Angela Merkel's Conservative Party wins a Third Term

Her party (CDU, Christian Democratic Union) took about 41.5% of the vote. She will retake here position as Chancellor of Germany (the German title of the head of government, also known as Bundeskanzler - Federal Chancellor). The CDUs principles are based on a school of political thought known as Christian democracy.

David Bonderman's Baby TPG Breaks into the (Bonded?) Warehouse Business

TPG Capital, founded by:

• David Bonderman, educated at University of Washington and Harvard Law School. He has developed the Bonderman's Program at the University of Washington for unstructured international travel and study. He lives in Texas, as befits the name of his firm.

has bought up a portfolio of warehouses across the European Union  from warehouse specialists P3 owned by Bahraini firm Arcapita. P3 has properties in both the EU and GCC. Arcapita's CEO is:

• Atif Abdulmalik, established Arcapita in 1997. He has a Bachelors in Accounting and Finance, from Saint Edwards University Texas.

Arcapita also has investments in technology companies, predominately in the United States.

Investec Preps $500m Aircraft Debt Fund

This is the latest initiative from Investec's aircraft financing team, led by Ramki Sundaram, former head of defunct company Air Deccan. Investec primarily operates in the UK, Australia and South Africa.

How much gas did the UK import in 1H2013 and where did it come from?

The UK imported a record 1tcf of gas in the first half of 2013 which was 9.3 percent above the same period the previous year. A key pipeline was closed in late March causing a price spike. 81% of imports come via pipelines from Norway and Holland, with just under 20% coming in the form of LNG primarily from Qatar and a small volume from Algeria.

In Algeria, the national oil and gas company, Sonatrach, dominates the hydrocarbon sector. Crude oil production in Algeria averaged 1.25 million bpd in 2012. (This is still less than the peak production in the UK which was 2.5 million bpd in 1986).

The Concept of Real Money

Real money is a slang term referring to pension funds, insurance companies and endowments -generally any fund that is non-leveraged. The idea being that hedge funds that operate on leverage have a "physical" capital which they then use to control much larger asset base through leverage.

Welcome to the Vertically Integrated World of Windows Phone! Microsoft Buys Up Nokia's Handset Business and Patents for 5.4 billion Euros; Elop to run Devices

A Confluence of Factors Led to this Deal - Starting with the Lumia Partnership

Nokia's market share has been declining and Microsoft wants expansion in the mobile space, and for this Microsoft is willing to pay over five billion euro in cash. 

This confluence of factors has caused Carolina Milanesi at Gartner to pronounce that the deal came at "the right time".

Microsoft and Nokia have had a mobile partnership over the last two and a half years in the form of the Nokia Lumia (which uses the Windows Phone operating system).

Key People Mentioned in the Deal Rhetoric:

Here is a multinational team responsible for managing the Microsoft+Nokia mobile initiative.

• Steve Ballmer (American) - has come on record that he does not intend any major geographic shifts in terms of moving people and teams. Well done Steve for engineering this deal and also reassuring employees by reducing potentially disruptive changes during the transition!
• Stephen Elop (Canadian), a Microsoft alumnus, and head of Nokia, now returns to Microsoft and will take charge of the "Devices" unit that includes Microsoft Surface.  He has a Bachelors in Computing and a Doctor of Laws from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Good luck Stephen in running the Devices division of Microsoft!
• Timo Toikannen (Finnish), from the Nokia side, will continue to lead the Mobile Phones team. He has a Master of Law from the University of Helsinki and King's College London and established legal operations for Nokia's mobile business in Asia-Pacific. He joined Nokia in 1995 and then joined the leadership team from July 2012, more than 15 years later.

BTG Pactual Builds up Commodities Presence

BTG Pactual, the Brazilian investment bank, headquartered in Sao Paolo, has set up two commodities businesses, BTG Pactual Commodities and BTG Pactual Commodities Holdings:

• Run by Ricardo Leiman, former CEO of Noble Group.  Good luck Ricardo in building out this new business.  (this begs the question who is the current CEO of Noble Group - this is Yusuf Alireza).
• Shon Loth, a metals warehousing expert, has also been brought in from Noble. Well done Shon, hope you can leverage your warehousing experience effectively at BTG.

Many of the staff are ex-Noble. BTG have apparently spent $300m to build up the business.

Could this be a great time to enter the business? In the wake of heavier regulation, several institutions have pulled back from commodities and revenues in the first half have fallen 25% in 1H 2013 at the top biggest banks. It's been 10 years since the Federal Reserve allowed banks to get involved in this business.

BTG Pactual is controlled by billionaire Andre Esteves, who joined BTG as an IT intern having studied mathematics at the University of Rio and traded through the period of Brazil's hyperinflation. Well done Mr Esteves for creating such a force to be reckoned with in the global banking industry.