| Visa plans IPO aimed at raising over $18 bln
Visa Inc, the world's biggest electronic payment processing company, announced on Monday that it was planning an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States, saying it hoped to raise over 18 billion dollars. Visa, which processes payments for credit and debit cards, said it plans to offer just over 400,000 shares for public purchase. It expects its shares to be priced at between 37 and 42 dollars per share. The San Francisco-based company said in a statment that it plans to launch its IPO as soon as possible. Investors will be able to purchase shares in Visa from a pool of 447 million shares of Class A stock the company intends to sell. The company has hired a group of well-known investment banks to support its IPO, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
Frommer: Check bank charges before using credit card overseas
What credit cards should you use if you plan to travel abroad? The mathematics are fairly clear. You start with the fact that all the big banks issuing credit cards charge as much as 3 percent of the total when that card is used for a transaction in a foreign currency. And that expense is over and above the 1 percent charged by Visa and MasterCard for converting the foreign currency payment into U.S. dollars. Visa and MasterCard perform a service in return for their 1 percent charge. The largest credit-card issuers in America -- Bank of America, Citibank, Fifth Third Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Simmons First Bank and Wells Fargo -- all charge 3 percent for doing nothing. American Express charges 2 percent. Wachovia and Washington Mutual charge 1 percent.
SNP 'not fit to govern'
The SNP's shadow Finance Minister, John Swinney, set out plans last month to find £2.7bn over three years from 'efficiency savings'. However, Midwinter declares: "No British government has delivered 1% per annum efficiency savings over a sustained period - not even the Thatcher government of the 1980s." Midwinter told Scotland on Sunday that much of the money the SNP was relying on was one-off cash, which, once spent, would not be replaced in the coming years. Midwinter is a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Public Sector Accounting at Edinburgh University. He built his reputation as an unforgiving analyst of government budgeting through the Parliament's Finance Committee, which is frequently hailed as the most influential in Holyrood. He insisted last night that he had no political axe to grind.
'Free-spirited' Joss in Flake debut
Singer Joss Stone looks set to melt hearts with her new role as the latest Flake girl. Stone was announced as the first celebrity to take the role after a string of models starred in the commercials, including a former Miss World. The soul singer from Devon has developed a personal rendition of the jingle "Only the crumbliest flakiest chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before". The 20-year-old stars in the new campaign which will air on ITV1 for the first time during the premiere of Rock Rivals on Wednesday evening. "She was chosen because she is very free-spirited," said a Cadbury spokesman. "Joss will bring something different to the previous adverts - the jingle has never been sung by one of the girls before." The Flake girls have developed notoriety for their highly sensual adverts which started in 1959.
Colorado Loses Svatos for Season
If either Jon Klemm or Jack Johnson has a ski vacation planned for lovely Colorado anytime soon, they may want to check their cancellation options. The Los Angeles defensemen laid out two of the Avalanche's top players in a 5-2 loss on Saturday; today, the Avs found out just how much damage was done. From Terry Frei of the Denver Post: Avalanche winger Marek Svatos, the team's leading goal-scorer with 26, was diagnosed as having a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He will require surgery and will miss at least the rest of this season, the team announced today. Veteran winger Ryan Smyth was determined to have a suffered a concussion and a minor lef shoulder separation, and the team said he will be out indefinitely. The Avalanche said he would not be allowed to exercise until the concussion symptoms disappear, and the team didn't specify a possible timetable for when that might be.
Ex-library official files suit
The former finance director of Sacramento's Public Library filed suit this week, saying he was wrongfully fired from that position after raising concerns about $650,000 in payments to a library staffer's company. Former finance director Anil Paul also alleges he was fired for refusing to approve directors' taxpayer-funded credit card expenses, including one official's $293 meal at The Palm restaurant in Boston and a $202 spa treatment in Orlando, according to the lawsuit and library documents. "I was concerned about my (accounting) license," said Paul, 59, who lives in Walnut Creek and earned $180,000 annually from the library. "I should not allow anyone to jeopardize my livelihood." .
02.15 F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" (Part II)
Conditions also let foreign banks and later the IMF provide loans that became an onerous debt bondage cycle. At the same time in 1974, 70% of surplus OPEC revenues were recycled abroad into equities, bonds, real estate and other investments as part of an exclusive OPEC decision to accept only US dollars for oil. It forced world nations to buy enormous amounts of dollars and do it when the currency was weak. This effectively replaced the gold standard with a "highly unstable (petrodollar) exchange system." Washington and New York banks planned to control it and thus benefit from artificially inflated oil prices. The scheme transformed the world economy and began an unprecedented transfer of wealth to an elite minority. Engdahl called it "a perverse variation on the old mafia 'protection racket' game." Third World agricultural and industrial development suffered so a select few could prosper.
Linux coders reject GPLv3
The survey results indicate that the anti-GPLv3 opinions of Torvalds are not an exception among the Linux elite. "I think a number of outsiders...believed that I personally was just the odd man out, because I've been so publicly not a huge fan of the GPLv3," Torvalds said in an online posting dated Friday. In addition, 10 of the Linux programmers in the survey published a position paper on Friday, opposing the current draft of GPLv3. The paper, "The Dangers and Problems with GPLv3," predicts that the open-source realm could be "balkanized" because the new license version could force Linux sellers to split software projects into GPLv2 and GPLv3 versions. "This balkanization...has the potential to inflict massive collateral damage upon our entire ecosystem and jeopardize the very utility and survival of open source," the paper said, predicting that Linux sellers would have to split software packages into different versions for each license.
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