According to sources, the $9.5 billion pool of U.S. commercial real estate loan sold by failed lender Anglo Irish Bank Corp has been won by Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Lone Star Funds.

The sale attracted more than two dozen buyers and it is believed that the total price paid for all the loans was between $7 billion and $8 billion.

From Reuters.com:

To attract a large pool of potential buyers, the portfolio was broken into eight separate pools according to the performance of the loans and the length to maturity.

The first three pools contained performing loans. JPMorgan was the winner of the first tranche comprising loans with a balance of about $1 billion to $1.5 billion, the source said.

Wells Fargo won the second and third tranches valued at about $3 billion to $3.5 billion, the source said. Wells Fargo recently bought a $1.4 billion performing loan portfolio from the failed Bank of Ireland for about par, another source said.

Global distressed debt and equity investor Lone Star won the remaining five pools of sub-performing and non-performing loans. The five pools have a face value of about $5 billion.

According to an information sheet obtained by Reuters, the pools have also been split along the lines of real estate types — hotels, apartments, condominiums, offices, and warehouse.

Tags: Anglo Irish Bank, JPMorgan Chase, performing loans, real estate

Four new smartphone models have been unveiled by Samsung Electronics under its flagship Galaxy line on Wednesday. With this, the company has expanded its offerings of cheaper phones to tap growth in emerging markets.

The move also signals an intensifying battle with Samsung’s biggest competitor and customer, Apple, according to sources.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

“Smartphone makers are increasingly moving down the value chain to target the low-end segment and attract mass customers, especially those in China and India,” said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities.

“It’s an inevitable trend but will at the same time lower margins. Only a handful of top-tier manufacturers can survive in that end.”

Samsung forecast on Wednesday cheap models costing below $200 would account for more than half the overall smartphone market by 2015 in volume terms, up sharply from last year’s 16 percent.

“Samsung seeks to expand market share in the emerging market with models costing around $200, as those markets have lower smartphone penetration rates compared with advanced markets,” a Samsung group spokeswoman quoted an executive from Samsung Electronics’ mobile division.

Tags: Apple, emerging markets, Samsung, smartphone

The world’s No.3 PC brand, Lenovo Group Ltd, has reported a near doubling of its first-quarter net profit to beat expectations, thanks to acquisitions and growth in key emerging markets such as China.

The world’s No. 2 PC maker, Dell, slashed its 2012 revenue forecast because of an already weak outlook for technology spending this year worsened.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

Lenovo, the most well-known Chinese PC brand, is trying to grab more market share in its mainstay PC business, a sector whose growth has been stunted by handheld gadgets that allow users to make calls, surf the Internet and check emails.

“Although the worldwide PC market has shown marginal improvement and returned to growth during the fiscal quarter one, challenges to worldwide PC demand remain such as the pace of global economic recovery and the on-going debt crisis in Western Europe,” Lenovo said in a statement.

Net profit of Lenovo was $108.8 million for the quarter ended June, up from a revised $54.9 million a year earlier.

Tags: debt crisis, dell, economic recovery, emerging markets, Lenovo

China has roundly condemned the United States of America for its “debt addiction” and “short sighted” political wrangling. China, popularly called as the Asian Tiger, said the world needed a new stable global reserve currency.

China gave its first official comments on the United States losing its gilded AAA long-term credit rating from Standard & Poor’s in a harshly-worded commentary by the official Xinhua news agency on Saturday.

From Reuters.com:

“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone,” Xinhua wrote.

China also said further credit downgrades would very likely undermine the world economic recovery and trigger fresh rounds of financial turmoil.

“International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country,” Xinhua said.

“China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets,” Xinhua said.

Tags: economic recovery, reserve currency, Xinhua

The former golf world number one, Tiger Woods, labored to a one-over-par 71 in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational second round.

Woods struggled for consistency with a mixture of four birdies, three bogeys, and a double bogey t Firestone Country Club.

From Reuters.com:

Sidelined for three months because of leg injuries, Woods began the round six shots behind pacesetting Australian Adam Scott and he ended it at one-under 139, seven strokes off the lead in a tie for 36th in an elite field of 76.

Perhaps the most encouraging signs for the 14-times major champion were his generally smooth tempo and his ability to follow dropped shots with birdies at the next hole.

“I know my stats don’t show it, but just the way I’m driving the golf ball … I’m so close to putting the ball on a string,” Woods, who hurt his left knee ligaments and Achilles tendon during this year’s Masters, told reporters.

“I got so much more compression and the ball is just going,” he added. “I’ve just got to get used to that and trust the number. I’m hitting the ball numbers I’ve never hit before.”

Tags: Adam Scott, golf, Tiger Woods

Groupon Inc that has doubled its subscribers this year to 115 million is planning to abandon the use of a controversial financial measure it once touted as a good performance indicator.

The No. 1 daily deals website that now dwarfs closest rival LivingSocial’s membership base has caved to pressure from investors and will not be referring to a metric called Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income (ACSOI) that excludes marketing costs.

From Reuters.com:

Groupon, speeding toward one of 2011’s most highly anticipated IPOs, plans to file amended S-1 IPO documents next week giving an update of its performance, both sources said.

The phenomenal pace of growth will be unveiled in that filing and likely give its IPO a boost, despite fears about its need to spend heavily to lure new users and worries of another dotcom bubble brewing reminiscent of the late 1990s.

“There are few growth opportunities on the scale of companies like Groupon,” said Lou Kerner, vice president in equity research at Wedbush Securities. “That’s really what a lot of investors are seeking today.”

Groupon, which was founded by Northwestern music major Andrew Mason in 2008, filed to raise $750 million in an IPO this year.

Tags: daily deals, Groupon, IPO documents, marketing, performance indicator

Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube recenty said that Essar is planning to spend up to $4 billion constructing a plant to process iron ore from Zimbabwe’s Mwanesi resource within the next five years.

This would be the largest single foreign investment into the troubled economy of Zimbabwe and would equal about two-thirds of the country’s estimated GDP.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

Ncube said the plant would process 25 million tonnes of low grade ore annually and create 500 jobs in a country with an unemployment rate of more than 85 percent. It is the latest drive by investors from emerging market giant India into Africa.

Rivals China and Brazil are also keen on investing in Africa’s resource sector but western firms have been lukewarm to Zimbabwe in recent years because of the policies of the government of President Robert Mugabe, which include its current drive to have majority stakes of foreign mining houses turned over to local black investors.

The African unit of Essar Group in November agreed to buy 54 percent in the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO), with the government keeping 36 percent and 10 percent owned by minority investors.

On Wednesday, however, Essar said in a statement it was talking to minority shareholders in ZISCO to increase its stake to 60 percent from the current 54 percent. Zimbabwe’s government would own the remainder.

“The creation of NewZim Minerals will see the development of the Mwanesi resource. It’s a vast resource … which will provide iron ore for a 25 million tonnes per annum plant…, Ncube said at a ceremony to launch Essar’s mining and steel units.

Tags: emerging market, foreign investment, mining and steel, unemployment rate

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Tags: convex mirrors, convex safety mirrors, domes, safety mirrors