Soros-Backed Waypoint Wins $550 Million Helicopter Debt

Waypoint Leasing, a specialist in helicopter deals whose backers include Soros Fund Management LLC, reached an agreement for borrowing capacity of as much as $550 million to secure $1 billion in assets by the end of 2014.

Waypoint has transactions lined up to bring its fleet under management to 21 helicopters exceeding $300 million in value by the end of this year, Chief Executive Officer Ed Washecka said. The models, acquired largely through sale-leaseback agreements, include aircraft from Eurocopter SAS, Finmeccanica SpA (FNC)’s AgustaWestland unit and United Technologies Corp. (UTX)’s Sikorsky.

Waypoint raised $375 million in equity this year from MSD Capital, Cartesian Capital Group and Soros to help build up its Limerick, Ireland-based helicopter leasing arm and tap demand for models used in the oil and gas industry. The debt facility includes a five-year, $335 million revolving credit line that can be expanded to $550 million, the company said in a statement.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/soros-backed-waypoint-wins-550-million-helicopter-debt.html

Read More

Soros Takes a Stake in Microsoft

Soros Fund Management LLC purchased a significant new stake in Microsoft Corp.MSFT -0.35% in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, as the technology giant continues to search for a new chief executive amid a series of broad company changes.

The hedge fund, founded by billionaire investor George Soros, held firm its stake in nutrition company Herbalife Ltd.HLF +1.86%, but lowered its stakes in J.C. Penney Co.JCP +0.23% and Google Inc.GOOG +0.27% The fund raised its stake in Chevron Corp.CVX +0.39% and purchased a new stake of 1.6 million shares in FedEx Corp.FDX +0.85%

Mr. Soros’s apparent push into Microsoft comes on the heels of CEO Steve Ballmer announcing his sudden retirement in late August from the firm where he had worked for more than three decades. Mr. Ballmer and company founder Bill Gates had built Microsoft into a technology giant, but the company has found its overall influence weakened by rivals such as AppleAAPL +1.45% and Google. As of Sept. 30, Mr. Soros owned 12.6 million shares of Microsoft.

Read More

Jim Rogers : Nobody ever Wins a Trade War or a Currency War

Well, the first thing you need to know is that nobody ever wins a trade war, a currency war, which is just another kind of trade war. Everybody loses in the end , some may temporarily come out ahead but it’s temporary if nothing else. As you have pointed out, the cost of living of many people is going up, and it certainly is, my gosh, in Japan you have a currency that’s down 25% in a year. Well I assure you the Japanese are feeling that because everything that Japan imports has gone up fairly substantially AND even the things that they don’t import are up because the Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese producers can raise prices because they don’t have to worry about
competing with the foreigners any more.“We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”
So we’re all losing in currency wars. How long can it go on? Well, it can go on as long as politicians can continue to print money. The problem is, of course, eventually the markets will just say, “We’re not going to play this game anymore” and we’ll have a serious collapse. You and I can print money all day long, but at some point, you, I and everybody else is going to say, “Wait a minute, guys, this money is getting worse and worse and more and more worthless, so why don’t we stop playing this game?” I wish the politicians were smart enough at some point to say, “We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”
But unfortunately they never have, and probably never will. Mr. Bernanke is certainly not going to stop it, because he doesn’t want to go down in history as causing the collapse. Mrs. Yellen, when she comes in, she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn’t believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good. And she knows – I hope she’s smart enough to know – that if she stops, oh my gosh, it’s going to collapse. So she’s not going to stop. Nobody wants to go down as causing the collapse of the world. So I’m afraid this is going to go on until the market eventually says to them, “Okay, enough is enough,” we have a big collapse and then they’re all thrown out and we can start over.

“Eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever.”

Source :http://www.mining.com/jim-rogers-in-depth-on-currency-qe-and-precious-metals-50649/

Read More