That's why state Sen. Mark Wagner, a Republican from Toledo, inserted a provision to Ohio's state budget giving lawmakers oversight of any lease deals.

"We owe it to northern Ohio to do it in a responsible way," he said.

Another worry is that truck traffic will move to secondary roads and clog up the small towns along the way. That's what happened when an 82 percent rate increase took full effect in 1999. The state responded by lowering tolls and increasing speeds for truckers.

More toll hikes if the turnpike is leased will likely push a lot more tractor-trailers onto other roads, said Joe Jones, a long-haul truck driver from Charlotte, N.C. He went out of his way to avoid the turnpike's toll booths while hauling machinery from upstate New York to Chicago on Friday.

"It puts another 60 miles on the trip, but I hate paying tolls," he said while refueling at a truck stop just outside Toledo.

Toll Road RFID Tags: A Threat to Privacy, Anonymity and Individual Liberty

RFID1984.com

Many people consider RFID technology to be a substantial threat to privacy and liberty, especially if it appears that remotely-readable RF tags will be incorporated into a National ID Card, passport or some other form of mandatory identification — an ID card that you will be required to present when opening a bank account, entering a federal building, or buying an airplane ticket.

I'm a little surprised that the people who are so vocal about domestic surveillance haven't said much about this issue.

There are thousands of Texas motorists who have already unwittingly opened the door to government surveillance by participating in TollTag, TxTag, or EZ Pass, programs that allow the use of toll roads and airport parking garages without having to stop and deposit coins at a toll booth. Each participating motorist attaches an RFID tag to his or her car's windshield, and a device at the toll booth detects the card as the motorist zooms unimpeded through the toll plaza.

In other areas of the country, similar programs have names like SunPass, Cruise Card, EXpressToll, Fast Lane, Fastrak, K-Tag, MnPass, PalmettoPass, Pikepass, Smart Tag, I-Pass — and the best name for such a device — eGo.

A serious problem, from the standpoint of privacy protection, is that not all of the RFID tag readers are on toll roads. In Dallas, TollTags can be used to pay for parking at Dallas Love Field and DFW International Airport.* In Houston, plans are under development to allow the use of EZ TAGs at both Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports.*

The Dallas North Tollway was the first toll road in the world to use electronic toll collection when the technology became available in 1989.* A newer variation called TxTag allows access to toll roads throughout Texas.*

So the major airports have RFID tag readers, along with the tollways, as a matter of convenience. But there is no reason that TollTag readers could not be placed at other points all over the state. This would make it easier to locate a stolen car, for example, if it had an RFID tag.

More recently, a more mysterious development has taken shape: these square white modules have appeared on TXDOT poles along the freeways in the Dallas area. They are usually mounted on the same poles as the traffic surveillance cameras, but in some locations they stand alone.

This mysterious roadside antenna is on Spur 408 in southwest Dallas. The writer knows an antenna when he sees one, and the peculiar thing about this one is that it is tilted downward, about 20°, toward the traffic.

This specimen is located at 32°41'52.0" N., 96°56'10.1" W. An inquiry to the Texas Department of Transportation produced this reply:

The units are Smart Sensors manufactured by Wavetronix. The Smart Sensor is a digital wave radar used for vehicle detection. The Smart Sensor measures vehicle volume, occupancy, speed and classification. The information gathered is NOT used for law enforcement purposes. We use the information to generate the speed map shown on our web site and to generate the travel times displayed on the dynamic message signs on the freeways.

That's interesting. The system is sensitive enough to measure occupancy of each passing vehicle? Even more interesting is the claim that the information is not used for law enforcement purposes. Why not? If their system shows a steady stream of people driving at 90 mph on the freeway, or driving on the shoulders at 60 mph, isn't TXDOT obligated to notify the police?

Updated 9/13/2008:
Today I got an informative email from a reader who clarified the use of the word "occupancy" in TXDOT's explanation above. The term refers to the percentage of time that each of the lanes on the highway is occupied -- the traffic density, in other words, not the number of people in each passing car. Obviously I had overestimated the power of this system.

SmartSensor is a 10.525 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar.* Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored. To some extent, it is necessary to retain this information in the event of a billing dispute. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

If the SmartSensor devices are accompanied by TollTag readers, and (someday soon) they could easily be, the technology is in place to track the movements (and speed) of people all over town, not just on the toll roads. This could be a good thing — for example, if the police are looking for a stolen car — or it could be very bad, depending on Big Brother's use of the information.

Yes, but what if you don't have a TollTag on your car? Can you travel anonymously and blend in with the crowd, without being electronically followed? No, because the state is using license plate readers as well.

Highway 121's new lanes to open in July, sans toll collection. Once collections begin, [Texas State Highway] 121 will be the first toll road in the nation without tollbooths. Motorists will be able to use their North Texas Tollway Authority TollTag in addition to the transportation agency's TxTag stickers and the Harris County Toll Road Authority's EZ TAG. People who don't have toll tags, though, won't have to stop at a booth. Instead, video cameras will capture their license plate number and send them a bill, though that will cost about 33 percent more than toll tag users will have to pay.

The Editor says...
I went up the Dallas North Tollway several months ago and never saw a toll booth, so I didn't pay the toll. Nor did I ever get a bill in the mail. I hope there's not a warrant out for my arrest!

Texas Considers Putting RFID Tags in All Cars. New inspection stickers will "contain a tamper-resistant transponder, and at a minimum, be capable of storing: (1) the transponder's unique identification number; and (2) the make, model, and vehicle identification number of the vehicle to which the certificate is affixed."

The Editor states the obvious:
This would render Toll Tags obsolete. It would also make it fairly simple to locate a stolen car, and might be an easy way to enforce the speed limits on the open highway. For example, if your car is detected in Dallas at noon and in Houston at 2:30 p.m., you were obviously speeding on I-45.

Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up Speed. In South Africa, at least 500,000 RFID tags are now being affixed to metal license plates to automatically identify vehicles and verify they are properly registered. Within the next two years, 10 million cars in that country are expected to sport electronic license plates. In Bermuda, meanwhile, more than half of the island nation's cars and trucks currently have RFID-enabled registration stickers attached to their windshields, and all of its trucks and cars — nearly 25,000 — are expected to have them by June of this year. Other countries — including Brazil, China, Dubai, India and Mexico — have either already begun implementing or are currently eyeing RFID-enabled vehicle identification and registration systems.

Georgia 400 To Upgrade Cruise Card eGo Tags. Georgia's State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA), which operates the GA 400 toll road in Atlanta, will be the first toll facility within the continental United States to upgrade their radio frequency identification (RFID) toll collection technology to TransCore's paper-thin eGo® tags, a lower-cost, battery-less windshield sticker tag. Almost a million eGo tags are already deployed in transportation applications, including toll roads in Puerto Rico and Brazil.

TxDOT selects TransCore RFID for tracking and tolling throughout Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) selects TransCore's eGo® Plus radio frequency identification technology for use in the area's Central Texas Turnpike Program, a $2 billion transportation initiative. The multimillion-dollar contract allows for the initial release of 500,000 eGo Plus tags, branded locally as TxTag, with a total of 2 million tags over two years. The Central Texas Turnpike Program was designed to increase mobility by adding capacity and reducing congestion in the region.

Trusted traveler toll road system means the government will decide if and where you travel.

NAFTA Superhighway RFID Card For US Citizens. US citizens will be forced to adopt a de facto national identification card and have their freedom of mobility defined by the government under proposals set to derive from NAFTA superhighway toll road systems and the implementation of the American Union. Existing toll road systems operational at US borders such as SENTRI/NEXUS and the FAST program mandate that passing vehicles are enrolled in RFID passive tracking and identification programs linked to central databases.

Did someone mention the NAFTA Superhighway?

Pike needs to play fare: Tolls for all or no one. So now the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is thinking about setting up something called "open-road tolling," which means that instead of robbing you at tollbooths, they would record every driver's license-plate number and then rob them with monthly bills. This raises a couple of interesting questions.

Highway Tolls Key to New Jersey Debt, Spending Reform Plan. In his January State of the State address, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) unveiled a long-awaited plan to capture the value of the state's toll roads. The state would receive approximately $38 billion in cash financed by the sale of bonds backed by toll increases. According to the plan, the cash would be used to significantly pay down New Jersey's $32 billion bonded indebtedness and finance transportation projects.

RFID: A Brief Technology Analysis. Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have been deployed in limited numbers for years. Two of the most predominant have been in the form of toll road collection transponders and security badges. Toll road authorities around the country have equipped drivers with a transponder that is connected to their credit card. This allows them to pay their tolls at 40 miles-per-hour rather than stopping to throw quarters into a basket and slow the flow of traffic.

Skymeter: Skymeter's satellite data aggregation and price matching takes all of the pain out of getting a GPS billing feed [which] can be used for Road Use Charging, Pay as you go Insurance, Parking, and any application requiring payment for vehicle use.

National RFid Center General Newsletter 09/02/2006: The roadway, known as the "Golden Corridor" is the first in the country to install all-video toll collection. Using license plate information photographed by cameras, money will be deducted from customer accounts. Those without toll accounts will have bills sent to their address, based on information from their license plates.

Video eye to scan for Newton parking lapses. Automatic license plate recognition — a kind of RoboCop of the parking world that uses a panoramic video camera, laptop computer, and sophisticated software — detects cars that have been parked too long and sounds an alert to write a ticket. The city bought three systems for $50,000 and plans to install them in parking enforcement vehicles this month.

Police partner with license plate readers. A growing number of police departments are turning to mobile camera systems to fight motor vehicle theft and identify unregistered cars. The cameras read license plates of parked and moving cars — hundreds per minute — and check them against vehicle databases, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which purchased several systems for its police vehicles last fall.

This license plate-scanning technology has been around for a few years already, and is in use on side streets as well as freeways. The following commentary was written in 2004:

License Plate "Guns" and Privacy: New Haven police have a new law enforcement tool: a license-plate scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner. Right now the police check if there are any taxes owed on the car, if the car or license plate is stolen, and if the car is unregistered or uninsured. A car that comes up positive is towed.

Even the most gung-ho devotee of big government would have to be a little concerned about the potential for totalitarianism at this point, even if privacy is not guaranteed. Wholesale monitoring of motorists on the streets and freeways is legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has said in two cases, U.S. v. Knotts and U.S. v. Karo, that Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're driving on a public street.*

"Our commuting to and from where we live and work is not done clandestinely". [Webb v. City of Shreveport, 371 So. 2d 316, 319 (La. Ct. App. 1979).]*

It is interesting that, at least for now, TollTag users can (and do) drive at speeds considerably in excess of the posted speed limit, and even though the TollTag system recognizes those drivers as they enter and exit the highway (and many points along the way), the system is not used to generate speeding tickets. This, I suspect, is to avoid making the TollTag into an unpopular snitch, and to avoid revealing that capability before some appointed hour yet to come -- perhaps after TollTags are mandatory.

Information about vehicle movements is collected and stored, at least for billing purposes. It is necessary to retain this information for some number of months, to resolve potential billing disputes. But there's no way to know whether the data is retained, archived, or sold to the highest bidder, or whether the information is shared with other government agencies in real time.

Incidentally, TollTags are vehicle-specific -- they can't be shared, even between two cars owned by the same person.* There are now over 1,000,000 of these electronic transponders in operation in the North Texas area.*

The use of the TollTag may seem to be sheer luxury, but there are places around Dallas where a vehicle without such a tag must stop and pay a toll two or three times. This results in a little more risk, more gas consumption, and more wear and tear on the brakes at every stop. TollTag users are rewarded with a discounted toll rate as well. If I needed to travel on the North Dallas Tollway every day, I would probably get a TollTag for my car. But I think I would find a way to wrap the TollTag in aluminum foil when I wasn't on the tollway. That might not keep Big Brother from following me around, but there's no reason to make that kind of surveillance any easier.

GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount; Pay by the Mile for Your Insurance

GMAC

Pay for what you use and nothing more.

Would you buy a whole pizza if you only wanted a slice?

Common sense says to only use what you need -- and only pay for what you use. That's the thinking behind the GMAC Insurance Low-Mileage Discount, where those who drive less, save more on their auto insurance. Whatever the reason for hitting the road less often, GMAC Insurance can reward you for something you're already doing.

The less you drive, the more you save -- up to 54%* a year on your auto insurance premiums.

Transnational Corporations Fighting for Stake in the Smart Grid

24/7 Wall St.
June 2, 2011

Today’s alternative energy news keys off of another acquisition in the increasingly competitive smart grid area. What is more important is that the dollars at stake here are literally billions and billions.

France’s Schneider Electric SA (OTC: SBGSY) has offered to acquire Spain-based Telvent GIT, S.A. (NASDAQ: TLVT) for $2 billion.

Schneider, along with ABB Ltd. (NYSE: ABB), France’s Alstom SA (OTC: ALSMY), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) are major players in the nascent buildout of the smart grid.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has estimated could cost nearly half a trillion dollars in the US alone. That’s enough money to be worth fighting over.

And that’s what these players have been doing, using their stacks of cash to acquire strategic components of the smart grid. Telvent, for example, offers real-time monitoring services for utilities to help balance electricity load. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but the amount of electricity flowing to the grid is now calculated, not measured. Monitoring equipment like that from Telvent will give a utility a more accurate picture of load, and enable more efficient generation. Better monitoring will also help avoid costly blackouts and brownouts.

The First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure (NASDAQ: GRID) ETF is too thinly traded to even matter for most investors. What does matter here in this ETF is that any or almost all of the fund’s small and mid-sized weighting components could find themselves under fire from an acquirer if they can be quickly integrated and then scaled for broader distribution.

ABB paid $3.1 billion in Janurary to acquire precision motor maker Baldor Electric and GE spent $3.2 billion to get 90% of French automation equipment firm Converteam. Siemens is looking to spend up to $4.3 billion on “bolt-on” acquisitions this year. Siemens has not yet participated in the buying spree, but it will likely have to do a deal or two if it wants to stay in the smart grid game.

These companies understand the stakes in the smart grid game and they also understand the utilities. Big utilities are wary of buying technology from start-ups and other small companies, but are willing to buy the same thing from ABB, GE, Schneider, or Siemens because these companies have a history and a track record. The risk that a company like GE will fold is very small, which means that it will be around to maintain and upgrade any systems it installs.

When it comes to M&A in the smart grid, the questions should probably point to “when” rather than “if” more deals are coming.

Private Investors Buying Up Government Resources Cheap: The Great Government Fire Sale Is On

The Associated Press
May 13, 2011

As 2010 drew to a close, the mayor of Newark, N.J., was staring into a budget abyss so deep that he sold 16 city buildings to pay the bills. They included the architecturally significant Newark Symphony Hall and the police and fire headquarters.

In New York, the transit authority may sell its Madison Avenue headquarters, complete with an underground tunnel connected to Grand Central Terminal and air rights to build a skyscraper on top.

And soon, if state legislators have their way, private investors will be able to buy plenty of other municipal treasures: power plants in Wisconsin, prisons in Louisiana and Ohio and municipal buildings in Boston.

The Great Government Tag Sale is on. As states and cities struggle with billions of dollars in shortfalls, elected officials are increasingly selling public assets to cover their costs. Sometimes municipalities sell the buildings to pocket a one-time pile of cash and then lease them back so they can continue to use them.

To proponents, selling government property is an efficient way to plug budget holes. That's one reason the Obama administration has looked at unloading office towers, courthouses, warehouses and shacks. Private owners who develop the properties can inject vibrancy into municipal dead zones, the thinking goes. Buildings that were once exempt from property taxes are put back on the rolls.

But to critics, these sales are as misguided as pulling money out of your house to pay your bills. They point out that the government is letting go of a long-term, valuable asset in exchange for a one-time payment. When the asset is a building, a municipality then has to spend more money on leasing it back or renting another facility.

"This is tantamount to selling the family china only to have to rent it back in order to eat dinner," says economist Yves Smith, author of the top-rated business blog Naked Capitalism.

The Desperate States of America, yes. But in some cases, politics is influencing policy. Selling state assets has long been a part of the conservative playbook, which calls for moving some of the traditional functions of government to the private sector. And in other instances, the deals are shaded by accusations of corruption.

In Wisconsin, the center of the state budget battles, legislators lobbied for the budget repair bill to allow politicians to sell any state-owned heating, cooling or power plant to anyone for any price at any time — without public approval or a call for bids.

Critics of Republican Gov. Scott Walker charged that Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate that made a $43,000 donation to his campaign, the biggest from any corporation, might stand to benefit. Koch's head of government affairs, Philip Ellender, says the company was never interested in buying a state-owned power plant.

The provision was removed from the budget bill just before it passed. But it is expected to be taken up again later this year.

In many ways, it's the perfect time to market these deals as do-or-die propositions. Elected officials across the country say the ravages of the Great Recession have given them no choice, as evidenced by the escalating conflict between governments and the unions representing their employees.

Local and state governments made promises about their retirement benefits but often failed to set aside the money to make good on those promises. Now those governments say they simply can't afford them. Illinois' pension fund, for example, is only 45 percent paid for. Actuaries recommend 80 percent.

Years of wishful budgeting and fiscal gimmickry have finally caught up. The states' "ridiculous" budget and pension accounting would "make Enron blush," as Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently put it. For fiscal 2012, states face a $125 billion shortfall, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Elected leaders have already raided road-repair budgets and borrowed from emergency-service coffers. They've nabbed citizens' unclaimed checking account cash and sold future proceeds from lotteries. Detroit and Omaha just reduced the pensions of the police.

Now that other options have been exhausted, officials say that to avoid mammoth tax hikes — or any tax hikes, in some cases — they have no choice but to sell municipal assets.

Greece Reassures the IMF That It Will Privatize Services to Comply with Terms of Its International Bailout

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to send a permanent team of officials to Greece to oversee the country’s efforts at economic reform. It had originally held off placing representatives in Athens but has made the decision after Greece was provided with its second installment of the €110 billion ($144 billion) bailout package agreed by the IMF and the EU earlier this year. The inspectors have now been sent out to the country with a brief to keep a watch on tax collection and public spending reform. - Claire Archer, IMF to send permanent officials to Athens, September 21, 2010

Reuters
May 13, 2011

Despite bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Europe's debt crisis may yet spread to core euro zone countries and emerging Eastern Europe, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

The stark warning came as government sources in Athens said international inspectors checking on Greece's compliance with its EU/IMF rescue package had found problems and were pressing for deeper spending cuts to cover a likely revenue shortfall.

"Contagion to the core euro area, and then onward to emerging Europe, remains a tangible downside risk," the global lender's latest economic report on Europe said.

A Reuters poll of investors and economists showed an overwhelmingly majority believe Greece will restructure its debt, possibly as soon as later this year. Most fund managers expect Athens to pay back less than half of what it owes.

The IMF said it stood ready to provide more aid to Greece if requested, but the country that triggered Europe's sovereign debt crisis in 2009 still had plenty of untapped potential to raise extra cash itself though privatizations.

Finance ministers of the 17-country single currency area are set to approve a 78 billion euro ($109 billion) rescue plan for Portugal next Monday after Finland's prime minister-in-waiting clinched a deal to ensure parliamentary approval of the package.

But markets are increasingly concerned that Greece will never be able to repay its 327 billion euro debt and will have to restructure, forcing losses on investors with severe consequences in the euro zone and beyond.

Asked whether there could be new aid package to help Greece work through its fiscal recovery program, Antonio Borges, the IMF's European department director, said the fund was open to the possibility.

"The Greeks have to take the initiative, and so far they have not approached us. The IMF stands ready (to provide additional support) as a matter of policy," he told reporters.

The semiannual IMF report said peripheral members of the euro zone needed to make "unrelenting" reform efforts to overcome the debt crisis and prevent it spreading further.

It also urged the European Central Bank to tread carefully on further rises in interest rates after last month's first increase since 2007, saying euro zone monetary policy could "afford to remain relatively accommodative"...

Greece Reassures IMF on Privatization

UPI
February 14, 2011

Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said Greece was committed to privatizing services to comply with terms of its international bailout.

Greece received a $148 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union in May. The terms include an agreement to sell $67 billion in state assets, the EUobserver reported Monday

An assessment team from the IMF and the EU recently criticized Greece for its slow efforts to turn services over to private concerns. In turn, a spokesman for the Greek government on Saturday said the assessment team had "behaved unacceptably."

"We asked them for help ... not to meddle in our internal affairs," the spokesman said.

Papaconstantinou sought to calm tensions Sunday after a statement from the European Central Bank and the IMF applauded Greece's effort to comply with the terms of the loan.

"We recognize the difficult challenge facing the Greek economy and we have the deepest respect for the tremendous efforts being made by the Greek people," the IMF and the ECB said.

Papaconstantinou said Greece "will commercially exploit public property," but drew the line at selling state land.

"We will not sell off state land," he said.

"The decisions about how this will be done will be taken by the Greek government and nobody else," he added.

Obama to 'Invest' Tax Dollars in 'Partnership' Between the Feds and 11 Major Corporations

CNSNews.com
June 26, 2011

In his weekly address released Saturday, President Barack Obama called for a campaign of "nation building here at home," citing as an example of what is needed to rebuild the American economy an initiative he announced Friday to "invest" tax dollars in what he called a "partnership" between the federal government and an initial group of 11 major corporations.

The administration's corporate partners in this venture include Caterpiller, Corning, Dow Chemical, Ford, Honeywell, Intel, Johnson and Johnson, Allegheny Technologies, Stryker and Proctor and Gamble.

Editor's Note:

Caterpillar Inc. is the bulldozer manufacturer that President Barack Obama used to help push his $787 billion stimulus plan. Chief Executive Officer Jim Owens, 63, is a member of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Obama visited the Peoria, Illinois, headquarters on February 12, 2009, the final day of his campaign to press for Congressional passage. - How’s the stimulus working out for Caterpillar?, Michelle Malkin, April 21, 2009

Caterpillar Inc. of Illinois announced nearly 2,400 layoffs despite President Obama using his home state’s company as an example of a struggling manufacturer that would benefit from his economic stimulus plan and save jobs. The new round of job cuts will span five plants in Illinois, Indiana and Georgia, and follows the January news that Caterpillar would slash 22,000 people from its 112,000-person workforce. Mr. Obama hosted an event in support of his stimulus plan at the company’s Peoria, Ill., headquarters in mid-February, saying the $787 billion stimulus would be “a major step forward on our path to economic recovery.” - Caterpillar slashes jobs despite stimulus, Washington Times, March 17, 2009

Obama is not seeking new legislation from Congress to authorize his government-corporate partnership program--which he is calling the "Advanced Manufacturing Partnership"--and he did not say how the corporations in the partnership had been chosen.

"The President’s plan, which leverages existing programs and proposals, will invest more than $500 million to jumpstart this effort," the White House said in a statement released Friday.

"Even though we’ve turned our economy in the right direction over the past couple of years, many Americans are still hurting, and now is the time to focus on nation building here at home," Obama said before explaining the partnership in his Saturday address.

In addition to the 11 corporations, the administration also picked a small group of universities to participate in the government-corporate partnership. These include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Michigan. The White House did not say how these universities were selected.

In a speech in Pittsburgh Friday announcing the government-corporate partnership program, Obama said that in American history such partnerships have often led the way in enterpreneurial breakthroughs.

"Throughout our history, our greatest breakthroughs have often come from partnerships just like this one," said Obama. "American innovation has always been sparked by individual scientists and entrepreneurs, often at universities like Carnegie Mellon or Georgia Tech or Berkeley or Stanford. But a lot of companies don’t invest in early ideas because it won’t pay off right away. And that’s where government can step in."

As described in the White House statement, the largest single element of the partnership program will have the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Energy and Defense spending an estimated $300 million in tax dollars to "co-invest with industry" in the development of products including "small high-powered batteries" and "alternative energy."

"Starting this summer, the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and other agencies will coordinate a government-wide effort to leverage their existing funds and future budgets, with an initial goal of $300 million, to co-invest with industry in innovative technologies that will jumpstart domestic manufacturing capability essential to our national security and promote the long-term economic viability of critical U.S. industries," said the White House statement. "Initial investments include small high-powered batteries, advanced composites, metal fabrication, bio-manufacturing, and alternative energy, among others."

In his weekly address, President Obama explained his view that "nation building here at home" means government "investment" in education and infrastructure, as well as in the development of technology--including the kind of "clean energy" technology that will be one focus of his new government-corporate partnership.

"That means giving our kids the best education in the world so they have the knowledge and skills to succeed in this economy. It means rebuilding our crumbling roads, railways, and runways," said Obama. "And it means investing in the cutting-edge research and technologies that will spur growth in the years ahead – from clean energy to advanced manufacturing."

In his Friday speech at Pittsburgh as he announced the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, Obama also put a focus on government "investment" in "clean energy" and pointed to the government bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler as successes.

"If we want a robust, growing economy, we need a robust, growing manufacturing sector. That’s why we told the auto industry two years ago that if they were willing to adapt, we’d stand by them. Today, they’re profitable, they’re creating jobs, and they’re repaying taxpayers ahead of schedule," said Obama.

"That's why we’ve launched a partnership to retrain workers with new skills. That’s why we’ve invested in clean energy manufacturing and new jobs building wind turbines and solar panels and advanced batteries," he said.

The White House said the creation of the government-corporate partnership program was based on a recomendation by the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is co-chaired by John Holdren, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

In Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions, a 1973 book that he co-authored with Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Holdren and his co-authors wrote:

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States."

“De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation,” Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.

“Resources must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries," Holdren and his co-authors wrote.

"This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”

In a videotaped interview with CNSNews.com in September 2010, reporter Nicholas Ballays asked Holdren what he meant by a campaign to de-develop the United States.

“What we meant by that was stopping the kinds of activities that are destroying the environment and replacing them with activities that would produce both prosperity and environmental quality," said Holdren. "Thanks a lot.”

Ballasy followed-up: “And how do you plan on implementing that?”

“Through the free market economy,” Holdren said.

Here is the September 2010 videotape of White House Science Adviser Holdren explaining his call for de-developing the United States:

Rothschild's Carbon Ring Consortium and Carbon Ring Pty Limited

1991 "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill."
- Club of Rome 1991

July 6, 2007 David Rothschild's says he and his family (that own half of the world's wealth) have no plans for a global carbon dioxide (what we breath out) tax. Ow that's good news, no tax on breathing. Plants that breath in carbon dioxide will be happy as well...or will they...

April 21, 2009 Whoops, the same Rothschild family are setting up carbon tax "banks" here in Australia and abroad!!

Flashback: Rothschild Launches Carbon Credit Investment Fund

Rothschild Australia and Australia-based environmental group E3 International have launched a fund which will allow highly polluting companies to offset their emissions by buying carbon credits from cleaner firms. With individual investments of no less than $100,000, the Consortium hopes to raise $2 million. It is expected that by June 2003 the carbon credits purchased will be ready for distribution among investors. - Rothschild, E3 Launch Carbon Credit Investment Fund, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Carbon Sequestration Newsletter, October 2002

Originally Published on September 3, 2002

Reuters - Billed as the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region and soon to be followed by other similar private investment vehicles, the Carbon Ring Consortium seeks to raise $2 million, with individual investors obliged to pay $100,000.

"With recent developments in international climate change policy, the question is no longer if, but when the global carbon trading market will emerge," said Richard Martin, chief executive officer of Rothschild Australia.

Rothschild said in a prospectus that the Carbon Ring Consortium would be open for investments until October 30. [See The Rothschilds: the First Barons of Banking]

It would be wrapped up in June 2003, when the carbon credits purchased will be distributed to investors pro rata.

Trading environmental credits is an emerging market designed to allow firms that fail to meet emissions standards to buy credits from other firms that undercut their targets.

The Kyoto accord signed by developing nations in the Japanese city of that name envisages some carbon credit trade between countries with so-called carbon sinks - forests - and others that produce higher levels of pollution than they are allowed to.

The same applies to companies, and a nascent market has already emerged in the United States where some states have limits on acid rain components like sulphur dioxide and others have limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are blamed by many scientists for rising world temperatures.

The investment bank said it was estimated that the global carbon trading market could be worth up to $150 billion by 2012.

It said it looked increasingly likely that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be ratified by enough countries to come into effect, notwithstanding the decision of the United States and Australia to reject the accord.

The process of investing will involve workshops to allow investors to gain hands-on knowledge of the new market.

The unregistered, managed investment scheme will be the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Limited, a joint venture between Rothschild and E3 International, expects to launch in the coming years, the partners said.

Rothschild Australia to Take the Lead in the Global Carbon Trading Market

March 22, 2009

PR NewsWire - Rothschild Australia and E3 International are set to become key players in the international carbon credit trading market, an emerging commodity market that analysts estimate could be worth up to US$150 billion by 2012.

In a move that will re-shape the fledgling emissions trading market, Rothschild Australia and E3 International today announced their intention to launch the Carbon Ring Consortium — an investment vehicle that will provide companies in the Asia Pacific Region with an innovative way of learning about and understanding their risks in the new carbon market.

The Carbon Ring Consortium is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Ltd will launch in coming years.

Richard Martin, the chief executive officer of Rothschild Australia said:

“With recent developments in international climate change policy, the question is no longer if, but when the global carbon trading market will emerge. Rothschild Australia, through Carbon Ring, intends to be at the forefront of this market, providing private investment vehicles to companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions liabilities.” [See The Rockefellers, Obama and the Carbon Tax Scam]

The Carbon Ring Consortium allows companies with a future carbon liability to purchase a range of carbon credits and obtain a practical insight into the operation of this new market. Carbon credits will be bought from domestic and international projects that achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These carbon credits will be distributed pro rata to Consortium investors.

“The Carbon Ring Consortium is an important first step for Rothschild and for our clients,” said Mr. Martin.

“The Consortium should appeal to companies that are faced with a greenhouse liability and are significant users or producers of energy, such as electricity generators, heavy industrials, oil companies, major manufacturers or airlines, amongst many others.

“It provides investors with an opportunity to learn about the market through an investment in a low risk, low cost investment vehicle, created specifically to acquire a diverse range of carbon credits. Participants will also share in significant knowledge and intellectual property,” Mr. Martin said.

During its life, the Carbon Ring Consortium intends to purchase a range of carbon credits, in a range of jurisdictions and from a range of sources. In the process, the Consortium will expose investors to many of the most pressing issues that corporations will have to address if they are to participate in the emerging carbon market. It will also give investors a practical insight into the buying and selling of carbon credits in the present market, without the need to invest in significant trading infrastructure or to assume undue risk.

Mr. Martin believes that there are many reasons why an organisation would invest in the Consortium: gaining practical experience in an emerging market; offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions; hedging their investments in new infrastructure; or in response to the expectations of the public, customers or shareholders.

Craig Windram, the director of E3 International and a partner in Carbon Ring, said:

“A carbon liability brings with it considerable financial risk for organisations, and early planning to deal with this risk will add to an organisation’s competitive advantage — that’s where Carbon Ring comes in.

“Few companies have developed a practical understanding of the emerging carbon market. For companies on either side of the equation, as either buyers or sellers, the Carbon Ring Consortium will provide the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’. This experience will be vital in assisting businesses to formulate policy, to understand and identify their risks, and to demonstrate leadership in an area of growing public concern,” Mr. Windram said.

The Carbon Ring Consortium is an unregistered, managed investment scheme. Designed to be a tailored, limited-life vehicle, it will document the legal and accounting process involved in the purchase, settlement and distribution of various carbon credit assets.

Requiring an investment of US$100,000, with a portion returned to investors in the form of carbon credits, the Consortium is intended to provide investors with a low cost, low risk and structured entry into this new market.

About Rothschild

N M Rothschild & Sons has been at the centre of the world’s financial markets for more 200 years. Today, the firm is a global investment bank, which provides independent and quality advice to governments, corporations and individuals worldwide through a network of professionals in 40 offices across more than 30 countries. The firm employs 2,500 employees worldwide.

About E3

The E3 Group is a hybrid organisation dedicated to making the business case for sustainable development. It is part strategic management consultancy, part environmental think tank, part project developer and part investment manager.

The E3 Group comprises a number of companies that have developed around the business of sustainability. The Group includes a conventional consulting business, an environmental software company, a dedicated renewable energy project promoter and the Carbon Ring Consortium. The principal operating company in the group is E3 International Pty Limited, which is headquartered in Australia.

Carbon Advice Group Announces the Appointment of Oliver Rothschild

May 4, 2009

Press Release - Carbon Advice Group Plc is pleased to announce the appointment of Oliver Rothschild as its chairman. Matthew Sullivan, Founder and CEO of Carbon Advice Group, welcomed the appointment saying:

“We are delighted that Oliver Rothschild has agreed to join Carbon Advice Group Plc as Chairman. We believe that Oliver will bring significant experience and international credibility to the Board of Carbon Advice Group Plc as it rapidly extends its carbon offsetting services and network of environmental entrepreneurs across Europe and the United States”.

Oliver Rothschild said:

“Carbon Advice Group Plc provides a unique way of engaging individuals and businesses in combating climate change across borders and nationalities. I am pleased to join Carbon Advice Group Plc at such an exciting stage in the company’s growth. I look forward to the exciting challenges of the future and working with my colleagues at Carbon Advice Group Plc to ensure the company provides a quality service to justify the public’s continuing support”.

Continued Carbon Advice Group founder Matthew Sullivan:

“We want to motivate the average person in the street to get online, join our global network, build their own carbon offsetting website and get the message across to everyone they know”.

“Everyday we see, hear and read about the catastrophic effects of global climate change. We all know we need to do something, and we need to do it now. We believe the appointment of Oliver Rothschild will help Carbon Advice Group Plc get closer to achieving our objective of bringing carbon emissions reduction and offsetting into the mainstream,” Sullivan continued.

Wendy's Agrees to Sell Arby's to Private Equity Group

AFP
June 13, 2011

Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. says it has agreed to sell a majority stake in its struggling Arby's brand to a private equity group.

The Atlanta company had put Arby's up for sale at the beginning of the year, saying it needed to focus on the better-performing Wendy's restaurants.

The buyer is a group led by Roark Capital Group, an Atlanta private equity firm that also owns Moe's Southwest Grill and Cinnabon.

The buyers are paying $130 million in cash for Arby's. In addition, the group will assume $190 million of Arby's debt, Wendy's/Arby's Group will keep an 18.5 percent stake in Arby's.

The companies value the overall deal at $430 million. That includes the debt being assumed, the value of the minority stake that Wendy's keeps and an $80 million income tax benefit for Wendy's.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

Burger King, Franchisees Drop $1 Burger Lawsuit

Reuters
April 18, 2011

Burger King Corp's U.S. franchisees agreed to dismiss a lawsuit over $1 cheeseburgers, and will gain more power to set prices for the fast food restaurant chain's cheaper items.

The agreement, announced on Monday, comes as the Miami-based Burger King's new private-equity owners try to repair its historically contentious relationship with franchisees, who operate almost all of the restaurants for the world's second-biggest hamburger chain.

The National Franchisee Association (NFA), which represents Burger King franchisees, sued the company in 2009. Its main complaint was the company's decision to set the Value Menu price of its Double Cheeseburger at $1, a move operators said hurt profits.

Burger King's new policy gives franchisees more input on the price of items on its Value Menu and on how long special deals run, said Steve Wiborg, Burger King's president of North America. He declined to give more specifics.

"We saw this as an opportunity to resolve our differences and move forward," Wiborg told Reuters. "Our system is 90 percent franchised and it's important for our franchisees to win."

Wiborg was president and chief executive at Heartland Food Corp, one of Burger King's largest franchise operators, before taking his position at the company in October.

Burger King's new management has engaged franchisees in meaningful discussions and is listening to their concerns, said NFA Chairman Tony Versaci.

3G Capital bought Burger King in October for $3.26 billion and took it private.

At the end of 2010, there were 7,550 Burger King restaurants in the United States and Canada.

Fast-food chains like Burger King and bigger rival McDonald's Corp use low-priced food like $1 burgers to lure diners into restaurants. If those items are priced below costs, franchisees can suffer.

That is because franchisees pay royalties to the parent company based on overall sales. While $1 menu items can boost traffic and sales, restaurant operators can lose money if too many of those sales come from money-losing items.

Costs for ingredients such as beef, cheese, wheat and corn have spiked in recent months.

Six Huge American Companies With Total Revenue Over $250 Billion That Will Never Have An IPO

24/7 Wall St.
May 19, 2011

With all the hubbub surrounding the IPO of professional social networking site LinkedIn, along with rumored deals involving Facebook and Twitter, it’s worth remembering that there are some companies that will probably never go public and probably are unlikely to sell themselves.

Some, such as media company Bloomberg L.P., are in businesses controlled by their founders or their heirs and do not see the need to be answerable to public shareholders. Others, Including fast food chicken chain Chick-Fil-A, may be worried about comparisons to large public competitors such as McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD). Some including Perdue Farms probably wouldn’t go public now because investors remain concerned about rising commodities prices. Cargill, the agribusiness giant, may not see the point in going public since it already reports its earnings since its bonds are publicly traded. Cargill is the largest private firm in the US. Update: A company spokeswoman says that the firm has voluntarily reported its earnings for years and that it has nothing to do with its bonds being traded on the open market.

Then there are the expenses of being public. When Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted after a wave of corporate scandals in the late 1990s including Enron and WorldCom, many business leaders argued that the law’s costs -- which averaged about $3 million, far exceeding the SEC’s estimates of $91,000 excluding audit fees — were not worth its benefits. Some make that same argument today even though the public largely favored the law when it was enacted.

“Paradoxically, the companies that were most aggressive in manipulating earnings were the companies that benefited the most from SOX,” writes Cheryl L. Wade, Dean Harold F. McNiece Professor of Law at St. John’s University School of Law, in a 2008 article in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. “Because of SOX, investors believed the information they received was more reliable.”

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the big tech IPOs and the growth of the private stock market, the IPO market needs to be kept in perspective. As Renaissance Capital noted in January, China surpassed the US in 2010 in the IPO market and China-based companies accounted for one-third of US IPOs. Those figures were helped by the mammoth $16 billion General Motors IPO. It was the only U.S.-based company to rank among the world’s biggest IPOs.

“Despite GM’s blockbuster offering, average deal size fell 28% from 2009 to $251 million as several high-profile buyout firms pushed out their IPO plans, most notably Nielsen, HCA and Toys “R” Us. Of note, only five US companies raised more than $500 million in their IPOs, well below the trailing five-year average of 13 companies,” Renaissance Capital says.

Indeed, US IPOs showed a total return of 25% in 2010, which though better than 2008′s -33% and 2009′s 16% still lagged behind 2006′s 26% gain. Renaissance expects the 2011 IPO to increase this year. Venture capitalist William Quigly recently opined that the next 10 years will be “great” for tech company founders and the venture capitalists who back them.

Maybe Quigly has a point that addresses the high-fliers such as Facebook (more than $200 billion) valuation, Groupon’s estimated value of as much as $20 billion and Twitter’s $7.7 billion, that’s not the case for all companies. Some prefer to stay private because they don’t need the money or the aggravation. Here is our picks for firms that have never gone public and may stay private forever. It is in no particular order.

1. Bloomberg L.P., the media company controlled by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, has been the subject of buyout rumors for years. I heard plenty of them myself when I worked there for seven years. None of them, including one involving Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), proved to be true. Bloomberg, who owns a 68% stake in the company, has received buyout offers for years and turned them down. Fortune reported in 2007 that the mayor held discussions with private equity players that went nowhere.

   In any case, there is a pointed question to be asked of Mike about his sale explorations, and Fortune asked it in a phone conversation with him in January: “Considering how proud you are of this company, could you really sell it to a private-equity firm?” And he answered, “No, I couldn’t.”

   Besides, what would be the point? Bloomberg already is quite successful and has been one of the few media companies that have continued to expand during the economic slowdown. It even bought BusinessWeek in 2009 and has turned around the moribund publication. In 2008, it acquired Merrill Lynch’s 20% stake for $4.5 billion, which valued the entire firm at $25 billion. The value has probably increased more since then. Bloomberg the business person decided years ago not to discount his product even though that’s what his rivals did such as Dow Jones and Reuters did. Customers thought the service was worth the money. Revenue at the New York-based company reportedly rose from $4.6 billion in 2006 to $6.25 billion in 2010, according to Fortune and Forbes. Integrating Bloomberg’s unique business model and corporate culture into a larger organization would be exceedingly difficult. An IPO seems unlikely. A spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
   

2. Koch Industries Inc., which does everything from refine chemicals to make consumer products such as Brawny paper towels, clearly likes the flexibility that comes with being a private company. In 2007, CEO Charles Koch told Amity Shales of the Council on Foreign Relations that he found quarterly earnings to be “pernicious.” As Shales wrote:

   He said the old truism still held: If you, as a chief executive, obsess about delivering those “ever-increasing and predictable quarterly earnings, you are going to sacrifice long- term value.” He says only companies whose bosses the markets trust – such as Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. – can focus on multiyear investments. In doing so, Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, has made a public company seem as if it is private.

   The Kochs are savvy business people who are also huge backers of conservative political causes. They also very successful. Revenue at the Kansas-based company was $100 billion last year, according to Forbes. Koch was not immediately available for comment.

3. Chick fil-A offers something that many fast food customers never get — service. Workers are unfailingly polite and will even help customers carry their food to their tables. Later, they even go around to clean up trash and offer free soda refills. This attention to detail has paid off. Chick-fil-A, which owns more than 1,500 restaurants in 39 states, has posted 43 straight annual sales increases. Sales hit $3.58 billion in 2010 and rose 5.62% on a same-store basis, surpassing McDonald’s which rose 5%. What makes these figures even more impressive is that the chain is closed on Sunday. The family of founder S. Truett Cathy likes that Chick-fil-A is a family business and has vowed never to sell, a spokeswoman says.
4. TV pitchman Jim Perdue is the third generation of his family to run Perdue Food Products. The food and agribusiness firm generates more than $4.6 billion in annual sales and is the third-largest poultry producer in the United States. Clearly, the Salisbury, Maryland firm, which has ruffled the feathers of environmentalists and animal rights activists takes pride is being “family run.” In fact, the corporate headquarters is across the street from the original Perdue family farm. That makes an IPO or sale seem unlikely. A spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment.
5. Cargill generated more than $109 billion in revenue last year, the most of any private company, according to Forbes. Cargill was founded at the end of the Civil War by William Wallace Cargill and his descendants have controlled the company ever since then. It probably too sees no reason to go public more than 140 years later, as the Minneapolis Star Tribune explained in January:

   When the late Margaret Cargill’s charitable trusts wanted to sell off their company stock to free up billions of dollars for philanthropy, their representatives suggested a typical approach for a major corporation — a public stock offering.

   But Cargill isn’t a typical major corporation.

   The proposal went nowhere with the roughly 100 descendants of the company’s early leaders who control the Minnetonka-based agribusiness behemoth. And the complex deal that ultimately emerged — selling Cargill’s $20 billion-plus stake in fertilizer giant Mosaic Co. — underscored their determination to to keep Cargill private, immune to the whims and scrutiny of Wall Street.

   An IPO or a sale seems as unlikely as ever. Cargill spokeswoman Lisa Clemens told 24/7 Wall St. that the firm has no plans to go public. “Through the years, our family shareholders have supported the benefits of private, patient capital,” she says in an email. “They continue to express support for private ownership.”

6. Bechtel Corp. , the world’s largest construction and engineering firm,, takes pride in being a family run business. Its recent history, though, has been rough. “In the late 1990s, Bechtel, under the direction of its fourth-generation family scion, CEO and chairman Riley Bechtel, began pumping nearly $1 billion into a series of disastrously timed investments in everything from e-commerce plays to telecom start-ups to power plants,” according to a 2004 story in Business 2.0. Since its founding in 1898, four generations of Bechtels have lead company through 23,000 projects in 140 nations and seven continents including the Hoover Dam. Kuwait Oil Fires and the Channel Tunnel, and given the unpredictability of the construction business, it would make a poor candidate to go public. Wall Street likes predictable earnings. Its revenue in 2010 was $27.9 billion, down from $30.8 billion in 2009. Like the Kochs, the Bechtel’s are known for their ties to conservative political causes. Bechtel could not be reached for comment.