The last quarter of 2013 saw a substantial M&A activity in the luxury and premium branded goods industry. According to the news circulating in the sector, many multinational brands as well as smaller brands are seeking for strategic financial partners that may help the brand to expand and support their business in the globalization era. This interest of luxury companies in the collection of investment made by financial partners are aimed at collecting funds that may assist them in complex...

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The Netherlands offers a solid combination of a stable economy, a reliable tax regime and a sophisticated, internationally oriented infrastructure. In addition, the Dutch economy is noted for its stable industrial relations and plays an important role as a European transportation hub. The Dutch government strongly supports that the legal and economic environment remains attractive for multinational companies to locate their (regional) headquarters in the Netherlands. On 30 August 2013, the Dutch minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation and...

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One of the stories heralding the comeback of the CMBS market in the fall of 2012 surrounded the first CMBS loan to be written on a Detroit office building in five years. The loan was the $26.6 million One Kennedy Square note. The Wall Street Journal's Maura Webber Sadovi had written an article on the loan at the time. A new story from the WSJ on Wednesday revived our interest in the note. Yesterday's article was regarding the increase in office property sales in the...

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The global cost of corruption is estimated at US$ 1 trillion by the World Bank Institute. The audience at the 6th In-house Counsel Monitor event Monday 2 December in Amsterdam was given an opening wake-up call by Jermyn Brooks, Board Member and Chair, Business Advisory Board of Transparency International. This is an enormous amount of money hampering fair competition and in the end mostly burdening low income earners and small businesses. After an initial period with a few landmark cases,...

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‘You Know It When You See It’ – Or Do You? This is first in Pepper’s series of Client Alerts dealing with specific effects of the ‘Volcker Rule’ on various market segments. On December 10, 2013, after more than three years of intensive development, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted...

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Trading Alert: NYC Hotel Modified, Backs 2007 Deal Barclays reported late on Thursday that the $46.6 million Crowne Plaza - LaGuardia loan has been modified. (Kudos to the Barclays research team for unearthing the bankruptcy court documents that contained the details.) The 358 room hotel located near LaGuardia airport was built in 1986 and renovated in 2005. The loan was originally slated to mature in March 2017, but the date has been pushed out to November 2023. The loan was also originally locked out...

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The Central Bank of Ireland has set the AIFMD application filing deadline for Irish-based fund managers for February 21, 2014. This is five months ahead of the 22 July 2014 deadline set by the Directive, giving the Irish regulator sufficient time to process applications and ensure GPs are fully authorized in time.  Managers who wish to continue to market their funds into Europe must ensure they have the required processes, controls and governance in place to support their application by...

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EACC New york Member GRANITO is honored to have been recognized in Monday's Sole24Ore newspaper's special magazine insert dedicated to "Woman, Economy and Power". We are pleased that a global publication has recognized the extraordinary efforts being made to advance the placement of women in the "C" level of major corporations, and Sole24Ore's decision to recognize this accomplishment by publishing a special 63 page insert dedicated to recognizing the talents and accomplishments of businesswomen, led by the efforts of  Hon. Lella Golfo, President of Fondazione Bellisario. The  Sole24Ore magazine gives visibility to...

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The new coalition government of Luxembourg formed after the elections held last October recently released its government programme. It is the expression of a strong commitment to further strengthen the competitiveness of the Luxembourg economy and to sustain the long-term development of its financial centre. Arendt & Medernach, one of the pre-eminent Luxembourg lawfirms and a EACCNY member would like to share with you the key measures highlighted in this programme. To download the document, please follow this link. For further information,...

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In 2012 global budgets for research and development climbed by 5.8 percent to USD 638 billion, a clear continuation of the growth trend in recent years following the economic crisis of 2009. This is the conclusion of the "Global Innovation 1000" study of the strategic consulting company Booz & Company. For the ninth straight year, the company analyzed the budgets of the 1,000 companies with the highest R&D expenditures in the world. Due to the crisis, European investments in research and...

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