Continue reading After year's sixth hike, China seen pushing rates further in 2008

After year's sixth hike, China seen pushing rates further in 2008 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mattel (NYSE: MAT) actually apologized to the Chinese government for making it appear that poor quality control by the country's manufacturers caused defects in its toys. The Associated Press reported that Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's EVP of global operations, said this at a meeting in China yesterday: "Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys."

The press and investors have not heard this kind of talk from the toy company before, and it was assumed that the factories that make toys for Mattel were at fault for using lead paint in several products.

Mattel's CEO was dragged before Congress earlier this week and beaten like a red-headed mule. Congress wants to know why the company did not catch problems earlier and had to recall over one million units.

The AP says that a large part of Mattel's profits result from outsourcing manufacturing to Chinese factories. With low labor costs in the country that is probably true. Moving production to another country could take a great deal of time and would pressure Mattel gross margins.

It would not be beyond the realm of possibility to think that the Chinese pressured Mattel into its statement. The US company may have given in rather than be forced out of relationships with its current suppliers.

If Mattel's new statement is accurate, and the company is at fault for all of the problems that caused the recalls, it is hard to imagine how all of the senior executives at the company still have their jobs.

Something about the incident does not make sense.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 247wallst.com.

Mattel's (MAT) odd apology to China originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As investors, we are blessed by the willingness of hedge fund operators to write letters to investors that describe the current financial situation. One such letter helps me understand how financial alchemy transformed subprime mortgages into AAA-rated paper eagerly consumed by European and Asian investors eager to recycle the cash generated by high oil prices and trade surpluses with the U.S.

Barron's [subscription required] excerpted this letter from "A (bearish) hedge-fund operator," in a letter to his investors, describes how a senior Wall Street marketing director recounted the genesis of the current situation:

"'Real money' (U.S. insurance companies, pension funds, etc.) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of U.S. subprime debt in late 2003 and [Wall Street] needed a mechanism that could enable them to 'mark up' these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!

Continue reading Hedge fund letter outlines how we got into this mess

Hedge fund letter outlines how we got into this mess originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Chinese government is going to invest $3 billion in US private equity giant Blackstone. Even the communists cannot resist the returns that these firms are getting by taking companies private. The Chinese will have non-voting shares after the Blackstone IPO, and have agreed not to invest in any Blackstone competitor for at least year.

According to The Wall Street Journal: "Investing at the management-company level -- rather than just giving Blackstone money to manage -- appealed to China as a way of benefiting from the plethora of fees Blackstone takes from its investments."

The announcement may be a signal of several things. The first is that governments may be looking at ways to invest money to give more aggressive returns. While corporations and institutions do this now, it would not be surprising to see other countries decide to make investments similar to the Blackstone deal. There are enough large private equity firms to make this possible.

Another aspect of the announcement is that it may be a signal that private equity has peaked. Obviously, smart money has been in firms like Blackstone and KKR for some time. But, to think that the Chinese government has come to the point where it is not happy with the returns that it can get in US government securities and traditional investments may mean that money flow into operations like Blackstone could further fuel what may becoming a buyout bubble.

Too much money chasing too little value.

Douglas A McIntyre is a partner in 24/7 Wall St.

China comes to Blackstone originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 21 May 2007 10:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.