Carlyle Fosun to launch in isolation equity account in China

Samuel Shen and George Chen HONG KONG/SHANGHAI Wed Feb 24, 2010 7:28am EST Related News Carlyle, Fosun to launch private equity fund in ChinaWed, Feb 24 2010CITIC Private Equity raises $1.3 bln for first fundWed, Jan 27 2010 Stocks & &

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - U.S. buyout giant Carlyle Group CYL.UL will team up with China"s largest non-state-owned conglomerate Fosun Group to launch a $100 million yuan-denominated private equity fund, part of a global strategic alliance to share resources, the companies said on Wednesday.

Deals&&&&China

Carlyle and Fosun, a unit of Fosun International Ltd (0656.HK), have initially committed $50 million each to form and jointly manage the co-branded fund which will invest in China"s high-growth companies, and will also seek to raise capital from both international and domestic investors for subsequent funds, the companies told a news conference in Shanghai.

The fund is expected to get regulatory approval soon, they said.

"China is one of the best places in the world to invest," Carlyle Co-founder and Managing Director David Rubenstein said. "Fosun has an excellent track record in capturing China"s growth opportunities."

Global buyout firms such as Carlyle and the Blackstone Group (BX.N) are seeking partnerships in order to launch local yuan-denominated funds in the hope of carrying out deals more quickly and easily in China, where approval for major foreign investments is difficult to obtain.

Carlyle also plans to launch a China-dedicated, yuan-denominated private equity fund in Beijing, the firm announced in January, which will invest alongside Carlyle Asia Partners and focus on larger investments.

Partnering with Carlyle is part of Fosun"s international expansion strategy, said Fosun Chairman and founder Guo Guangcheng, China"s 20th richest person in 2009 according to Forbes.

"In the past, we mainly managed our own money. In the future, we will manage more of other people"s money," Guo told Reuters. "Previously, we focused on China. In the future, we will boost our global influence."

CHINA INTEREST

Carlyle, which manages $87.6 billion in 65 funds globally, has invested more than $2.5 billion in China in more than 40 deals.

"China is the area that most of our investors are interested in or focused on," Rubenstein said. "We do invest outside of China of course, as well, but China will get a predominant share of the money that we have for Asia because it"s so much larger and it"s such an exciting place to invest."

Carlyle will set up a 50-50 joint venture with Fosun to manage the planned yuan fund, with Carlyle"s share of the initial investment coming from its Asia Growth Fund.

This is the second time for Carlyle and Fosun to join hands to pursue investment opportunities. In September 2009, Carlyle and Fosun jointly invested in Guangdong Yashili Group Co Ltd, one of China"s largest infant formula companies.

Fosun, founded in 1992 by four graduates of Shanghai"s Fudan University with initial capital of $4,000, has grown into a $4.7 billion steel-to-pharmaceuticals conglomerate with investments in more than 100 companies such as Sinopharm Group (1099.HK) and outdoor advertiser Focus Media Holding (FMCN.O).

Other global private equity firms are also rushing to raise money in China after restrictions were eased last year.

Blackstone announced last August that it would launch a 5 billion yuan ($733 million) fund in Shanghai, while Prax Capital, CLSA and First Eastern have also unveiled fundraising plans.

Deals China

Israeli shrewd person view diminished over cloned UK passports

Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent, and James Hider in Jerusalem & , : {}

A serious rift in relations between Britain and Israel opened yesterday after a criminal investigation uncovered compelling evidence that Jerusalem had cloned the UK passports used in the assassination of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.

Britain responded by expelling a senior Israeli diplomat, believed to be the Mossad station chief in London; imposing new travel advice, warning Britons of the threat of state-sponsored identity theft in Israel; and demanding a public assurance that Israel would never misuse British passports again.

Ron Prosor, Israels Ambassador, expressed his disappointment but said he was determined to strengthen the firm foundations of the relationship between Britain and Israel. The froideur only increased, however, when it emerged that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had cancelled his scheduled attendance at a reception marking the renovation of the Israeli Embassy yesterday.

Instead, Mr Miliband told the Commons of the conclusion of the investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and denounced Israels behaviour as intolerable and displaying a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.

Related LinksIsrael threatens to block peace talks for yearRows between friends will leave Israel exposedNew suspect named in Dubai assassination

The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury, he added. He said he had demanded a formal assurance that the fraud would not recur from Avigdor Liebermann, the Israeli Foreign Minister. The travel advice to be issued to British citizens would depend on the answer that he received.

Diplomatic sources told The Times that the assurance would have to be public in effect, forcing Israel to admit its involvement in the fraud and, by implication, in the assassination of Mahmud al-Mabhuh on January 19.

Suspicions fell on Israels intelligence agency immediately after the killing, but they were reinforced when it emerged that all of the Western passport holders whose identities were used were also Israeli nationals. Mr Miliband said that Soca investigation had lead directly back to Israel and that no other country appeared to have been involved.

Given that this was a very sophisticated operation, in which high-quality forgeries were made, the Government judges it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service, he said. Taking this, together with other inquiries, we have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports.

The passports of Irish, German, French and Australian citizens were also used but those countries are yet to conclude their investigations.

Israel said that it regretted the British move to expel the Mossad representative but, while the Government in Jerusalem was measured in its response, MPs from the far Right denounced the British as untrustworthy dogs.

I think the British are behaving hypocritically, Aryeh Eldad, of the National Union, an ultra-nationalist, pro-settler party, told Sky News. Who are they to judge us on the war on terror?

Michael Ben Ari, another National Union MP, said: The British are dogs but they are not loyal to us . This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.

British infantry to palm over Musa Qala to Americans

Tom Coghlan & , : {}

British infantry are to palm over carry out of the largest locale in north Helmand to US forces as piece of a vital "rebalancing" of UK forces in Helmand, the Defence Secretary pronounced yesterday.

Speaking on a revisit to Helmand, the Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, pronounced that Musa Qala would be handed over to US forces in the subsequent month and that "further changes" are approaching to safeguard that British forces have the "greatest outcome in tackling the hazard acted by the rebellion and safeguarding the municipal population."

The preference to palm over Musa Qala to US forces had been one of a array of options underneath care by comparison Nato commanders. In Jan The Times reported that British infantry were approaching to be pulled out of Musa Qala, Kajaki and presumably the iconic locale of Sangin.

However, the head of Strategic Communications for the Ministry of Defence, Major-General Gordon Messenger, insisted yesterday that the handover of Musa Qala is not a preface to a withdrawal of British forces from Sangin.

Related LinksLabour goes to fight opposite the ex-generalsUnlawful killing: coroner attacks armed forces failingsBrown and Cameron review to contention on infantry

"There is no approaching awaiting of Sangin being handed over," he said. He combined that there is no proclamation on the destiny of Kajaki at present.

Fifty British soldiers have been killed in fighting around Sangin given last summer, 6 of them given the begin of March.

British infantry creatively changed in to Musa Qala in Jun of 2006 to opposite Taleban attacks that in jeopardy to intimidate diseased internal security forces in the town. In late 2006 British forces withdrew from Musa Qala underneath the conditions of a argumentative understanding that saw internal tribes promises to bar the Taliban and oversee the town.

However, Taliban fighters retook Musa Qala in Feb 2007 and hold it compartment Dec when it was retaken in a vital descent by a churned US and UK force. The retaking of the locale was aided by the desertion of a internal Taleban commander, Mullah Abdul Salaam, who was subsequently commissioned as the internal district governor.

Twenty-three British soldiers have died in and around the town. General Messenger pronounced that British forces would leave at the back of a success story.

"We are handing over a success story, a going concern, where swell is underneath way," he said.

British officers on the belligerent pronounced that the locale had seen small assault in new months with the security burble right away lengthened so that Taleban mortars could no longer reach Musa Qala itself.

The Defence Secretary paid reverence to those British soldiers killed around the town:

"Through their professionalism and courage, and that of their colleagues, mutinous wake up in the district centre has been contained, the management of the bona fide Afghan supervision has been reinforced, and there has been solid swell on governance and development, generally in the last twelve months, as the every day lives of the adults have been improved. While shortcoming for security will right away send to US forces, the UK will sojourn committed to construction on the swell of growth by the ongoing activities of the UK-led Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team in Musa Qala."

Since 2008 American forces have progressively stretched their participation to one side British forces in Helmand. Today they are around 20,000 in series compared to the UK participation of 10,000.

American forces have already taken over carry out of Garmser in the south of the range and Nawzad in the north-west from British forces. The British forces liberated up from Musa Qala are approaching to be changed to the majority populous executive districts of the range as piece of the "population-centric" counter-insurgency plan of the Nato commander, General Stanley McChrystal.

The Defence Secretary pronounced yesterday: "The thickening of the force firmness in executive Helmand will concede us to go on the swell over the last twelve months in augmenting the importance on partnering and precision the Afghan National Security Forces and will reaffirm the executive purpose in delivering General McChrystal"s population-focused counter-insurgency approach, both of that are key elements of [the] plan to better the rebellion and set up a fast and secure Afghanistan,"

The handover to US forces is approaching to take place in the subsequent month as the stream British band of soldiers in Helmand, eleven Light Brigade, are transposed by 4 Mechanized Brigade.

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Prime Minister expresses regard as Portsmouth go in to administration

Philippe Naughton and Ben Smith & , : {}

Gordon Brown voiced his regard currently for the pang inflicted by football clubs who destroy to control their finance management as Portsmouth became the initial Premier League bar to go in to administration.

The South Coast bar went in to intentional administration, avoiding liquidation, but perceived an involuntary nine-point chastisement that all but guarantees the relegation.

As the administrators who have to organize Portsmouth"s sale got down to work, the Prime Minister"s central orator described it as "a unhappy day for a great club".

He added: It is a make a difference for particular clubs and the HMRC, but this issue of essential manners and governance has been lifted by Andy Burnham, when he was (Secretary of State) at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Times Archive, 1939: Portsmouth"s crater delight

Scoring 4 goals is surprising in any FA Cup final, but Portsmouth were well value their feat

Portsmouth again champions, 1950 Newcastle United 0, Portsmouth 5, 1949 Portsmouth 7, Racing Club de Paris 1, 1933 Related LinksPortsmouth reaction: a unhappy day for British footballPortsmouth set for relegation after entering administrationPortsmouth proceed plans for the prolonged tenure MultimediaDEBATE: Should Premier League share blame?

We sojourn endangered that fans and communities of football clubs similar to Portsmouth shouldnt humour since of the incapacity of clubs to control their finance management properly. This is a great bar and we goal they will be means to lapse to their former glories.

Clubs similar to Portsmouth have a extensive internal following. Its a great bar with lots of people who suffer examination them. If they are no longer means to fool around football, it is a unhappy loss for the internal community.

No 10"s countenance of await will come as meagre satisfaction for tens of thousands of Portsmouth fans where were entrance to conditions currently with the awaiting of hold up in the Championship and could nonetheless see the club"s 112-year story ended.

Andrew Andronikou, the director brought in to save Portsmouth, has appealed to the club"s fans to be patient. "Please bear with us," he said. "Our target is to control the administration department department on an wholly pure basis. Please stay at the back of us, I guarantee that we will save your club."

Andronikou additionally suggested that the bum bar will have to sell players to survive. "There will be no firesale," he said. "But we will have to sell one or dual players and we will be articulate to the Premier League to try to get a benefaction from them. I have a shortcoming to all the creditors and I will try to maximize their positions."

It is thought doubtful that the League will determine to his ask to sell players outward the window.

However, Portsmouth have been increased by the headlines that Avram Grant will sojourn as physical education instructor until the finish of the season. "I have oral to Avram and it would be really genuine to begin seeking for a new physical education instructor now," Andronikou added. "He will stay until the finish of the season, I"m a organisation follower in receiving small steps. Avram has finished a really great pursuit in formidable resources and I only wish him to concentration on handling the group over the subsequent twelve games."

On a gloomy day for football finances, hours after the tumble of Portsmouth it was reliable Chester City have been diminished from the Football Conference with evident outcome after a assembly of the league"s part of clubs.

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Love is in the air for Yeboah London Zoos majority authorised bachelor

Home staff & , : {}

This 20-stone hunk is returning a small love seductiveness in to the lives of womanlike gorillas at London Zoo. Yeboah, 12, a blackback gorilla, was brought last year from France to live with Londons females, Zaire, 35, Effie, seventeen and Mjukuu, 11, who have had no masculine courtesy given their lover Bobby died in 2008.

Daniel Simmonds, a zookepper, said: "Yeboah"s a really desirable chimpanzee and is carrying to fast spin from a child in to man right away he"s met the some-more experienced womanlike gorillas. He lived with a silverback chimpanzee prior to he came here that equates to that he has remained a blackback chimpanzee - but that"s really going to shift right away he"s dating 3 girls at once."

Parents will be anticipating that Mjukuu is some-more watchful than she was with Bobby and give up from mating with Yeboah in public, provident a couple of ungainly questions from their children.

Related LinksLondon Zoo counts the animals inRare bird class chicky brightens up zoo

Big magisterial and cunning

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In times of uncertainty, of maxed-out credit cards and pursuit cuts, we all find the comforting acquire of Auntie Beeb. The BBC brought the republic together to watch Brucie regulate over the Strictly dancefloor. It illuminated the Ponzi schemes and hubris of the credit break by the middle of Little Dorrit. It has kept metrosexuals glued to the bland stories of Eddie Grundy, Peggy Archer and alternative nation folk. It has constructed the overwhelming piquancy of David Attenboroughs Planet Earth, the satirical cold of Jeremy Paxman and the feeling newness of Life on Mars. These programmes are quintessentially British, and quintessential BBC.

Yet the open has realised that there is additionally an additional BBC: a house that purports to be a open use but pays the Director-General a whopping �816,000 and the head of crew some-more than the Prime Minister. It is an sovereignty that schedules TV programmes to wrong-foot the rivals. Proposals seen by The Times see similar to a acquire approval that the sovereignty has left as well far, and should concentration behind on peculiarity programming. But they essentially consecrate an shy and suave plan created to keep the subsequent supervision from intervening, whilst in being becoming different really little.

In proposing to mattock the BBCs UK magazines, give approach the hold on the teenage market, separate the distance of the website and cut dual air wave stations, Director-General Mark Thompson as if hopes to give the sense of embarking on a trail of critical reform. But if he is critical about reform, he needs to do majority some-more than mattock a couple of air wave stations that no one has ever listened to and websites that couple of have ever .

The genuine giveaway in the proposals is that the BBC seems to have no plans to give anything behind to licence-fee payers. The open wants the BBC to go on to have pleasing dramas, absolute broadcasting and superb entertainment. It does not wish or need a BBC that tries to do everything. The majority appropriate approach to have that occur would be to have a estimable cut to the looseness price and give income behind to people to outlay as they like.

Related LinksEnd of BBC"s enlargement epoch

The BBC ought to be a beautiful force for entrepreneurship. In being it stifles innovation. It has programmed to enhance internal headlines services when internal writings are struggling to survive. It has taken blurb operation afar from tutorial and repository publishers. Its websites, that might appear similar to a accessible and harmless prolongation of the news-gathering, have broken jobs, livelihoods and creativity by transfer free calm on to markets where the rivals have no open subsidy. Paying a little staff at a reward to the blurb zone has lifted costs opposite the industry.

The BBC is insulated from blurb concerns by a on trial �3.6 billion contribution in the form of the looseness fee. It should not be utilizing that to have hold up difficult for blurb rivals. Yet the BBCs new priorities are so cloudy as to be meaningless. Making pithy the BBCs joining to cruise the marketplace stroke of decisions is a ideally Reithian fudge.

If the BBC were critical about remodel it would cruise offered Radio 1 and removing out of the cocktail song business, that is frequency ill served by others. It would give up BBC Three, that has no motive at all. It would get difficult on senior manager pay, and confess that it cannot go on to be regulated by a certitude that is additionally the cheerleader.

The new proposals were created to offer the majority appropriate interests of the BBC, not the public. The subsequent supervision will need to take on what Channel 4s authority last year described as the majority absolute lobbying and in effect organization in Britain. Until then, Auntie Beebs comfortable acquire will concurrently be a stranglehold that is upsetting and untenable.

Ray Gosling admits revelation military name of forgiveness murdering partner UK headlines

Ray Gosling, who confessed in a TV programme to the forgiveness murdering of a lover, pronounced he felt he had no preference but to discuss it military the temperament of the man. Photograph: PA

The radio presenter Ray Gosling has pronounced that he did give military the name of the former partner he confessed to murdering last week.

Gosling, 70, was arrested on guess of attempted murder after explanation BBC East Midlands Inside Out that he had smothered an ex-lover, who was failing of Aids.

He was expelled on bail and but assign last Thursday after being interviewed five times by detectives questioning the death, that is accepted to have occurred about twenty years ago.

Gosling told the Nottingham Evening Post that he had felt he had small preference but to give military the man"s name.

"If I"d not told them who it was, I"d still be sealed up now," he said.

However, Gosling pronounced he would not exhibit his ex-lover"s temperament to strengthen the passed man"s family, adding: "It was a in isolation love affair."

The maestro broadcaster additionally pronounced he had been astounded by the broadside that his stipulation had attracted.

"I don"t bewail observant what I did on the television," he told the paper. "The BBC didn"t make use of me. They let me confirm what I longed for to say. They told me the risks of you do it."

It emerged at the finish of last week that a little of Gosling"s friends had well well known for some-more than a decade that he had killed his failing lover.

Although Gosling had claimed to have kept the murdering secret, close friends suggested that he had he confided in a small series of them. At slightest one of them has been interviewed by police.

They pronounced he told them the murdering took place about twenty years ago and that, nonetheless Gosling has so far described the unnamed plant as "a bit on the side", he had well well known him prior to he engaged Aids and during his illness. One crony additionally suggested that Gosling"s agreement with the man was two-way so that "if possibly of them were in a bad incident the alternative would do it".

The BBC pronounced last week that it felt Gosling"s inform had been rubbed "sensitively and appropriately".

A orator added: "We kept him entirely sensitive about the illustration of his story in the inform and he accepted that a explanation of this inlet could have a series of consequences.

"The BBC is underneath no authorised requisite to impute the make a difference to the military in these resources and given delivery we have been approached by the military and are co-operating fully."

Nottinghamshire military declined to comment.