Acquisitions

Honestly, I don't like football (for our American buddies, soccer). I'm a proud member of "I Have Got No Idea What The Hell Is Going On There" club. Even though I consider myself a self-sufficient woman who doesn't distinguish between "men" and "women" activities or a social role, our club members are mainly women. It's little bit surprising because my father is a huge football fan who never missed any match of his favourite football team (Liverpool F.C., to be specific), wearing "The Reds" T-shirt every time he watched them playing on TV (however, I'm not absolutely sure if it really counts because he usually fell asleep after 30 minutes). Although I was surrounded by football as I was growing up, I couldn't quite get it. What so thrilling about 22 sweaty boys running up and down through the football pitch like idiots trying to catch the ball? Or twenty minutes there was nothing going on and suddenly, boom bang, the player started moving oddly, screaming, he scored! And the coach of rival team started to shout rude words and was getting red. Although I'm not a football fan, there are plenty of them in this world. And they love their game and their favorite football club so much that they want to buy it. Seriously, the obsessed Liverpool's fans want to buy the team because they just cannot stand the fact that it's being owned by some Americans (and openly, deserve somebody who calls football soccer the right to keep the most successful club in the history of English football?). Whatever, I'm going to ask my dad how much money he would bid.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080131/tuk-liverpool-fans-bid-to-buy-club-45dbed5_1.html

by Kamila Moravcikova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

This my daily routine. I get up, have a shower, have a breakfast, dress up, kiss my spouse, get to my old vehicle and get to work. I sell used cars in a small shop. I'm not the best dealer, but I quite like it, there's no need to hurry even if the day's busy. I like just sitting behind my table, thinking about the lovely sunny afternoon outside, looking forward to going to cinema to watch the new movie. I really like my job, even if I don't get paid as I used to. Well, the sums on my paychecks used to be very different back then. But my life has changed a lot since then. This was my daily routine. I woke up very early, had a shower, dressed up, made four phone calls, check my e-mails, almost caused my assistant heart-attack, drank 2 extra strong coffees, made three important appointments, made my driver nervous and finally got to work (everything in schedule: 10 minutes). I used to be a CEO of an important bank. Extremely expensive perfect fitting suit, head full of plans and a glance that could easily kill somebody too slow, too inefficient, not assertive enough. I used to work 15 hours a day. I was successful and made profit all the time. But it all changed. Suddenly, economy was slow, market performance was poor, word loss buzzing in my head every day and night. Some employees got fired, we cut our expenditures, but we were still in red numbers. And than I got fired. The bank braced its energy by being taken over, hired a new CEO with glance that could easily kill me. But I'm not complaining. I can much more enjoy every single day.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080129/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_countrywide;_ylt=Aq0p8NnolAOnEI.Bc7bRuTWs0NUE

by Kamila Moravcikova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

After many people lost their trust in the integrity PayPal once had, the online financial transactions firm announced on Monday that they just purchased an Israeli company that specializes in uncovering fraud. Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group takes the new acquisition as a very good investment that will build trust in PayPal and eBay services and transactions. Owned by veteran Internet auction service eBay, PayPal lost much of the clients' trust due to the so called phenomenon "phishing"- bogus e-mails sent by scammers to trick people into divulging passwords or other sensitive information linked to accounts. Therefore in order to regain its integrity and also to have better advantages in the competition it faces from popular Internet firms Google and Craigslist, which offer ways for people to sell items online, PayPal signed a deal with Fraud Sciences Ltd. And the purchase will be complete in less than 30 days. PayPal president Scott Thompson did not revealed details of the acquisition except that it will cost them 169 million dollars and that the company's expertise will be used to expose scams and deceptions targeted at PayPal and eBay users. Also, due to a clause of the deal Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf, Fraud Science founders, and its chief operating officer Yossi Barak, will become part of PayPal's fraud management team. By improving its fraud detection, PayPal has a wider range of opportunities including to expand into more types of financial services on the Internet. Analysts perceive the purchase as a step towards the regain of the firm's integrity and to a revival of it. The safer it becomes, the more used it will be. Still, I would advice to wait and see the result before doing anything. Don't go away, more to come!

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080128/bs_afp/technologyusisraelitinternetcompanyebay_080128230021;_ylt=AtmOr6ZCv4QEIa8QmcYqExus0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

After Wall Street session on Tuesday and the stocks plunging, there were rumors of Countrywide Financial being on the edge of bankruptcy. Even though, the mortgage lender denied it, analysts say that regulators are accepting its buyout precisely to avoid bankruptcy. On the site of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times there is mentioned that Bank of America Corp. is in talks to acquire Countrywide, the country's largest mortgage lender that lost a lot of money due to the sluggish housing market. After announcing that the country would falter if they don't get $4 million infused in their capital, Sean Egan, managing director of independent ratings firm Egan-Jones Ratings Co., said that the buyout is the only reasonable solution. Nevertheless, such a transaction requires Fed's approval and the bank regulators refused to give any comments on the matter. Furthermore, the federal law prohibits for any bank to make acquisitions that would increase a bank's market share to 10 percent of U.S. deposits and the increase of Bank of America market share would be 9.88. Bart Nater, a San Francisco-based senior analyst with consulting firm Celent, expressing the opinion of banking industry experts, stated that it is no one's responsibility to solve the problems of the largest mortgage originator in the country. Regulators are concerned of the implication of Countrywide's collapse and who's going to collect the mortgage for millions of US home loans. There are no clear or sure news of such talks being held between the two mentioned previously, both Bank of America, which took last summer a 16 percent stake in Countrywide, and the mortgage lender refused to give any comments. On Thursday The New York Stock Exchange asked Countrywide to issue a public statement explaining the unusual trading activity that changed from plummeting its stock's price into raising it. Until now, there are mere speculations, therefore, stay connected this sound promising.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080110/ap_on_bi_ge/countrywide;_ylt=AlDH0ojwKYKSnChF27gKKBGs0NUE

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.