NEW YORK, July 26 (UPI) — GE AES Greenhouse Gas Services has created a standard for selling greenhouse gas credits in the United States, it announced in New York. The gas services is a joint venture between GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric, and the AES Corp., created in February. The GHG standard scientifically verifies and measures the environmental benefit, the company said. The standard will also back the first U.S. credit card dedicated to helping reduce...
Hedge fund based in London is expected to go public in U.S
July 26th, 2007
NEW YORK: GLG Partners, one of largest hedge funds in Europe, will go public in the United States through a $3.4 billion merger with an investment company, Freedom Acquisition Holdings, according to people briefed on the transaction.
The deal, that was expected to be announced Monday, would give GLG, based in London, a footprint in the United States and access to public markets at a time when investors still seem eager for the enormous returns that hedge funds have generated in recent years.
GLG, which was founded in 1995 as a division of Lehman Brothers and became independent in 2000, is not as well-known in the United States as it is in Europe
Freedom is a so-called special-purpose acquisition company - a publicly held company that has no operations of its own but is designed to take over other companies. It was founded last year by Nicolas Berggruen and Martin Franklin.
Freedom will pay GLG $1 billion in cash and 240 million shares, according to people briefed on the transaction. The hedge funds management company - as opposed to one of its multibillion-dollar funds - will then be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GLG, in place of Freedom, which is listed as FRH on the American Stock Exchange.
GLGs principals will hold about a 45 percent stake in the new company, while other top-level executives of the hedge fund will own about 11 percent.
Shares in Freedom closed at $10.45 on Friday, giving the company a market value of $677 million.
GLGs deal makes it the latest alternative investment company that has sought to go public in the United States through unusual means.
Fortress Investment Group undertook a conventional initial public offering in February, but Oaktree Capital Management sold $700 million in shares through a private market run by Goldman Sachs. Blackstone Group made its debut Friday as a master limited partnership, a structure devised to require minimal disclosure and to give public investors limited say in the companys governance.
GLG will go public as a corporation, rather than as a partnership like Fortress and Blackstone, and will pay taxes at the corporate rate, people with knowledge of the transaction said. Furthermore, it will describe its earnings as fee income, rather than as capital gains, as many hedge funds and private equity firms do.
Istithmar, an investment company run by the Dubai government, and Sal. Oppenheim, a German private bank, announced Sunday that they would each take 3 percent stakes in GLG and would invest in several of the companys funds.
Noam Gottesman, a founder and co-chief executive of GLG, will become chairman and co-chief of the newly public company. Emmanuel Roman, the other GLG co-chief executive, will retain that position in the new company.
As part of the deal, Berggruen and Franklin of Freedom will join GLGs board. Also joining the board will be Paul Myners, chairman of Guardian Media Group of London, and Peter Weinberg, co-founder of Perella Weinberg Partners, the investment bank that advised GLG on the deal.
« An Ugly Day for Stocks
The stock market dropped like a rock Thursday as investors weighed mixed earnings news and continue to worry about credit markets after financing was pulled from a big buyout deal. At midday on Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 207.12 points, or 1.5%, to 13,577.95. The broader S&P 500 moved below the 1,500 mark, down 1.79%, or 27.12 points, to 1,490.97. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was off 1.62%, or 42.94 points, to 2,605.23. Stocks were broadly lower, with 28 stocks...