New ADRs: Avia and Banco Santander Brazil

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Aviva Plc(AV) and Banco Santander Brazil SA(BSBR) are two new ADRs that started trading in the New York Stock Exchange last month.

1.Aviva Plc:

UK-based Aviva(AV) is engaged in the long-term savings, fund management and general insurance business. In the first half of this year, Aviva made £747M in profits. Lower earnings forced the company to cut its interim dividend by 31%. Last Friday, AV closed at $12.78.

Aviva’s fund management unit manages £316 billion in assets. From the corporate web site:
“Aviva is the world’s fifth-largest insurance group and the largest insurance services provider in the UK. We have premium income and investment sales of £51.4 billion and £352 billion of funds under management. We have 54,000 employees serving over 50 million customers in 28 countries around the world.” UK and Europe accounts for nearly 80% of total sales.

2.Banco Santander Brazil SA(BSBR):

The Brazilian unit of Banco Santander of Spain (STD) listed its shares on the Brazil and New York exchanges simultaneously on Oct 7th. In New York the company raised $8B. In Brazil, its IPO was the largest ever public offering in the country’s history.

“At the end of June 2009, Santander Brasil Group, which includes the Santander and Real banks, had R$ 288.8 billion in total assets, R$ 177.9 billion in total deposits, more than 21 million clients and a network of 3,612 points of sale, including branches and service centers.” BSBR’s operations are concentrated in South and Southeast of Brazil which account for about 73% of the country’s GDP. The stock closed at $11.86 on Oct 20th.

The other two Brazilian bank ADRs that trade in the NYSE are Banco Bradesco (BBD) and Itau Unibanco Banco Holding SA (ITUB).

One Year Performance of Large Canadian Bank Stocks

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With two months to go in this year, which of the five top Canadian bank stocks are leading?.

Based on 2008 earnings, Royal Bank of Canada(RY) was one of the two Canadian banks in the 25 most profitable banks of the world.

Royal Bank is the most profitable bank over the long-term as well. Royal Bank(RY) stock has performed consistently over the past years and currently the stock has a 3.79% dividend yield. RY has more than doubled from its March lows.

1-Year Performance of Top Five Canadian Bank stocks:

Canada-Banks-Performance


All the five Canadian banks have run up in a synchronized fashion over the past year.However as expected, the Royal Bank (RY) is the best performer.

A Review of World’s Top Chemical Companies 2009

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The American Chemical Society’s Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) and ICIS Chemical Business magazine published their global top chemical companies list recently. Lets review some of stocks from this list in this post. The rankings are based on the full-year 2008 results.

According to C&EN, sales for the Top 50 companies rose by 9.6% in 2008 to $892B as the price of oil soared to about $150 per barrel. The industry had strong first three quarters with the fourth quarter among the worst the industry has ever seen. Some of the chemical companies that disappeared last year due to merger include ICI of UK, Lyondell Chemical, Germany’s Hoechst and France-based Rhone-Poulenc.

The Global Top 50 Chemical Companies

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Top-50-Global-Chemical-Companies

Source: Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN)

Chemical giant BASF (OTC:BASFY) of Germany is the world’s top chemical maker in both the lists. With total sales of $70.5B, BASF topped the ranking for the sixth year in a row. Profits declined by about 40% to $3.9B. Most of the profits came from its Wintershall oil and gas exploration business instead of its chemical business. In the last quarter BASF’s net income fell by 69% to $349M and it warned that sales and earnings are expected to fall for the full year.”After a steep plunge, we are now climbing gradually out of the trough. The recovery will be slow and uneven,” Chairman Jurgen Hambrecht said in a statement.

“In the past three months our business has stabilized at a low level,” Hambrecht said. “Positive impulses are coming from Asia, especially from China, and from parts of South America. Europe and North America remain weak.” (Source: MarketWatch)

Dow Chemical (DOW) of U.S. ranked at number two in C&EN’s list and third in ICIS’s rankings. Total sales was $58B for a 7.5% increase than 2007. But profits plunged a by 44.1% to $2.2B. This shows that despite raising prices by two times last year Dow’s profit was hit pretty hard. In 3rd quarter, 2009 the Midland, MI-based biggest U.S. chemical company reported a profit of $711, a jump of 66% due to asset sales and steep cost-cuts. From its March lows of $5.89 Dow’s stock price has advanced by over 75%.

BASF and DOW continued their acquisition strategy in 2008 with the purchase of Swiss speciality chemical maker Ciba by BASF and Rohm and Haas by Dow Chemical. Due to these purchases both the giant’s earnings must improve next year.

The Global Top 100 Chemical Companies

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ICIS-Top-100-Global-Chemical-Companies

Source: ICIS Chemical Business

Some of other German companies included in the lists are Bayer (OTC: BAYRY), Linde (OTC: LNAGF), Evonik and Lanxess. U.S. companies listed include ExxonMobil (XOM), DuPont(DD), PPG Industries (PPG), Chevron Phillips (CVX), Praxair(PX), Huntsman(HUN), Air Products(APD) and Mosiac(MOS).

Among the emerging market chemical companies, the top ranked were PetroChina(PTR) , Sinpoec(SHI) of China, Reliance Industries of India, Braskem(BAK) of Brazil and Sasol (SSL) of South Africa.

Among the fertilizer companies listed in the rankings include Yara(OTC: YARIY) of Norway, PotashCorp(POT) of Saskatchewan(Canada), Mosaic of US and Israel Chemicals of Israel(OTC:ISCHY).

U.S. Ranks 9th in Global Prosperity Rankings 2009

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The London-based think tank Legatum Institute has published “The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index“. The U.S. is ranked at number 9 in this list.

The Top 10 Countries in the Prosperity Index are listed below:

Global-Prosperity-Index-2009-Top-10

The Legatum Prosperity Index is unique because it “is the world’s only global assessment of wealth and wellbeing; unlike other studies that rank countries by actual levels of wealth, life satisfaction or development, the Prosperity Index produces rankings based upon the very foundations of prosperity – those factors that help drive economic growth and produce happy citizens over the long term.”

Finland took the top spot followed by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.Compared to the U.S., these top 5 countries rank higher in Health, Safety& Security, Governance and Social Capital.

The U.S. was ranked at overall ranking of 1 in 2007 in a three-way tie that included Sweden and Norway. In 2009, the US has fallen behind to ninth rank. Despite the current economic slowdown, USA is the best country in the world for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Health is one category that US performs poorly. In the top 10 listing, it has the worst number for health. Globally US ranks 27th. The report notes “Dissatisfaction
with their overall health is dragging down Americans’ sense of well-being, affecting their
determination to get ahead and their faith in their healthcare system.”

Despite the billions of dollars spent on security at the federal and state levels, US ranks 19th in the safety and security. This is not surprising since the current economic problems are leading more Americans to commit crimes. As the gap between the haves and have-nots widens and more gated-communities spring up across the country, security and safety in many communities may get worse. The report also cited the high per capita murder in this country relative to other developed countries. For example, Finland ranks number 1 in this category followed by Norway.

Commenting on the report, Will Inboden wrote in Foreign Policy wrote:

“The distinction between domestic and foreign policy is very thin — America’s education system, health-care system, domestic economy, and even family and community strength, are inseparably linked to its international posture and power. In other words, yes, the prevailing debate about health care is in part a foreign-policy issue.”

This argument completely misses the mark. One country’s education system and health-care system are not related to foreign-policy.The broken education system in this country and the convoluted healthcare system has nothing to do with America’s foreign policy or power.Some might argue that the main problem with our government policies is that we do not have our priorities right. We ignore many of our domestic issues and instead focus our resources, time, money and energy on foreign issues that most Americans could not care. Would you agree?